WCW Nitro 12/30/96

1. The Amazing French Canadians vs. Public Enemy

ER: This had some odd uses of time, with the Canadians giving us the whole interrupted off-time National Anthem bit, and Public Enemy taking forever to get into the ring, really hitting every side of the ring to see how many people in Knoxville are waving their hands in the air. When they're wrestling, it's an amusing match. There are fun sloppy punch outs and an old lady in the front row giving advice and encouragement to PE. Both Canadians take nice backdrops (Carl went higher) after a fun punch out, but then get kept on the floor for while PE block the ropes for nearly a third of the match. Rougeau is great at getting himself on a table for PE, something hardly anyone does well. Jacques moves so Rocco Rock puts Grunge through a table with a Drive-By, and then the Canadians win in-ring with their own top rope assisted senton. I don't know what they call drive-bys in Canada, but it's probably got something to do with kicking at someone while riding a black horse. 

2. Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Ultimo Dragon

ER: These two were the big cruiserweight winners at Starrcade the night before, each getting a long time in their matches to build whatever they wanted. Here they didn't even get a third of the time they got at Starrcade, and the match felt disjointed and incomplete because of it. Dragon's strikes all looked very light, and his timing was off on his tilt-a-whirls. Liger had a lot of crisp stuff, like a nice cartwheel tope en reversa and follow up rolling senton, and a hard powerbomb (that was far more respectful than any of his powerbombs to Rey the night before). Dragon can be really lazy about how he sells opponent offense and sets up his own offense, like when he hits a light body slam and nothing else to set up a big missed top rope splash (a move I've never seen him do unless he catches boots on the landing). I did like Dragon using Liger as a jungle gym, scrambling all over him in the corner to hit a nice frankensteiner, and the tiger suplex follow up looked painful while also surprising for the finish. It seems crazy to me to have Liger win a long dominant match against Rey, only to turn around and have Ultimo Dragon take some offense until it was his turn. Things feel wrapped up too neatly and too feebly. 

3. Strap Match: Konnan vs. Michael Wallstreet

ER: This was supposed to be Konnan vs. Big Bubba, which sounds better on paper than Konnan vs. Wallstreet. Wallstreet issues a threat on Bubba's behalf before cheapshotting Konnan with a strap. Believe it or not WCW didn't run many strap matches in their existence, only a dozen or so (and half of those were Sting/Vader). But somehow one of the strap matches they chose to run was a Michael Wallstreet match, all 2.5 minutes of it. Wallstreet whips Konnan, takes a long journey to climb the ropes only to jump off into Konnan's boot, and then Konnan whips Wallstreet. Even with this match being under 3 minutes, they still managed to give us the most common strap match finish, taking up a huge portion of the match with it, and the second any viewer saw Konnan tag the turnbuckle immediately after Wallstreet tagged his first buckle they should have know where this was heading. 

4. Hugh Morrus vs. Kensuke Sasaki

ER: At minimum, this was a couple of guys who had no problem hitting hard and not backing down. They didn't take that as far as they could have, and the finish was as weak as can be, but it's fun to see Kensuke Sasaki hit Hugh Morrus as hard as he can while Morrus acts like none of it phases him. There are hard hitting shoulderblocks, lots of kicks to the stomach, and fast clubs to the back. Sasaki throws whistling chops, Morrus rakes the eyes and throws mediocre punches, makes hard impact on his clotheslines and hits a pretty unforgiving avalanche. Sasaki hits how own just-as-hard lariat, a big powerslam, and his over the shoulder rolling arm drag. The finish is incredibly lazy and one that WCW went to a lot, where someone with a top rope finisher would just take a lot of offense, then hit one singular bodyslam and hit their finisher. The No Laughing Matter hits, and the ref has to slow down his count because Sonny Onoo is late breaking up the pin. This was just two guys filling time until an uninspiring finish, even playing as background to Eric Bischoff confiscating a VHS tape of Hogan losing to Piper, but they hit each other hard and that's enough to make it the best match of the first hour of this Nitro. 

5. Harlem Heat vs. Faces of Fear

ER: This had some timing mistakes and a messy finish, and is really only saved by Faces of Fear's willingness to lean into Harlem Heat's kicks. Harlem Heat really don't show a lot of team chemistry (although to be fair, a lot of that is Stevie Ray being where he doesn't belong), and a lot of their simplest strikes show a lot of light. There are a few big moments in the match, like Barbarian taking a stiff Booker axe kick and not going down, only to get leveled right after by a Harlem sidekick. Barbarian also hit an insane top rope belly to belly on Booker that really threw him to the opposite corner, and to put over how dangerous that landing could have been, Col. Parker came out in his French Legionnaire get-up and whipped Sherri's ass with his riding crop. French Canadians interfere, Harlem Heat get the win even though the interference was aimed at them, and this should have ended with Faces of Fear massacring everyone instead of just rolling away. 

6. Disco Inferno vs. Glacier

ER: This was great, loved every second of it. Glacier was still pretty new, only a few months in, and I'm not sure there was a person on the WCW roster who could stooge better for Glacier's offense at this point. He's great at setting up his own ass kicking, too, taunting Glacier on the mic after Glacier's long entrance. "Look Glacier, you're career is just starting." Telling Glacier that if he knew what was best for him he'd leave, before Disco embarrassed him. I love that stuff. When Glacier finally just grabs him with a top wristlock throw, Disco holds onto the mic the entire time and yells into it in pain through the whole bump. Not all of Glacier's kicks and palm thrusts look great, but Disco makes every single legsweep and leaping kick and palm strike look as great as they will look. Disco pinballed and did pratfalls and made a ton of great OFF noises every time he caught heel (palm or foot) to the breadbox. 

There's a great transition to Disco's control, when he tries to use referee Scott Dickinson as a human shield, distracting Glacier enough to plaster him with a great western lariat. All of Disco's offense looked great, like his snapped off swinging neckbreaker or his elbowdrop straight down onto Glacier's throat. But what looks even better is Disco posing for far too long on the turnbuckles as Glacier does a kip up to a big reaction (obviously, because kip ups are cool) in the background, then hits a flat out gorgeous highlight reel Cryonic Kick as Disco turns around and jumps right into it. You could make an effective Glacier video package using shots of this kick a few times. His form is excellent, the arc on the kick is impressively vertical, and it looks straight out of a John Woo movie. This is the finisher of a guy who is justifying his push. Loved this. 

7. Chris Benoit vs. Chris Jericho

ER: A great example of the 4 minute Nitro workrate match. It's a fairly breathless 4 minute sprint, exactly what fans of these two would enjoy seeing. Tenay refers to him as "Mr. Intensity" Christ Benoit, but that nickname doesn't really fit (and I don't think ever caught on). Benoit isn't really intense here, so much as he has a real vicious dead-eyed performance. Both guys are showcased and get big spots, and things ramp up quick with a great Jericho springboard dropkick that sends Benoit sprawling off the apron, and follows it up with a missile dropkick to the floor! Benoit's offense is delivered really violently; he catches Jericho with a hotshot, throws hard stomps to the back of the head, blistering chops, and a hard landing fast elbowdrop. Jericho refuses to get run over and slams into Benoit with a stiff falling lariat to give the match a good breath. Benoit wins fairly easily with a big back suplex off the top, but this was an action-packed 4 minutes. 

A super entertaining promo happens in the entrance way after the match, with Flair strutting around in a college pullover, Woman looking drop dead gorgeous, Mongo wearing a chambray shirt the same color as his jeans, and another great Debra McMichael promo. Debra is an extremely underappreciated character in wrestling. A condescending Texas Christian who slurs her words and insults you to your face with a "bless your heart" smile just begging to be slapped. Debra does Dynasty party talk better than Dynasty did party talk. When Woman leaves after getting into it with Debra, Debra tells Gene "she's got all these built up hostilities because of her weight gain over the holidays". It's so cutting. Mongo has incredible denim meathead energy, yelling at Woman "That'll be the day, when a skirt like you tells Mongo what to do!" The McMichaels are amazing. 

8. Mascarita Sagrada/Octagoncito vs. Jerrito Estrada/Piratita Morgan

ER: I had no memory of WCW attempting a minis division, and it's pretty wild to just throw out 4 minis unannounced to the Knoxville crowd in the third hour of Nitro and give them 2 minutes to get over. I'm not sure why you even bother sending guys out to that kind of fate. Still, they work a lot of cool spots into less than 2.5 minutes and the fans do start reacting to it. WCW only used these guys for two matches, and this reaction was probably at least as good as any of the reactions they got in front of cold disinterested WWF shows from 97-99. Jerrito bumps appropriately big for a mini version of Jerry Estrada, doing strong base work for all of Sagrada's headscissors and monkey flips. Piratita takes a couple of really big bumps for a big boy, including a great somersault bump past the ringpost to the floor, and there was a fun extended sequence where the rudos kept being lured into doing chain offense to each other. I am not sure why this happened, but it was an enjoyable blink. 

9. Dean Malenko vs. Rey Misterio Jr. 

ER: Matches like these are why a lot of us were switching over to Nitro in 96/97, but a lot of them are weird time capsules now. The moves look good, there's often little story behind them aside from "get up and do more" and the crowds react with most arms folded silence until the matches end in confusion. Here a 9 minute match gets the 10 minute time limit draw treatment, a bell just ringing in the middle of an exchange like the recess bell sounding during a game of capture the flag. The fans weren't reacting to any of the several ungiving back bumps that Rey took, and suddenly ending a match in a draw wasn't going to help. Malenko and Misterio work well together, that's no secret, because Rey can get his head powerbombed into the mat several times a match and Dean is great at catching complicated headscissors and ranas. Early on Malenko works over Rey's back in painful ways, getting him vertical with a single leg crab while digging his knee in, throwing him way up into the air for an awesome flapjack, his great press slam gutbuster, bouncing Misterio with a Last Ride style powerbomb, all punishing stuff. The problem is that for Rey to get in any offense, he has to ignore that he just got his cerebellum smashed into the mat at concussion speed and bounce back to his feet to sprint around. Rey has some crazy moments, like an unhinged butt splash senton from the top rope over the ringpost to the floor, and a cool rana to the floor where he Fuerza bumps his way into getting his legs around Malenko's neck. There were a couple of cool reversals that played off early spots, like Dean catching a headscissors and sitting down into a sideslam, or Rey flying over Dean's head and turning a pop-up powerbomb into a Manami Roll. It all looked cool, but it didn't really play as a full match, and when they just went into a few rapid fire pinfall exchanges they felt like they came from a different match. It's a recommendable match because it's 10 minutes of cool stuff, but every move feels like it happens in its own vacuum.

10. Lex Luger vs. Greg Valentine

ER: Greg Valentine is in his mid-40s here, but when your wrestling style revolves around dropping heavy elbows, throwing stiff chops, and leaning into strikes, well then that's a style that is going to age well. He does feel like an anachronism in this era, but this was a fun short match made up almost entirely of punches, elbows, and clotheslines. When two guys are good at throwing punches and elbows you really don't need much more than that to fill a fun 3 minutes. Valentine really roughs up Luger, and when it's his time to sell he does some great tip toes selling for Luger's punches, and goes down with a thud for Luger's clotheslines. Luger drags Valentine over the ropes from the apron to Rack him, which is a cool babyface visual. 

The show ends on a great segment, with Hogan and the FULL cast and crew of the nWo surrounding Piper and giving him a stiff beatdown. They bash his surgically repaired hip with a chair, Scott Norton really puts the boots to him, Hall/Nash/Hogan do an ill-advised three man press slam and throw spike Piper chest first across Norton's knee, just a total beatdown. Piper gets stretchered out, the garbage rains onto the ring and the nWo (Scott Hall ignoring a full box of popcorn hitting his back, Bischoff never flinching at soda cups. It all leads to the Giant standing up to Hogan and choking him, then fighting off a ton of nWo flunkies. Giant looked like a real monster, and there was a cool visual of Hogan directing the full nWo roster to surround the ring. Bagwell attacks first, leaping off the top rope onto Giant's back and getting flung across the ring. Vincent runs directly into Giant's hand, and Giant palms his head like a basketball while wasting him with a chokeslam. nWo Sting takes another great chokeslam, before the big guys get involved and they swarm the Giant. This is part of what made the nWo great. It was a common talking point at the time that allowing a ton of "lesser" workers into the nWo weakened the entire operation, made it into a club with no kind of exclusivity. But you NEED members to strengthen your gang. You NEED bodies. You need cannon fodder. Vincent is a great guy to get pushed by Hogan into a chokeslam. It's great to have a fake Sting who gets his ass kicked. Even Michael Wallstreet, in his mullet and sleeveless nWo shirt, actually looked cool for the first time in who knows when. He looked like a guy who would get his ass beat in a Bronson movie, and the nWo needed guys like that. Bray Wyatt only recruited like one guy into his cult. How stupid is that?? You recruit EVERYBODY YOU CAN. 

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WCW Starrcade 12/29/96

1. Ultimo Dragon vs. Dean Malenko

ER: It's a bold move to start your Nashville PPV with a AAA minis dark tag and a 20 minute cruiserweight match. This is the first 12 minutes of a strong cruiserweight match, with a lot of mid 90s juniors matwork to start, and quick exchanges that don't really go anywhere but give us something to build off. They build to some quick rope running exchanges and some snap suplexes, and it plays like a very crisp New Japan juniors match. The Nashville crowd isn't really on board with it until Ultimo starts working a little more than just de facto heel. He had been the automatic heel by virtue of being Japanese in Nashville, but they wake up a bit when Dragon starts landing nice looking kicks to the grounded Malenko's ribs and a little toe kick to Malenko's temple. Once Ultimo is actually working with mild disrespect the crowd picks up on it immediately. It peaks with a great spot where Dragon feints a dive with Malenko on the floor, landing on his feet in ring with a quebrada and turns that into a flat footed tope with emphasis on making it look like a flying headbutt. Dragon even started selling like a heel, taking a couple of nasty Malenko back suplexes on his shoulders and acting like a heel getting punished. 

It's a match that is building to something strong, but Malenko makes the decision to throw some ice on things by grabbing a kneebar for a couple long minutes, really getting things silent in the arena. It threw off their vibe as Ultimo HAD been working as a luchador working as southern heel, and then in a couple minutes Malenko started working heel legwork while Ultimo valiantly kept having to struggle to the ropes and work a knee injury. It went instinctively against the fans' instincts to cheer the legwork the way it was being worked, as Ultimo was clearly face in these exchanges. A couple of awkward cross ups when they came out the other side of the legwork only extended the weird vibes. Malenko hits a body press with Ultimo leaning in the ropes, but Dragon stays put on his feet while Malenko tumbles to the floor, with Ultimo feebly rolling out after. Crowd is getting silent by the second and suddenly snaps awake in unison when Malenko looks like he has the match suddenly won after a nasty tombstone. The entire Nashville Municipal Auditorium thought they were seeing a Malenko win. With the crowd now suddenly heavily invested in a Malenko win, it really added to the closing stretch. I think they went with a couple too many nearfalls and the Onoo interference to break up Malenko's center of the ring cloverleaf weakened things, but there were some good nearfalls that the fans bit at. A Malenko release sitout Tiger suplex got a huge reaction, he plants Dragon with a disgusting brainbuster for another, and there was a great match-winning go behind waistlock battle that ended with a fantastic Tiger suplex for Dragon. This was the kind of PPV opener that a lot of WCW fans came to expect, with a lot of big moves and nearfalls. There were some stretches that didn't work and felt out of place, and they didn't really explore the stories they set up, but a lot of the action looked really good.

2. Akira Hokuto vs. Madusa

ER: This was not the match the crowd wanted to see. The crowd was far less familiar with Hokuto than they were with Ultimo Dragon, but even a Japanese competitor against a white woman wearing a sequined stars and stripes aerobics thong couldn't inspire them to get involved. Hokuto works holds with a short match they probably would have had a better chance going straight to fireworks. By the time they build to some big German suplexes and a couple hard missile dropkicks I was expecting them to react but it was still real light. The best reactions came from two pieces of Sonny Onoo interference, yanking Madusa's ankle from ringside to allow Hokuto to take over, and coming in later with to smack Madusa in the back of the head with a full American flag on a pole. This was laid out pretty heavily for Hokuto, never really feeling like Madusa was going to win, and Madusa's big moments on offense came off flat when a tornado DDT didn't really get pulled off. Hokuto wins with a nasty northern lights bomb, and it come off like an easier victory than the crowd was expecting. This was not the show to have Akira Hokuto win the inaugural WCW Women's Title Tournament, and an omen for how the Women's division would eventually wind up in the coming months. 

Roddy Piper does an interview with Mean Gene, and well, Piper's interviews in 1996 were really bad. He had taken coked up 1986 Hot Rod promos and now it felt more like a man performing comedic impressions of Cocaine Rod. He makes weird references to Strangler Lewis and Sky Low Low, says that he and Hogan ("can I call him Hogan?") are the only two icons, makes a joke about Roseanne Barr that barely felt like a reference (let alone a joke), and hops out on one leg when asked about his hip injury. This was like a hopped up Roger Rabbit promo that made the heavily promoted "Match of the Century" feel like it was about to be a tremendous disaster. 

3. Jushin Liger vs. Rey Misterio Jr. 

ER: This match was a major deal among tape traders, a first time (and last time, it turns out) singles match between two of the very best. So, of course this match starts with an enthusiastic USA chant, which Misterio happily accepts as his, and that's just fine. It also becomes apparent pretty early into this match that this crowd is tired of seeing a Japanese wrestler against a WCW regular. The commentary has some real wild tone shifts too, as Tenay starts the match talking about Liger's brain tumor surgery, and within minutes we take a weird sidetrack. Dusty ends up going on for far too long about Liger "looking heavier" than the last time he saw him, and none of the four man announce crew picks him up. He keeps trying to get anyone else to chime in, repeatedly asking whether or not he's crazy for thinking Liger is heavier. The crowd pays about as much attention to the match as commentary does, but it is surprising that people don't react louder for the beating that Misterio takes. Liger is very punishing, hitting an in-ring powerbomb about as hard as you can powerbomb someone, hits a crazy vertical suplex to the floor (and Rey really splats on that floor), then hits a powerbomb ON THE FLOOR! The actual wrestling in the match is great, it's nothing but offense, but it doesn't draw the crowd in like it should. They occasionally get them to notice, but they don't keep them hooked. 

Liger is super dominant here, brushing aside a missile dropkick and locking in a stretching surfboard, a release German suplex that folds Rey, a kappo kick in the corner, a dragon screw that would snap the surgically repaired knee of 2021 Rey Mysterio, and a really sunk in half crab. Rey had some comebacks, some flash to counter Liger's dominance, but Liger keeps effectively cutting him off. When Rey goes on a big tear with a headscissors and beautiful Asai moonsault, I foolishly thought that all of Rey's offense got backloaded into the match. But Liger immediately blocks a top rope Frankensteiner by hopping down to the mat, nails a kappo kick, and then drills Rey's head into the mat with a definitive Liger Bomb for the win. So far this PPV has had three Japanese wrestlers win the first three matches, and it is clearly not what anyone in attendance expected or wanted. This match was as good as could be expected with no fan involvement, and a suitably entertaining Dream Match with Liger really assaulting Rey and Misterio flying and splatting in cool Misterio ways. But, this also seemed like a match where Rey was to be the OBVIOUS winner, and even the finish looked like he kicked out before 3, which didn't help the reaction. Liger wasn't around in any way in 1997 WCW, so letting him destroy Misterio like this on WCW's biggest PPV of the year was a really strange decision. 

4. Chris Benoit vs. Jeff Jarrett

ER: This was kind of a peculiar match, as it was billed as No DQ but was not worked in any way as a No DQ match. The match didn't need the stip to work, as we find out that they really only made this No DQ to allow for a rush of outside interference right at the end. The match started like a strong Benoit/Jarrett match, both working some nice mat exchanges and Jarrett getting lit up by chops, but there's a weird tone as both men are clearly working as heels. Benoit rubs Jarrett's face in the mat and grinds his boot into the back of Jarrett's head after getting the best of a mat exchange, and later when Jarrett does the same he runs up the length of Benoit's back and then struts around the ring. Jarrett is the Nashville boy but isn't rallying the crowd behind him, and every single thing Benoit does is delivered as a heel. So the crowd doesn't get into this match the way they could have. They both work the match with a lot of aggression, and the pace feels really good, even if Benoit has a lot of strikes that show noticeable light. Benoit's stomps in the corner all whiff by 6" or more, and it's odd that the guy known for working stiff appears to be pulling his shots so much. Woman interferes from the floor, except her and Benoit continue to act like they don't realize the match is No DQ, as she sneaks in her interference behind Brian Hildebrand's back, and later on Benoit does the whole feet on the ropes bit with Hildebrand just missing his cheating each time. 

This is a match where Benoit could have just choked Jarrett with a chair, so holding a grounded headlock with his feet on the ropes behind the ref's back made zero sense. At a certain point Benoit didn't even have his arm wrapped around Jarrett's neck, looking more like he was just pinning him across the shoulders. Jarrett's comeback doesn't get a reaction, since he didn't decide to show the fans of Nashville that he was their guy, but he looked good. I liked his clothesline and super high belly to back suplex, but that's when everything goes to hell. Woman gets on the apron, Arn comes out, Hugh Morrus and Konnan attack Woman, she kicks Morrus in the balls while Konnan holds her in a snug headlock, Kevin Sullivan breaks a wooden chair over Benoit, Arn DDTs Jarrett, and somehow through it all Jarrett just gets rolled back inside and pins Benoit. So we had a No DQ match where it seemed like neither guy realized that was the case, all the DQ worthy events were caused by guys that came out at the very end of the match, and even after the match the crowd had no clue which one of them to cheer for. This felt like nobody knew what role they were actually playing and the match fell apart because of it. 

Arn Anderson and Jeff Jarrett blow off Mean Gene's interview requests after the match, but Steve and Debra McMichael have no problems repping the Horsemen on the mic. McMichael says Benoit is getting too distracted by Woman, and Debra says that Woman is looking rode hard and put up wet (to which Gene covers the microphone) and then calls her plump. I really wish we had been given a Woman reaction to being called "plump" by Debra McMichaels' perfectly slurred judgmental Alabama Christian voice. 

The Outsiders vs. The Faces of Fear

ER: This was heading towards being a truly great big man tag match, but a slow third act that dropped all the big man clubbering left us with a kind of unsatisfying finish. These guys all have great chemistry and have no problem hitting hard, and the match forgoes a lot of structure and instead mostly just exists as four tough guys hitting each other hard. You don't really need to cut off the ring with guys this large, as it's incredibly satisfying to have them constantly cutting each other off, able to turn any tide at any time with a hard clothesline or harder headbutt. It's hard not to get excited for a tag match made up wholly of big guys hitting each other hard, and commentary gets into it as much as the crowd does. The action is steady and nobody remains in control long. Nash really punishes Barbarian in the corner with kneelifts and heavy back elbows, hits a lariat to the side of Barbarian's neck when Nick Patrick steps in. Meng and Nash come off like superstars, with Meng having no trouble standing up to either Outsider and Nash getting roars whenever he gets into the ring. 

Meng's chops look like something that Hall and Nash legitimately hate taking, and you get some cool bigger spots like a Hall second rope bulldog on Meng, a great missed middle rope elbowdrop from Barbarian, Meng fighting to get Hall up for a piledriver before finally spiking him, and not long after that a big Barbarian powerbomb on Hall. The match also has a bunch of cool clotheslines and lariats from everyone, like Hall running the length of the apron to nail Barbarian in the corner, or Hall whipping Barbarian into a Nash apron lariat and then hitting one of the hardest possible diving lariats as Barbarian is reeling. Everyone in the match is showing stiff shots from the apron whenever an opponent gets anywhere near, and I love tag team fights like that. Things do take a bit too much of a cool down when Barbarian locks in a LONG nerve hold on Hall that the match didn't really need. 

The only formula the match had settled into by then was four guys kicking ass, with Hall and Barbarian each being briefly separated from their partners. But this late in the match you don't need a long nervehold to build to a Nash hot tag, as the crowd was hot every time Nash had been in and the hold went on so long that the hot tag was literally Nash's quietest part of the match. The hold cooled things down too much and took the energy away, and then for whatever reason Barbarian didn't make his own hot tag out when Nash made his big tag in. Hall and Barbarian had clearly been building a long sequence that was supposed to build to Meng and Nash absolutely wailing on each other, and instead Barbarian just stays in the ring. It's a bit anticlimactic as Nash tags in and Hall immediately drags Meng to the floor, and Nash fairly easily beats Barbarian with a jackknife. The match deserved a finish that was a bit more thought out than that, but the bulk of this was hard hitting heavyweight wrestling that I loved. 

Hogan cuts a truly unhinged promo backstage with Dibiase and Vincent laughing along with him. If you show this promo back to back with Piper's promo earlier you get 10 minutes of what feels like it is going to be the craziest match you've ever seen. He keeps building towards a big ending but keeps getting derailed, until he's just shouting out the names of celebrities and calling Piper a woman. This kind of manic old man insanity is making this match come off far more exciting than I've been lead to believe.

Diamond Dallas Page vs. Eddie Guerrero

ER: This was the finals of the WCW US Title tournament, a very fun match that is perhaps too long, but finishes strong. It's always best when a match goes out on a high note, and the finishing stretch makes this worth seeing. This is cool because Page fights Eddie as an equal and makes it work, going toe to toe with both throwing elbows and chops as heavyweights (even though Eddie is much smaller than DDP here). DDP is great at doing fast armdrag and leapfrog exchanges, and both know how to salvage minor miscommunications by taking big bumps. DDP takes an awesome backwards bump through the ropes off a dropkick, both good at working a back and forth match without it ever feeling like they're just trading moves. It's really hard hitting, with Eddie getting harder than expected impact an avalanche, pescado, and big back suplex. Page has a bunch of cool offense - a couple of unique gutbusters, nice right arm clothesline immediately following a missed left arm one, and a nasty kneeling piledriver - so it's a little disappointing when he locks in a too long abdominal stretch. 

The match had kind of been babyface/babyface and DDP wasn't working heel enough to build to a big Eddie comeback. But things really do come alive for the push to the finish, when DDP starts really throwing himself back into offense. He hits a hard shoulderblock in the corner and then misses another into the turnbuckles just as hard. Eddie sweeps DDP's legs and DDP takes it on the back of his head like Psychosis, Eddie lifts him in the air with a European uppercut (that makes Dusty lose his mind),and then drops DDP with a brainbuster. We get a crazy run of bigger and bigger spots, like Eddie catching DDP in an atomic drop off the top rope, and DDP hitting a bananas spinning powerbomb. There were several great nearfalls off of Eddie backslides (set up nicely by DDP's missed spinning clothesline or Diamondcutter attempts). The finish itself is a bit of a stretch, as the ref had to be distracted for far too long so that Scott Hall had time to run in and hit DDP with an Outsider's Edge (for turning down the nWo's invite), and then Eddie hits the frog splash for the title. This match could have gone 12 instead of 15, as trimming out the bullshit would have easily made this the tightest and best match on the card. As is it was strong, and the peaks lift it higher than its valleys lower it. 

The Giant vs. Lex Luger

ER: This was great, the best Giant singles match and performance so far (easily), and an excellent Luger performance that completely rewards the loud crowd. The Nashville crowd were cheering louder for Luger before the first lock-up, than any other babyface so far this PPV (Nash got the loudest cheers, but that's just because people are going to cheer the coolest guy in any room). Giant had a year of ring work at this point and was improving, but having a guy like Luger in there to guide the match really elevated this. Luger knew exactly what to do and the fans were behind him doing just that. I loved Luger's lock-up to start, getting a low base, taking big super ball bumps when Giant would throw him away. Every time Luger got thrown off, he would come back in with left and right elbows, and then began measuring Giant with right hands. Luger would rear back and throw one big right, send the Giant rocking and wobbling in the corner, then throw another. It was a great way to start the match and they used the ring incredibly well to make this feel like a big fight. Luger would get bumped to the opposite corner, and the camera would pull back and show the distance between the men, making Luger look like even more of a walking tall babyface every time he would stomp back across the ring to punch Giant. Both were good at selling the early fatigue, and I liked how Giant shut things down by just charging out of the corner with a straight arm clothesline to the chest. 

I thought Giant looked good in control, and Luger looked great bumping for him. They worked a long control section and the Giant has a lot of ideas on how to fill time, and Luger's selling keeps the crowd interested. The Giant gets insane air on an elbowdrop, throws a stiff kick to Luger's ribs (that Luger bumps through the ropes to the floor) and brings him back in with a big delayed vertical suplex. The Luger comeback teases are good, like a quick bodyslam attempt that ends with the Giant flattening him and then hitting another elbowdrop. We're over a year into the Giant, and he's still trying weird  things and I love it. He weirdly does the Shawn Michaels "draped over the corner ropes" spot after missing an avalanche, struggling to get his legs into position but even getting turned over by kicks the way Michaels would. I don't think I've ever seen a 400 lb. guy do that spot - probably because it looked pretty stupid - but I am all for wrestlers taking a risk of looking stupid. Even better, is how Giant sets up Luger's comeback by missing a running dropkick in the ropes when Luger moves out of the way. Giant really just ran and threw a dropkick into the ropes like he was a luchador, top foot nearly getting tangled on the top rope and sending him to the mat head first. Giant was lucky the landing was better than it could have been, but a giant doing crazy spots is impossible to hate. 

Luger starts punching the reeling Giant and really knows how to milk the reaction, the crowd getting louder and louder whenever it looked like Giant might fall over, and when Giant is reeling back far enough Luger gets the loudest reaction of the night by taking Giant down with a Rude Awakening style neckbreaker. It's a great nearfall, fans literally jumping up and down in their seats after seeing a neckbreaker. It's beautiful. Luger gets pressed onto Mark Curtis during the kickout, and this allows all the bullshit to start, and I loved all the bullshit. Luger finally has the advantage over Giant, but with no ref we get Nick Patrick finally showing up (with Syxx), and I love it when Nick Patrick shows up. I'm someone who is sick to death of rudo lucha refs, and yet I love Nick Patrick's stooging and idiocy. Luger bodyslams Giant and gets him up in the Rack (an awesome feat) and Patrick actually kicks Luger in the back of the knee! Patrick gets thrown across the ring and Luger Racks the Giant again, this time eating a spinkick from Syxx and unceremoniously dropping Giant again. To add to the great bullshit, Sting comes through the crowd, a man who looks like Jimmy Del Ray but with the flat out craziest eyes actually bumps faces with him before being pulled away by security, man looking like he actually wanted to fight or assassinate Sting. There's a great moment where Sting gets in the ring and shoves his bat into Patrick's chest, throws Patrick again to get him out of there, and Patrick punches a still ailing Mark Curtis in the face on his way out! 

The bullshit leads to a really great finish with some great theater, when Sting whispers separately to both Luger and Giant and leaves his bat in the middle of the ring. Commentary was strong this entire match, putting over and questioning everyone's motivations and getting fired up for Luger and Giant, making it really feel like a clash of the titans. They nail all of the visuals, with Luger reaching the bat but Giant getting there right after and standing on it. The crowd really seemed frozen in excitement waiting to see what was about to happen, and finally Luger just punches Giant in the balls and then beats him in the legs and body with that baseball bat. Mark Curtis dramatically drags himself over and counts the pin, and the fans rightly lost their minds for all of this. Luger cannot be denied. 

Hollywood Hogan vs. Roddy Piper

ER: Commentary calls this the biggest match of our lifetimes, and Michael Buffer manages to top that by calling it the Match of the Century. It's ridiculous, sure, and got mocked by smart fans at the time, but over 9,000 people in Nashville all bought into it to some extent. Buffer's intro is one of his best, genuinely adding to the match hype. Hogan looks like he's having a blast as a heel, with his broad MJF-esque "I'M a HEEL" shtick playing out like Hogan had been dying to do house show heel routines for a decade. It's a really great Hogan performance and it really felt like both men were playing up to their current abilities. Piper moves older than his actual age (and it's crazy that Hogan and Piper were only 43 and 42 here, respectively) and so Hogan really carries this by having a super active performance. Piper was limited but spirited, and he's good enough to make that work, but Hogan was the one working to make this big. Hogan stalls and stooges and tries to avoid Piper, slaps him on breaks and bails to the floor each time. Piper is mostly limited to punches and clotheslines and can't move quick, so Hogan avoiding him works and it makes it better when Piper finally tees off. Piper used a few different eye pokes and I love how Hogan sold each one. 

Piper is not going to be above fighting dirty and the crowd was fully behind Piper fighting dirty to combat Hogan's dirty fighting, and Piper moves stiffly enough that he draws a lot of sympathy, and he's able to pull off the performance of an old dog dragged back to another fight. Things get great when Piper gets knocked to the floor, tumbling hard, but fights back against Hogan and Dibiase. Piper gets his belt and whips Hogan around ringside like in a great LA Park match. All the belt shots looked really nasty, Piper not holding back and Hogan leaning into all of them. The whole match was an escalation of dirty fighting, and it peaked when Hogan started kicking at Piper's long visible hip surgery scar, even locking in an abdominal stretch while hammering on that scar. They don't quite know how to transition into the finishing stretch but there are some big moments, like Piper pulling off a vertical suplex while Schiavone wondered if his legs would hold, and a big missed Hogan legdrop. Schiavone was great at covering for things while keeping the excitement live, and his excitement really added to the chaotic ending. 

The Giant comes out and lifts Piper for a chokeslam, but a fan also charges the ring and grabs Hogan's legs, so the Giant has to keep Piper in the air while security roughs up the fan. It throws off the timing but still plays huge when Piper bites Giant in the face and dumps him to the floor, then somehow beats Hogan with a sleeper, with Randy Anderson delivering a great shocked face when Hogan's arm drops a third time. I was really into this match and thought it was far better than most thought at the time. The moment was hurt by being non-title. I'm not actually sure they ever said it was non-title, they just never announced it was FOR the title and didn't talk about it during the match, like they were intentionally avoiding it. Dusty even calls Piper the champ after the win, with some immediate awkward silence as Dusty clearly gets corrected off-mic. 

This was not the great workrate PPV that it has the reputation for being, a rep that it mostly got by having two long singles matches early in the card between cruiserweight legends. This was still a good in-ring show, but not to the level it has been written about being. The two cruiserweight matches have flaws that weren't as glaring in 1996, but even though they aren't the MOTYC that people wanted them to be in 1996 doesn't mean they aren't still entertaining as hell. The Hogan/Piper match doesn't deserve the bile that it got at the time as I thought it was an excellent Hogan performance, working around a guy who hadn't wrestled an actual match in 10 months. It was a top to bottom mix of styles and matches, and that gives a show a high floor. 

Best Matches:

1. Lex Luger vs. The Giant

2. Outsiders vs. Faces of Fear

3. DDP vs. Eddie Guerrero

4. Jushin Liger vs. Rey Misterio Jr. 

Weakest Matches:

1. Akira Hokuto vs. Madusa

2. Chris Benoit vs. Jeff Jarrett

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New Footage Friday: HASH~! LIGER~! CHONO~! SANO~! SLIM J~! BARBED WIRE~! MATT BORNE WILL PLAY SUN CITY~!

Maniac Matt Bourne vs. Daniel "The Hulk" Voges South Africa ??

MD: A bunch of this South African footage dropped and we're playing it safe by going with the sure thing, Maniac Matt Borne. I tried to figure out when this probably was, but only found a story about Borne losing his passport on the way to South Africa and some guy stealing his identity and ODing years later. Here he was facing Danie "the Hulk" Voges, who was obviously a beloved local folk hero, at least from the reaction he got. It felt a little like an Otto Wanz match along those lines. This was a round system, seems like the best of five with some weird production quirks between the Dutch (?) commentary and long shots of crowd reactions of the same few people, a pair of twins, a couple that was very into it, and one guy who seemed to be sleeping. Borne was great here though, laying it in, stooging, getting heat, taking big shots. I'm not sure if Voges' straight on chops would look good against anyone else but they looked great here. It was mostly these two throwing shots but Voges won a fall in the second round with a power slam that was nasty as he barely got Borne over and Borne evened it up with a knee off the top in the fourth. Voges bled pretty heavily in the last round and it ended with both guys still scrapping and the fans left wanting more.

PAS: The Otto Wanz comparison is right on, the match also had sort of a Carlos Colon feel. This was basically all punches, but both guys had great looking punches, with Borne throwing hands, and Voges having this chops to the neck and chin. We get some really dramatic blood a big almost fatal powerslam and some glam looking ladies in the crowd horrified at the violence being laid out on their hero. I wan't to check out some more Voges, I like a big time local hero and he had some big star timing. 

ER: I love the aesthetics of this, feeling like our big German CWA rounds matches. We all separately got the local legend Otto Wanz vibes off Voges, except he's like the Iron Mike Sharpe of Otto Wanz's. Borne doesn't work his Buzz Sawyer lite style here and instead works as Kevin Sullivan. Kevin Sullivan/Mike Sharpe is a fight I'd want to watch, and it was good here. I like big heavyweight matches where they fill a lot of time by throwing downward clubbing forearms across chests and throw right hands and slaps to the jaw that land with thud. Borne throws punches at Voges' hairline and busts him open, and a regional hero fighting and swinging through a bloody forehead is a simple classic recipe that we've now seen get the same rabid reactions on every continent but Antarctica. This is the first broadcast in wrestling history that I've seen let a camera linger on a man who fell asleep in the crowd, capturing that moment where he wakes up with a snort and immediately begins acting as if he hadn't been asleep. It also captures a woman outright screaming in support of Voges, and that kind of regional passion plays to every part of my wrestling heart. That Voges delayed powerslam on Borne was well worthy of winning a fall, and I love the brawl it devolved into. 

Shinya Hashimoto/Naoki Sano vs. Masa Chono/Jushin Liger NJPW 1/6/90 - EPIC

MD: Unique match up where they weren't afraid to mix the pairings. It starts out with Liger vs Hashimoto with a nice bit of Liger crashing against him and Hash giving just what he should until Liger's able to zoom past him and finally get him down. Later on, it's interesting as he almost has a hard time getting Liger up, despite the fact Liger's smaller than Chono, giving everything a grittier, uncooperative feeling that makes every impact all the worse. A chunk of this was Chono leaning on Sano and while that was fine, you were kind of waiting for the other guy on each side to get back in. As per the norm for 1990, the STF was both over and protected. The eventual payoff was Chono and Liger dropping Hashimoto with a spike pile driver and then Hashimoto trying one crushing shot after the next to finally put Liger down. Good match that gave us just enough of the Liger/Hashimoto pairing and never wore out its welcome.

PAS: I love the Liger vs. Hashimoto match up. Unlike most junior versus heavyweight matches Liger always tries to go toe to toe with Hashimoto. It isn't David vs. Goliath, Liger is more like Mike Tyson: he may be short, but he hits just as hard. I loved him using momentum to drop Hashimoto with a shoulder block and a flip kick to the temple. Chono versus Sano was really cool too. Sano was such a smooth and violent wrestler, and I love the solebutt to the stomach as an equalizer. Hashimoto really went after Liger at the end, hitting almost a half powerslam half brainbuster and Liger kept coming and getting in his face. Great stuff, really fun discovery.

ER: I thought this was excellent, with my love for it growing with every moment I reminded myself that this match would have - if not for a man with a camcorder - gone undocumented. Watching how hard these four legends beat the shit out of each other for 2,200 fans in Korakuen early in the new year and nobody else, and yet a 40 year old guy in California is able to see these fully beatings 30 years later. It makes me emotional. It's crazy to see this level of commitment on a house show, with strikes thrown full force in spots and tons of offense that missed, but was thrown to hit. The true greats, men like Hashimoto and Liger, bring that suspension of disbelief into their matches with their full commitment to offense, and to see it worked to maximum effectiveness on a small but hot Korakuen handheld just makes me love them more. 

These guys come off like the toughest wrestlers on earth in matches like these. The Hashimoto/Liger segments were my favorite and they were complemented perfectly by Sano running traffic like a madman and Chono leaning into and bumping big for Sano made him feel like a real force. But Hashimoto and Liger looked like fucking pro wrestlers. Everything landed and every landing felt real. There's an early Liger hook kick that catches Hashimoto behind the ear and Hashimoto crumbles perfectly. The misses were incredible, so violently executed that you buy the idea that Hashimoto threw a spinning heel kick that was supposed to take Liger's head off until Liger moved when he wasn't supposed to. Now, these men are pros, and the reality is that Hashimoto merely threw a spinning heel kick so hard that it would have seriously injured Liger had it not been ducked, and Hashimoto is such an ideal version of what a professional wrestler should be that he makes every miss look like he expected a bullseye. 

Hashimoto drills Liger into the ring with a running brainbuster that is an insane spot for an untaped show, and when Hash hits that spinning heel kick he sends the full weight of his hip crashing into Liger. Sano is a barefoot psychopath, hitting a gorgeous pescado (later to be completely outshone by Liger's gorgeous tope con giro but hey) and throwing a bananas running dropkick to knock Chono off the apron. When Hashimoto gets the pin on Liger, he's a man really holding his opponent's shoulders to the mat, with Liger being pinned because he was the weakened man. It's that attention to detail when they aren't thinking about how many people are going to ever witness it. It's a special thing when you find a match that only exists because of some guy and his camcorder, and the match raises the stock of all four guys involved. 

Slim J vs. Azrael NWA Anarchy 4/9/11 - EPIC

PAS: This was a barbed wire massacre match, and a real great chance for these two sickos to poke little holes in each other. Both guys are really great traditional brawlers, and they had some cool violent moments in a match which was mostly about getting stuck. I loved the insanity of both guys swinging barbed wire baseball bats super hard into each other, I mean just imagine how much their wrists hurt. Azrael driving his forearm into a barbed wire chair on a missed slam was sick stuff on top of it all. Slim J amps it up in the closing moments of the match, wrapping himself in barbed wire and using his body as a pokey weapon. Azrael hits a sick ace crusher on him, but can't cover because him arm got punctured. The announcers mention all the brawls these two have had in this feud and I want to see all of them. 

MD: They delivered on what was advertised here. There was barbed wire everywhere throughout. While it was pretty gratuitous, everything was done with consequence, which is what you hope for out of a match like this. Early on, the basic layout of the ring, with weapons everywhere and Wilson on the outside put Slim J at a disadvantage as he had to get things out of the way whenever he wanted to try to hit one of his moves. I liked how they built up the wire early, as the wrestlers themselves were tasked to put it on the ropes. That was a gradual process but it built up tension for the first few shots into it, and did have the very clever moment of Azrael using the Staff of Righteousness to do it at one point. In a match like this (like an exploding cage match or anything else along those lines), one whip can completely change momentum, so long as the wrestlers put it over, and they absolutely did here, and that makes for different sort of narrative opportunities. Mid-match, Slim J, to create the great equalizer, wrapped himself up in the wire and tried to use his body as a weapon to varying effects. It meant that every impact in the finishing stretch was pushed even further over the top. I probably won't revisit this one anytime soon, but they treated everything in this match with fear and respect and consequence and it elevated it into something that was more than simple blood and guts.

ER: Slim J's legend grows with every month of footage from the past 20 years. He's one of the great babyfaces from that era, as talented as but somehow not even as heralded as The Amazing Red. Slim J has been knocking out Rey Mysterio level matches for years now to a fraction of the acclaim, and it's crazy. Here's another to add to his legend, a violent insane spotfest from the great Anarchy. There's great carny shit like Reverend Dan at ringside, and the early match looked like old school bullshit with classic Dusty Rhodes teased barbed wire spots. But when Slim J dodged and Azrael hammer-fisted a chair covered in barbed wire full force, the tone of this all changed. Slim J took a full force tennis racket shot to the head, and from then on full force was the name of the game. 

Azrael's beating looked vicious, and Slim's selling of the beating made it look even more lethal. Slim J might be the greatest selling babyface of the entire 2000s indy scene, it's not even a contentious statement. Here you get great high level cruiserweight spots from Slim J, like his fine Santo roll, but you get violent additions like Azrael subsequently getting flapjacked face first onto a chair. But soon Slim is wrapping himself entirely in barbed wire like a sexy boy band Sabu and they're swinging - again, full force - barbed wire bat shots like they were wrestling in the ugliest dirt lot lucha. And, as someone who has had their hands stung by many different aluminum bats, Slim straightening his wrists and shaking his hands was a familiar pain. 

Slim's missed corner avalanche while wrapped in barbed wire was like Zona 1-2-3 Kid, and that Azrael ace crusher is one of the greatest ever iterations of that move. Let's get Azrael into the online discussion for best ever stunner/crusher. Slim J takes a kind of whipping slam into a thick garbage can like a true garbage match legend, always combining big impact with a folded body, and Azrael's sitout driver off the rope rope through a table was an incredible finish. It's the kind of finish that even Shane McMahon might not consider to win his father's love. The chemistry here is incredible and it feels like it will play out like a legendary bloody lucha feud the more matches are uncovered. If this is the only one we ever get? We were lucky., 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SHINYA HASHIMOTO

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SLIM J

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New Footage Friday: SANTO! CASAS! ANDRE! SPOILER! RUDE! HASE! LIGER! B. BRIAN BLAIR?

Andre The Giant vs. The Spoiler Houston Wrestling 6/29/79

MD: This is one that was NOT on the NWA Houston channel. I had pushed Sharpe to find it but he never did. Thankfully, it's been out there anyway, just rare. Pretty fascinating match to watch because of the size differentials. Spoiler is a guy that would use his size and the ring as a weapon and just crush smaller guys and most guys were smaller. Here, it was his chisel to pick at the giant and I thought those moments were very effective. He was a big man but one that could and really would move around for Andre, so maybe the usual disdain Andre had for other giants didn't shine through. You really can't do a match between these two (or Mulligan and Andre, for instance, where it worked better) where the claw doesn't come into play as the great equalizer, and as much as that stuff seems larger than life, the bearhug bit here went on a bit long. This was especially true in a match where Spoiler was divebombing him all over the place, and because the finish was going to be Andre catching him hesitant on one of those attempts and tossing him off the top. Still, this was novel, a great look at both Andre working from underneath and the Spoiler having to chop down a bigger foe.

ER: Loved this. Minimalist, sure, but Andre is a guy who knows how important every little movement can be and he's someone I can't help but engage with. This is Spoiler's claw vs. Andre's bearhug, and we get a couple of great moments before we dive into that part of the match (with my favorite being Andre's armdrag takeover, holy cow!), but I dug how Spoiler decided early that the Claw was his only chance and he was going to play that record until the needle skipped. Spoiler grinds in the claw and the first time we see an Andre bearhug it's actually out of desperation. The Andre desperation bearhug is a fun treat, it's a giant wounded boar from the forest trying to use his strength, and it makes Spoiler come off like a legend that he had Andre desperate. Andre fights to his feet, Spoiler bets on the claw, and the eventual visual of Andre's buckling and going down, Spoiler essentially riding him down to the mat, Claw besting Bearhug, were wrestling movements I've not seen before. The visuals in any Andre match always seem to defy reality, in the ways he's able to appear both larger and smaller than he actually was, in the way he recoils into the ropes or moves in a way that nobody else has ever moved. I'm watching him here, driven down to one knee by Spoiler's claw, and Andre appears to be as large on one knee as Spoiler is standing over him. I know it's not true, but in feels that way, and in every Andre match you glimpse at least one visual angle that just seems impossible. I like the way the strategy and the attempts play out, like when Andre knew a claw attempt was coming so ducked under the arm to perfectly settle into a bodyslam; or Andre looking to pop Spoiler's head off his neck with a great headscissors to reverse out of another claw. We even get Andre "flattening the head" of Spoiler with a seated piledriver as Spoiler tried to get out of that headscissors. The finish is a great play on the match story, as Spoiler went right back to the claw, climbing the ropes to gain more leverage on the hold (a frequent Spoiler trick), but he gets too high chasing that Claw victory, and Andre simply slams him off the top. The simplicity of the match played to the strengths of both men, and I was hooked the whole way through. 

PAS: Really nifty match, I loved the dying animal aspect of Andre falling slowly to the claw, one of the cooler wrestling sells I can remember seeing. Andre was amazing at portraying invulnerability and vulnerability in the same match. Spoiler is one of the guys I want to see more of, he has been in some real classics, and has this unique style. He is one of the densest high flyers ever, all of his attacks land with so much thump and thud, Andre is a great landing platform too.

Hiroshi Hase/Jushin Liger vs Rick Rude/Brian Blair NJPW 3/20/94

MD: As a sharp wrestling analyst, I'd like to point out that this match is all about Rude being pretty racist in his pre-match promo, about Liger, Hase, and then, at the end, Liger AND Hase together, doing Rude's pose back at him, and then Hase mocking him on the mic post match. I guess there's also B. Brian Blair doing all the bee mannerisms in 1994. That's commitment.

I mean the wrestling was good too, but let's keep things in perspective. So, as long as he didn't try to overachieve, which didn't happen often, Blair looked sharp and crisp in most things he did. He could have still had a useful run somewhere at this point (like SMW, maybe?). You got the sense that Hase loved how riled Rude got the crowd because he ate it up, both in tossing people around, but also just in standing on the top rope and basking in it, or launching a 20+ rotation giant swing before stumbling about and doing Rude's pose. Rude was just completely iconic. I think my favorite moment in this might have been him hitting a top rope axe handle and then getting caught on the second one. You knew it was coming. Everyone knew it was coming. But Rude's timing and presence were just perfect. There's probably no one in wrestling history that was better at getting "caught" in that manner than Rude.

Really, the only thing that would have made this one more enjoyably over the top was if Liger had a mustache too.

ER: Rude bookends our match with some casual as hell racism, which undoubtedly leads to a hot crowd and some playful personality that we don't always get to see from Hase. Liger doesn't always need much coaxing to be playful so it was a treat to see Hase really rub in all of his comebacks, and Hase/Liger each doing a few variations on Rude's hip swivel is the kind of taunt that kept getting the crowd louder. I really liked the Rude/Blair team, and came away missing the kind of in-ring professionalism both of them brought Blair had the awesome bald spot ponytail, buzzed his wings like a bee during rope runs, hit a fantastic standing lariat, works fast juniors spots with Liger (with a real fast bump to the floor to cap it off), and was great on the apron. Watch Blair's reactions during Hase's long giant swing as he is unable to get in there to save Rude. Rude was heel perfection, and my favorite thing from him might have come early, as he locks in an insanely tight looking headlock on Liger, then gives him two punches to the kidneys as he's tagging in Blair. Sure, his overall meathead antics are what gave everything heat, and that spectacular top rope knee is the best, and I guess what I'm trying to say is that Rick Rude was too real to be real, a guy whose stock rises nearly every time I see him. Seeing the kind of work that he was putting out on house shows really cements him.

El Hijo Del Santo vs. Negro Casas CMLL Japan 2/6/97

MD: This has been out there but clipped on a commercial tape, apparently. Here we have it in full. We're into Santo's rudo phase, but not too deep into it, in front of an audience that only seemed half aware. This isn't a huge crowd. They're quiet for the most part. Midway through, Casas works to engage them and they sort of split the chants. This sort of felt like an abbreviated title match, or maybe one on fast-forward. Memorable was some really good matwork to start which led to the escalation into rope running and a crazy flipping senton through the ropes by Santo. Santo wasn't over the top with his rudo-ness. He oversold heavily a Scorpion Deathlock attempt (not even the hold) by Casas but that was to lure him in. He also threw a really nasty chairshot towards the finish, but ultimately missed a top rope splash and lost to the Casita. It was a good digest, with the right sort of intensity at times, and these two can do no wrong, ever, but would have been better in a different environment.

PAS: Really cool to watch these guys a 10 minute version of their match. It was a 97 Santo versus Casas match too, not just an exhibition of cool spots (although there was some very cool spots) but a nice capsulation of the brutality that these guys could and did bring on a regular basis. We get pretty spinning headscissors and dives to the floor, but some really cool struggling mat work and Santo kicking Casas directly to the back of his head.  I loved the early counter work out of the headscissors and I loved Santo smashing Casas with a chair, we really get everything we love about this feud boiled down to it's marrow.  Great, great stuff.

ER: No big deal, just the two GOATs working a hot Nitro lucha sprint lightning match in front of a largely apathetic Japanese crowd. CMLL Japan crowds tend to be small from what I've seen, but they are usually hot and appreciative. This match oddly came with the atmosphere of people sitting through a lucha show to get a free 2 week timeshare rental. But it's a perfect 10 minute synopsis on what was going on with these two in 1997. It was a highlights match (as much as any match with these two, as obviously they are highlight reel machines) with something to say, a match where the biggest spots shone just as brightly as their transitions. The big spills play well, like Santo surprising Casas with his gorgeous rolling tope senton too the floor. I've grown so used to Santo hitting that rolling senton in ring as a lead up to his tope past the turnbuckle, that seeing him take the opportunity to hit it to the floor - in a way that didn't seem like part of the plan or even something that had been fully thought through - made the moment even bigger. But the small moments played as big for me, like the way Santo held on to a waistlock as Casas tried to violently shake him, or the way Santo lost the camel clutch but gave up one of Negro's arms to yank his head back by the hair as a way to salvage things.

All of the scrambling was real snug, and honest. If they didn't fully have the other, nobody was pretending they were stuck. They rolled with the exchanges and reevaluated where the other was during the brief periods of pause, and I got the sense that they could have woven their way through similar sequences and ended up somewhere different entirely (and no doubt, they have done exactly this during their careers). Santo has the best stomps in wrestling history, just give me a match where Santo only stomps at Negro's body and cerebellum. Show me someone in wrestling who has a better boot to the back of the head/neck, and I'll show you someone who wrecked brain cells. Santo's stomps feel perfectly worked, for maximum visual. The knee work was all cool, Santo kicking at Negro's thigh and Negro going down hard for a fast dropkick to his patella. Everything felt like it happened because of something else they had done earlier. Were Santo's shots to Negro's knee meaner because earlier Santo had gone for a knucklelock and Casas just opted to lurch in and punch Santo in the face? It felt like that to me.  I loved the mean ways they kept the distant crowd guesses, like when Casas gets booed for ripping at Santo's mask, then eats an insane fast head over heels bump to the floor off a Santo dropkick. After getting the loudest heat of the match with that mask rip, Santo follows him to the floor and pastes him with a chairshot, not caring that they had booed Casas for something less severe, more concerned with wrecking Casas. These two give me life force whenever I watch them, and this was no different.

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New Footage Friday: ALL EDDIE!! ALL THE TIME!!

Eddy Guerrero vs. Jushin Liger NJPW 12/9/92

MD: I'm not a huge proponent of one or two spots/elements making a match must-see. That said, this match has those one or two elements. First, there's Liger's leg selling. It's such a great balance of him allowing Eddy to stay in control and peppering in comebacks. It colors his decisions whether to dive or not to dive. It forces a post-offense hesitation that lets Eddy take back over. Even when Liger's hitting stuff cleanly, it doesn't feel dropped, just pushed past and there's always a cost, down to when he's leaving the ring after the (stolen) win. When Liger finally hits the dive late-match it feels like a huge deal, but it's also not something he can capitalize on.

The second big thing is the Eddy crowd dive. It was amazing and everyone should see it. There's nothing else to say about that really.

They had a match earlier in the year and it was far less of a complete Eddy performance and much more of a novelty minor Liger match. This is something people should go out of their way for.

PAS: I thought this was really fun, it reminded me of the Eddie vs. Ultimo Dragon WCW house show match I saw back in 97. Built slowly but really solidly with some early mat work, including some nasty leg work by Eddie, where he just cranked every hold. It built to some bigger spots, including a great Tapita by Liger and a huge springboard plancha into the crowd by Eddie which was a monster highspot in 1992. I loved the finish, Eddie just spikes Liger with one of the better superplexes I can remember seeing, it almost felt like a superplex version of the Dynamite Kid snap suplex, and the when he goes for a top rope back suplex Liger twists, lands on top, and gets the flash victory. Eddie comes out looking like a killer, and Liger is protected, great bit of business.

ER: These two hand at least a dozen singles matches together, with only one happening before this one, and that is very exciting. It has the 90s NJ juniors match structure, with matwork dominating the first half and leading to a big rope running exchange leading to some unexpectedly larger things. I say unexpectedly only because this was a house show, and they broke out some pretty big stuff for a house show, no doubt a long running habit of both men. The mat stuff was fun and engaging, both going after legs but Eddy getting the advantage and I thought they had some cool stuff. We all kind of know at this point that NJ junior matwork is more about filling time and establishing control, and they did a good job at that. I liked Eddy rolling Liger into tough pins, crucifixes and grapevined leg pins, forcing Liger's shoulder down (and then calling that back later in the match when he tried it again on a weaker opponent), wrenching Liger's knee (with Liger taking time to stretch it and pay it some lip service when Eddy was on the floor), and we finally opened things up nicely with two killer Liger armdrags, rolling off Eddy's back with a gorgeous Tim Horner style armdrag and whipping Eddy over with a Japanese armdrag, then just blasting him with a hard southpaw lariat. Great sequence. Eddy is one of the greatest armdrag takers of all time, a guy who whips over so fast and compact (and later shows off his  amazing variation where he slides out of the ring under the bottom rope and slams into the guardrail off a similar move, a bump he takes arguably the best of anyone ever). 

They drop some really big things here, suplexes, big exchanges, and the excitement really builds as it feels like the match perfectly ramps up. Nothing really feels out of place, each thing feels bigger than the last, each attack feels like it's advancing everything. We get a dive apiece from each guy, and they are both absolute doozies: Liger hits a crossbody off the top to the floor with Eddy literally standing 80% across the ring. I was looking at how far away Eddy was standing as Liger was climbing to the top, and assumed Liger was just going up there to taunt him, as there was NO way he was going to be able to ever touch Eddy...and I was wrong. That man FLEW. Eddy's dive was spectacular, hitting a springboard off the top and into the crowd, totally nuts to be doing on a show that nobody (except one secret man) was taping. The finish is satisfying, with Eddy setting up a beastly back suplex from the top only to see Liger shift his weight and land hard on Eddy on the way down. This was two absolute legends doing nothing but adding to their legacy. We live in blessed wrestling times. (Also I'm convinced that Phil brings up seeing that Eddie/Ultimo house show match more often than Al Bundy brought up his 4 touchdown game, so I'll just say that this reminded me of when I saw Eddie vs. Rey at a house show in 2005)

Black Tiger/Dean Malenko vs. El Samurai/Shinjiro Otani NJPW 9/24/93

MD: I'm pretty sure this one hasn't been out there. Even if it was, it's well worth watching, even in a sea of classic NJ Juniors matches. I love how mean and focused Eddy and Dean are here. Eddy is pretty much fully developed as mid 90s heel Eddy (which isn't as developed as 97 heel Eddy or 2000s heel Eddy but is still a great thing). Dean's not quite grown out of being a human being yet. There's a charm to the iceman thing, but this unfinished middle ground makes for better, more engaging matches. He actually acknowledged that there's a crowd out there a few times. I really liked the ebb and flow of this. There were constant stomps to break up pins and submissions instead of kickouts. Whenever Samurai and Otani started to fight back, they got double teamed or cut off. Anytime Eddy and Dean focus in on a limb, it's really dynamic and beautiful, just a constant machine gun assault to keep control of the match. It ends up just building and building until the chaos of the blind tag finish.

Sometimes I overcomplicate things, but there are a few easy crutches that can make wrestling narratives immediately better. Otani absolutely gets the value of paralleled spots. The crowd pops big every time he does immediately what he just got hit with, whether it be the heel twist on the face or following up a missed Dean falling headbutt with one of his own.

PAS: This was a great performance by Eddie and Dean, they look like they could have been a classic heel team if they had a longer run together. Just a master class of working heat on Otani, great cut offs, cool double teams and some real great timed comebacks. Loved Eddie jumping Samurai on the apron to keep Otani from making the tag. Malenko had some really smooth takedowns and roll ups and Eddie was really lining up some cool cheapshots. Unfortunately we get some real HH issues and we miss some big spots near the end, although what we saw had some nice near falls, and a great looking spinning DDT by Eddie.

ER: I thought this was mostly awesome, with only an obnoxious juniors tag habit and some unfortunate handheld issues holding it back a bit. Eddy and Dean were absolute damn machines. Otani and Samurai may as well have been up against Stan Hansen and Vader. Dean and Eddy just eat them for lunch, spending much of the match cutting off the ring and absolutely eating Otani for lunch. Seriously it felt like Samurai was in this match a total of maybe 2 minutes. Dean looked fantastic here, breaking out some cool things that he abandoned not long after (that headscissors out of a knucklelock looked like something Hijo del Santo would break out, and Dean hit it just as gracefully as Santito would have). Eddy and Dean both throw several suplexes on Otani, Dean hitting an early and mean jackhammer, Eddy interrupting and Otani spinkick to rudely drop him with a German, and there are tons of rude things throughout by these two, really in everything they do. 

Eddy scrapes his boots across Otani's face, Dean drops him with a gnarly backbreaker that sends Otani recoiling onto his head. Otani would get flashes and comebacks, all delivered explosively. His pescado to the floor was incredible, landing was major impact and smashing Eddy into the guardrail, and the late match moment where he finally hits the spinkick and the scrapes his boot across Eddy's face was an awesome moment. My gripe is that when Otani finally makes the triumphant tag to Samurai, Samurai is in the match barely 1 minute before tagging back out, and Otani had been eating a beating for literally the entire match. Otani had been desperate to tag out for 10 minutes, getting blocked at every turn by Dean and Eddy, then Samurai misses one headbutt and Otani is totally fine to get back in. I hate that. Sadly the end stretch sees a real jerk of a fan stand up directly in front of our heroic cameraman *just* as Otani is about to hit a surely spectacular springboard attack. Doesn't this asshole know a bunch of white people were going to be writing about this match 25 years later? What a POS. I hate those fans who have no forward thinking whatsoever. What about the bloggers, dickhead?

This whole thing ruled, stupid miracle Otani comeback aside. These guys are 4 all time faves of mine, and this was an all time performance from Dean and Eddy. Would have liked to see more Samurai, but thought he had nice moments saving his boy from certain doom. You like these 4 guys - I mean obviously you do - and you will no doubt love all of this.

Eddy Guerrero/Fuerza Guerrera/Jerry Estrada vs. Blue Panther/El Mexicano/Mascara Sagrada AAA 11/13/93

ER: This one really starts as a fairly genial house show style trios, before pivoting suddenly to some wild floor brawling and then turning into a messy (in a good way) assault on the tecnicos. There is no matwork, but we get a lot of time and they clearly knew what the fans wanted to see. I never realized there was so much lucha tecnico offense that revolved around grabbing a rudo's head and just kind of throwing it to the ground, but a ton of the tecnicos' early offense is just that! Estrada is a great stooge, and while he doesn't break out much of his trademark crippling bump style, he knows how to do a goofy duck walk after getting hit, or mugging to the crowd to give his opponent an opening, and any time he gets yanked to the mat by his hair it looks spectacular (as he is the most tasseled wrestler in history). Eddy is part stooge/part lightning fast superworker, taking a fantastic delayed sell faceplant one moment, and then moments later breaking out one of the greatest looking fallaway slams you've seen (the kind where he turns it into an almost physics breaking bridging throw) and working faster than anyone in the match. Fuerza is the smallest man in the match, but he also reads as the total don, the guy who can stroll in and immediately shut down a tecnico, doing not much more throughout the match other than throw great punches and use his mere presence to intimidate. Mascara breaks out his fun "ear boxing" headscissors, Panther breaks out a couple quick headscissors of his own, the whole thing is a very fun house show lucha trios.

And then Panther reveals himself to be a rudo agent, Eddy runs Mexicano the length of the ring and launches him into the crowd (and what a great looking bump into the blackness from Mexicano), and this whole thing becomes Mexicano and Sagrada outnumbered and fighting for their life. Panther spends the rest of the match on the apron selling a phantom leg or ball pain, always about to tag in and help but just never being able to do so, due to his pain. Panther is hilarious in the ways he blocks Mascara and Mexicano from doing anything, my favorite moments include Panther casually grabbing Sagrada's leg when Sagrada is on the top rope, or Sagrada landing a punch and then Panther grabbing his arm to hold Sagrado prone for some shots, all while Panther is mildly scolding him and then appearing to tell Tirantes "he was using a closed fist, you don't want to win by cheating with a closed fist!" Panther is a wonderfully aloof rudo, and it makes the fans even more rabid for any peppered in comebacks the two remaining tecnicos get. Mexicano has several moments where he shines during this two man advantage, really firing up people and throwing nice punch combos, even getting his guardrail revenge back on Eddy. It's all obviously too much for them to handle, but this played out much more interestingly than most other snake in the grass lucha matches I've seen, and it unexpectedly made me want to see Mexicano singles against all the rudos.

MD: This was just constant good stuff. The level of talent here was incredible and while it played out fairly traditionally (exchanges with escalation for a tecnico win, rudos swarm to take the segunda, goozling until the comeback until the weirdness at the end) everything was so fun and full of personality and skill that you can't help but love it if you love lucha.

The initial pairings were great and crowd seemed to just ignite the second Fuerza got in there. And they never really slowed down after that. It was just a constant buzz. Eddy, by this point, was so good at looping in little flourishes like pointing to his head after dodging one move so he could walk right into another (and subsequently flopping). Everything he did seemed to have an interesting little twist. The rudo side here was wildly expressive. You've surely seen Fuerza do the handshake/hug/cheapshot deal a thousand times and it's still as good as the first time you ever saw it. Between the dancing and playing to the crowd, bumping over the rail and coming back with a chair, Mexicano could match. Sagrada kept the quebradas coming at least. It almost felt like the tecnicos were basing for the rudos antics, if that makes any sense.

Panther was in the midst of a turn and that was probably more of a distraction than a plus in how it played into the finish, though the post-match was fun. There were a few spots that didn't quite work out and the tercera meandered a bit maybe in part due to a fight in the crowd, but everything generally flowed well despite all that and you just couldn't argue with the level of talent and charisma that was in the ring.

PAS: Eddie/Estrada and Fuerza are such a dope rudos trio, and I like all the technicos too. Before it succumbed to heel red stuff and turns, there was some really sweet exchanges. Mexicano looked great, not a guy I had searched out before, but man this makes you want to see what hidden Halcon 78 is floating around. Eddie has such explosive execution which makes him stand out even amongst a group as talented as this. Match was there to get heat on the rudos with the crowd and cement the Panther turn, and it does all that business effectively. I would have rather just seen a clean trios, but they certainly riled up the crowd and solidly executed all of the angle stuff.

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New Footage Friday: Paul Diamond, Liger, TNT, Hashimoto, Claudio, Navarro, Solar, Quack

Negro Navarro/Claudio Castagnoli/Mr. Ferrari vs. Mike Quackenbush/Solar/Kendo LLM 3/9/09

ER: This is something I've heard about for a decade, but have never seen, and now I have! And it is just what I hoped it was. It has a super satisfying build and the pairings I hoped to see, thought everyone was good at ramping up the intensity of the match. Just some maestro lucha straight outta Delaware, a state I think about less than at least 40 other states. At minimum I wanted some exciting Navarro/Quackenbush in spades, and we got a nice bounty of them; the whole match starts with them and far more time is devoted to them together than anyone else in the match, which is what I wanted. The pairing is playful but can turn painful in a blink. Navarro was looking spry as hell and it was great seeing him whip Quack's legs in a predicament and then clap his hands and break, like a magician doing a trick for you, and then repeating it to see if you can figure it out. Quack is a perfect dance partner for Navarro as he has a bottomless bucket of ideas and can execute them at any moment, and it was cool seeing them both executed and blocked. I loved a moment where Navarro was on his back, Quack grabbed his hand and immediately did a handspring off Navarro's chest, dragging the arm with him and setting into position; not long after Quack went to grab Quack's hand and Navarro immediately dropped it, dropping Quack in the process. There exchanges were what trippy lucha matwork dreams are made of. We didn't get to the Navarro/Solar section until 3/4 of the way through the match, really building to the longest running feud, and their short time together was pretty amazing. It's a match-up we've all seen many times but they appear to be doing their thing in double time, and I mean these are guys in their early 50s and we know that, but I don't think I've ever seen someone in their 50s move like this. The others in the match are nice complements: Ferrari is a husky boy who resembles no kind of sleek Ferrari that I've seen, but I liked what he and Kendo pulled off together; I thought Claudio was somewhat out of place - his strength is his work as a base and there weren't really fliers here - but there were rewarding moments with him; I loved a Navarro moment right at the end, going back to the theme of Navarro as Lucha Magician, where he comes in only to boot Solar in the balls, and then disappears by bumping backwards through the ropes to the floor, like he threw a flash bomb after a ball kick. Why do I suddenly want to see Navarro vs. Jarek 1-20?

MD: Big thanks to Rah for reuploading this after other things went down. We get two falls out of three here and while a lot of the narrative is sort of the sloppy indy affair you'd expect, that's not why you're here. This is about seeing Navarro work with an empty canvas and with a wholly receptive opponent. Quackenbush must of had the time of his life getting stretched. He was smaller and very flexible and totally willing to let Navarro bend him in any number of shapes. That his own stuff looked so good is a testament to both of them too. There were a few moments that looked just a little too cooperative (or involved excessive waiting) but in general, everything was way more fluid than you'd think. That's not a slight on Quack either. It's just that the stuff they were trying was so tricked out. The rest was ok. Claudio was deep into shtick at this point, flexing at every point. He worked a bit with Solar and it was ok with lots of armdrags, but really didn't have nearly as much time to breathe. Kendo and Ferrari were fine rounding things out. We had the segunda and tercera here and we probably missed a bit more with the others not having the primera. The rudo beat down towards the end gave me just a taste of the other thing I wanted here, Claudio and Navarro working together. Navarro's a ham too (though the world's most astute, dangerous ham) and you figure the two of them could have really done some fun stuff. We get a hint at it but no more. Watch this for Navarro and Quack, which felt twice as long as it actually went but in the best way.

PAS: Tomk and I went to this show live in 2009 (long road report which really pissed off a bunch of Chikara die hards here) and outside of a random bit of this showing up on a weird streaming site later that year and disappearing (that might be what Rah got his hands on) I hadn't seen any footage of this show. Really cool to revisit this a decade later. From reading our live review it looks like we actually get most of the first fall, and the third fall but miss the segunda. Some of the narrative issues Matt have had might be because of that. I loved Navarro schooling Quack, and we get almost 10 minutes of those guys rolling, sometimes Navarro's catch and release mat work bugged, here it worked great. He was showing this indy punk that he could tap him any time he wanted, so he would lock him up and let him out, just to lock him up again. In that second fall we don't see here, Quack gets the tap, which really helps the story. The taste of Solar vs. Navarro was incredible, just adderall fast which was nuts for so many old guys. Too bad Navarro pissed off Quack, as he would have been an awesome semi-regular in Chikara like Skayde or Saint, still not knowing what happened between them, I am always siding with Navarro.

Jushin Thunder Liger vs. Paul Diamond NJPW 7/18/93

MD: I wasn't entirely sure what to expect out of 93 Paul Diamond here, but he delivered. He could have been the third guy in a Kroffat/Furnas trio. He had some great junior acrobatics, including a cartwheel out of a monkey flip, traded holds well with Liger (though there wasn't a lot of chain wrestling though what they did was ok), and had great offense (this deep German, a slide through the legs from the outside in to a Northern Lights, what looked like a Casas seated dive off the apron, and a gourdbuster, plus this great kick in the corner), and mostly everything was smooth. For all the limb targeting they did, it could have used a bit more focused selling, but this was an overachiever of a back and forth juniors match.

PAS: This was a Diamond showcase match, and he really looks like a guy who could have had a Benoit/Guerrero/Malenko like run in the New Japan juniors division. He had some big time offense for this time period, his Northern Lights suplex looked great and his Casas senton off the apron got great height and distance. Liger is an all time master at working with a guys strengths, so maybe you need to see Diamond's Kido singles on the same tour to really get a sense of his potential, but this was a weirdo match up which totally delivered.

ER: The Paul Diamond showcase we've all been waiting for! Phil is right that Liger is great at showcasing any guy's strengths, a guy who will always have an interesting match with a young lion, a guy I saw try to do things with Blue Demon, a guy who is going to make a singles match work. And Diamond is a guy with cool stuff! More cool stuff than I realized! He kind of came off like a junior heavyweight Jerry Flynn. I dug how the crowd reacted to him cartwheeling out of Liger's monkey flip, liked the matwork as he's a guy I've never seen work the mat this long, hit two really nice lefty lariats, a cool hooking kick in the corner, a guy I've seen plenty of but felt like I was seeing something really different from him here. There were a couple awkward moments but overall this was a blast, and jeez does Liger take 2" of Diamond's height with his match ending Liger Bomb. He practically dropped Diamond vertically, and we're obviously happy that this exists. 

Shinya Hashimoto/Akira Nogami vs. Brad Armstrong/TNT NJPW 7/18/93

MD: I also had my doubts about this one (it fit into our weird match ups for the week), but I thought it really held up. Vega as TNT can be great or goofy depending on how deeply he leans into the shtick and who he's up against. Here it's perfect though, because Hashimoto's the perfect intersection of toughness and charisma. After a bit of anticipation by having Armstrong star the match against Hash, TNT comes in and it's great. They ran a couple of sequences of TNT controlling with cheapshots and martial arts punctuating with both guys missing spin wheel kicks and TNT doing his karate chop pose at the end. Finally though, Hash hits one and follows it up by mocking the pose with a middle finger payoff. Great stuff. About one third of the way in, Brad starts to work heel which is surreal but really enjoyable, with them primarily working over Nogami. It's a little nervehold-centric but with some good hope spots (including a headbutt flurry) built in. The hot tag's good, with another wrinkle of Brad and TNT cheating to take back over on Hash (including Brad's always awesome Russian Leg Sweep) before Hash comes back for the win. Good, measured stuff, making the most of the tag structure, including utilizing break ups instead of kick-outs. Post match, TNT and Hash clown around with the pose and middle finger again.

PAS: I really loved the opening section with Hashimoto and TNT, it was more Stan Lane martial arts then normal Hashimoto stand offs, but I thought it worked really well and I loved Hash doing the TNT pose and flipping him off. Still this was a Hashimoto match where Hashimoto is almost an afterthought. Most of this match was Nogami being worked over by TNT and Brad and Nogami isn't really a compelling face in peril, and TNT and Armstrong aren't doing many interesting things in control. It picks up a bit at the Hashimoto hot tag, but that doesn't last long before the finish. Fun oddball matchup, but I want more Hash.

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New Footage Friday: Fuchi, Liger, Bock, Hansen, Savage, Piper, Magee, Dibiase

Nick Bockwinkel/Stan Hansen vs. Dick The Bruiser/Crusher AWA 3/4/84

PAS: This is what we would expect from a Bruiser and Crusher tag in the mid 80s. They aren't going to bump, they aren't going to sell, they are going to eat their opponents alive and the crowd is going to dig it. It is funny to watch Hansen, an immovable object at eating up his opponents run into the irresistible force of Dick the Bruiser, at one point Bruiser no-sells an eye rake. Bockwinkle is unsurprisingly great at pinballing around the ring. Ref seems to blow the finish as they run the Heenan interference spot twice and he just throws the match out. This was a fun example of a hot tag, but I wouldn't exactly call it a good match.

MD: I'll take any new ten minute Bockwinkel match I can get. This we only had clipped before and it's immediately interesting because it's Bockwinkel teaming with Hansen with Heenan managing them both. I can't remember any other scenario where Heenan managed Hansen. It went pretty much as you'd expect with Hansen meeting them head on and Bockwinkel bumping around the ring for them. By far the best part of this was Hansen brawling with Da Crusher which made me think that they could have had a hell of a singles match even this late in the game.

ER: This is my kind of gem right here, two guys closer to 60 than 50 just punching their way through two great opponents for 10 minutes while the crowd loses it. Bockwinkel is great flying around for Crusher and Bruiser's punches, and it's awesome seeing Hansen not selling and punching through their offense...while neither of them are selling and punching right through Hansen's offense. Crusher moved really great for an old guy, especially loved his leaping stomp off the middle rope, and fully agree with Matt that a Hansen/Crusher match could have been great. Crusher throws big meaty balled up fists to Hansen's head and Hansen throws these vicious 12 to 6 elbows whenever he could. We got a stomach claw, elbowdrops, Captain Kangaroo haircuts, and something that I would have ranked unconscionably high on an 80s set.

Roddy Piper vs. Randy Savage WWF 12/13/86

MD: I hadn't been aware that they ran these in November/December of 86, let alone that one made tape. This a handheld from fairly far away but Piper and Savage work so big that you're never in doubt of what's happening. This was the same card that Dynamite hurt his back but you'd never know it from how hot the crowd was. Piper was immensely over here and they fully believed that they could get a title change. We've gotten three or four new Piper matches during the last year and every one's only raised his stock. This is no exception. He was exceptional at milking a moment, of containing this wild, manic, unpredictable energy but holding it in to let it charge and build so that when he released it, it would be to the greatest possible effect. He understood his audience and had this way of doing things that no one else would do to keep them engaged. I loved the opening flurry (including the eyepoke) which was really all to set up him holding the ropes open so Elizabeth could leave. By the time he landed a few more blows and hit a bulldog, the entire crowd was chanting his name. Obviously Savage was going to meet his manic energy mid-way. Some elements of this, like the two count teases, I liked more than what we got later with Steamboat. There was more pause to them, more struggle, more of a countering element instead of a choreographed dance and I think that made the crowd buy into them and care all the more. Obviously you would have wanted this to go longer with less of a BS finish but what we did get was worthwhile.

PAS: This was a pair of guys who push the pace, pushing the pace. Goddamn is Roddy Piper awesome, the opening flurry of punch combos knocking down Savage so he could open the ropes for Elizabeth is such a flex, I am going to whoop your ass and be chivalrous to your lady. Savage's dive to the floor is still one of the prettiest dives in wrestling history, looks better then some thing with fourteen twists and turns. For a BS finish, this was a clever one, with Savage bailing out of the ring, Piper chasing him, catching him and fireman's carrying him up the steps in a cool bit of strength, only to dump him in right as the ref counted Piper out. These guys really match up well  (they had a whole different house show run in 1990 which I wouldn't mind seeing) and I am really happy that it showed up for us to see.

ER: I thought this was really great, with an expected house show non-finish but a non-finish that was super clever and continued the violence. Both guys did all the things these guys do, extremely well. The more we see of Piper the more there is an argument for him as the best WWF worker of the 80s. Savage is one of the guys that would be his competition. I don't know if some of Piper's stuff would look as effective as it did here without Savage bumping for him. Savage's bumping here was fast and violent, but organic, and never looked like he was showing up Piper with his bumping; the bumps looked like a natural reaction to Piper's big shots. Macho Man had some great shots too, and his big wind up punch with one leg up, free hand grabbing his opponent's head, is one of my favorite punches in wrestling. Piper had an absolutely incredible kneelift in this match, one of the only kneelifts I've ever seen where someone looked like they threw their whole body into a move, and it looked tremendous. The finish was one of the more spectacular non-finishes I've ever seen, with Savage getting launched to the floor and Piper retrieves him in manly fashion, and walks him back up the ring steps in a fireman's carry, getting counted out while throwing Savage in. That's such a great BS finish. Piper saves his best punch of the match for the ref, and we understand. I loved this!

Ted Dibiase vs. Tom Magee WWF 12/7/88

ER: More evidence that WWE has been catering this series to a bunch of weird internet fans, or course they go weird on us and upload a Tom Magee match, only it's a Tom Magee match that nobody knew even existed. Now we know that there are seemingly two Hart matches, I don't think anyone ever talked about a Dibiase match. Here it is and really, it's not bad. Magee looks far more clueless in his available All Japan matches, here he looks like someone that 7 year old me would get excited to see on a weekly basis. He was a muscular guy who did handsprings, that was pretty much my brand then (if you missed my love letter to Mark Young, same thing). This was Dibiase crafting a solid match around a limited opponent, as we all assumed it would be. Dibiase sets up some unfuckupable moments where he either runs into a Magee limb or aims his own limb at where Magee is running, and the fans respond really well to Magee. Magee is a stiff, his selling is a kind of Great Khali teetering while swinging arms, but Dibiase keeps the sequences simple and keeps his timing in check so it works. Magee handspringing out of a rolling clutch attempt was really cool and he had a decent back elbow, and this was a great Dibiase performance making Magee look like someone who was a threat. I wish we had audio for a large portion of this, as the crowd reactions to Magee would have been cool, but this was a fun find nonetheless.

Jushin Liger vs. Masa Fuchi AJPW/NJPW 1/28/01

MD: Really glad that Phil came across this one. Fuchi has a clear and distinct size advantage over Liger, so much so that it can be the narrative of the match. That's not something you always see with Fuchi and lets him bully in a slightly different way than how he usually bullies an opponent. So that's your big picture. Liger would use his speed and savvy and never-say-die attitude to fight back but ultimately get cut off until a reversal and dive on the outside that lead them towards the finish.

On a micro level, you get stuff like the immediate start of the match, where Liger, disadvantaged on a lock-up, climbs the ropes to win it, only to add insult to injury by slapping Fuchi. Fuchi's response? Staring, fixing his hair, and walking right over to kick Liger in the gut so he can slam him hard twice. Fuchi's cutoffs were generally reversal based and expert. I don't know if it was because of how colorful his opponent was or the fact he had the luxury due to the size advantage, but he played to the crowd a bit more than I was used to. I loved the varied holds he used here, be it the crossface into the STF or the cobra clutch over the knee, and the openings he found, like when he worked on Liger's midsection using the ring as a prop based off of a hold leaving Liger vulnerable to some nasty elbows. Liger was great working from underneath but still confident enough to give Fuchi so much. When he stole the match with at Casita at the end it still felt earned because of the damage he'd absorbed.

PAS: This was the only matchup between the biggest All Japan Juniors star of the 90s and the biggest New Japan juniors star of the 90s. It was on an All Japan dome show so it was appropriate that it was Liger working a Fuchi match rather then the other way around. We get some classic Fuchi torture, as he grinds out a crossface, twists Ligers limbs with a brutal leg stretch and even steps on his stomach. We get a couple of cool Liger comebacks including a big dive, but Fuchi retakes control and dumps Liger on his horns with some really violent back suplexes. Finish was Liger escaping by the skin of his teeth as he reverses an Irish whip into a leg trip and a Magistral for the pin. Liger wins but it felt more like an escape then a triumph. 

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