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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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New Footage Friday: DiBiase, Brisco, Thesz, Longson, Gotch, Masked Russians

Wild Bill Longson vs. Lou Thesz NWA 6/7/52

PAS: Cool chance to look at Longson who was a four time NWA champ in the 40s. He has a bruiser style with some nice headlock punches and big clubbing forearms. We get to see both guys uncork their signature moves to win falls, Thesz hits a Thesz press to win fall one, and Longson hits a couple of short piledrivers to take fall two. We didn't really get to see much of master grappler Thesz, although there was a cool leg stretch, and I really like how Thesz works into lock ups. Kind of an odd match structure with Thesz responding to losing the second fall, by bum rushing Longson with dropkicks and getting a third fall in two minutes.

Masked Russian vs. Karl Gotch/Rene Goulet WWWF 1/22/71

MD: Take lovable Frank (Wupperman) Morgan from The Shop Around the Corner, add in Hecule Poirot, and overlay it with 300% of Dan Severn into the mix and you get WWWF Karl Gotch. This is a long 2/3 fall tag title match with a heels-shove-the-ref DQ finish but it's all about the two major Gotch segments. In the first, he's an absolute mat wizard, grabbing limbs from out of nowhere. He knows it. His opponents know it. The fans know it. Everyone pops for everything. It's awesome. The second, however, is amazingly surreal. He does all that but with this wild comedy streak, like a Les Kellett or a Catweazle. You can almost hear Bavarian accordion music behind him. It's the most credible, over the top Oktoberfest imaginable and I've never seen its like. He banks on both that credibility and the obvious skill and deftness to add outrageous punctuation to every movement and the masked Russians play along to the crowd's delight. I've seen very little Gotch in general, but it's absolutely perfect for the WWWF setting, not rock'n'wrestling but polka'n'wrestling in the best possible way.

Oh yeah, Goulet was in this match too. He gets one and a half sentences: He gets credit for utilizing every wrestling trope at his disposal but brought absolutely nothing unique or interesting of his own to the table; he was just there.

PAS: I haven't seen much Gotch (don't think there is much to see) but the stuff we have is from Japan and he works as a master grappler, that is not what we get in this match at all. Here Gotch is a high end dancing babyface, more like Mr. Wrestling 2 or Bullet Bob and he is incredible at it. The Russians run around and stooge as he throws spin kicks or does ole's or throws them down with lighting fast takedowns. Outside of Gotch this is a bog standard 70s WWWF tag, but man he lights the screen on fire every time he shows up.

ER: This was certainly a WWF tag match from the 70s. I think this was actually the first time I've seen Gotch, and I certainly wasn't expecting flamboyant dancing babyface Karl Gotch. I'm less of a fan of the dancing babyface, though I am sure there are exceptions. Gotch had some fine moments and since he and Goulet spent 95% of the match on offense, it was really impressive the energy he brought to things. He was moving practically the entire time whenever he was in, helluva gas tank. I was expecting suplexes and holds, but his work was a lot of strikes, some of them stiff (like his European uppercuts) and others were worked but thrown well (his punches). Gotch was fun, and kind of weird, but I did really enjoy one of the Masked Russians. Was it Igor? Was it Ivan? Nobody will ever have any way of knowing. There's a chance those two guys didn't even remember which one they were on a given night. But one of them was quite a bumper, tumbling expertly on Gotch's beal throws, stooging better than the other Russian, and taking an awesome bump over the top to the floor off a Gotch uppercut late in the match. That bump was easily my favorite thing in this match. Rene Goulet expertly filled in the "hold an arm lock for minutes at a time in a WWF 70s/80s tag match" role, annoyingly.

Danny Hodge/Jos LeDuc vs. Pak Song/Toru Tanaka CWF 11/12/74

MD: We get the last seven minutes of this and we have so little of Hodge that even a couple of minutes is a big percentage increase. Really, the only thing worth mentioning of his, though, were his house afire comeback punches, which were plentiful, endless really, and sort of goofy, Backlundish maybe? The crowd completely bought into them though. 30 year old babyface LeDuc on the other hand was just a pure bumping hoss. He's the story here.

ER: This was my first time seeing legendary wrestler and boxer and strong man Danny Hodge, someone we've read nothing but great things about, and my reaction to it is that I would like to see more Jos LeDuc. Big bumper, loved a spill he took towards the ropes, and add this to his legendarily great look. Hodge working as a more spirited old Jimmy Valiant was odd; I was expecting him to grip Tanaka and squeeze his head until it pops.

Ted DiBiase vs. Jack Brisco Georgia 2/5/84

PAS: Another complete match from the Omni, every time we get one of these I just salivate more about the stuff we aren't seeing. I was a low voter on DiBiase when I was putting together the Mid-South DVDVR set, and this kind of match was the reason. It was 10 minute match with one long chinlock from each guy and a loaded glove finish. There were a couple of cool moments, I loved DiBiase dead-weighting on a bodyslam attempt, and then bumping huge on the second try, and Brisco had a great looking backbreaker. Still this match structure is pretty lazy and not particularly interesting to watch, and was emblematic of my problems with DiBiase as a top guy.

MD: By the books heel Dibiase against an over opponent. Honestly, this was paced like it was going to go twice as long with long holds without a lot of movement in and out. I will say this about Dibiase: he was fully committed to everything that happened. They teased a slam. Then they hit a slam. Then Dibiase sold it. Build meaning. Pay it off. Sell that it's important. It's not rocket science, but again, no one takes the time for it anymore. If we're going to watch this much old footage, I'm going to point that out now and again. Unfortunately, there's not a ton else to point out here. I did like the loaded glove finish, and again, how Ted made sure to dramatically sell the figure-four as he was crawling over for the pin. I wish they'd upload these Omni matches as whole shows, but I'm just glad we have them at all.

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