New Footage Friday: Piper, Inoki, Blackjack, Mano Negra, El Brazo, Negro Casas

Antonio Inoki/Riki Choshu vs. Roddy Piper/Blackjack Mulligan NJPW 08/26/77

ER: Loved this. It was Piper's first match in Japan, and here he is the main event already looking like an absolute legend. Before the bell even starts us off he's stalking Choshu into the middle of the ring and looking like absolute trouble. The energy Piper brings to this is fantastic, just mauling Choshu every chance he gets with some of the best kneelifts and kicks, really looked like Sonny Corleone beating up Carlo. That he brings similar energy when opposite Inoki surprised me, immediately made me buy Piper as someone on Inoki's level. Piper was a guy I always enjoyed but I've never appreciated his ring work more than in the past 5 years. Piper has become one of my favorite ever in ring guys, and I think for too long he was regarded as more of a talker than a wrestler. His talking is obviously legendary, but at this point I think his ring work is even more of a selling point. Mulligan plays almost late career Andre on the apron, which is good as it's an effective use of him. He was on the apron a lot and you knew if Piper could get the action towards that part of the ring that Mulligan would be there with a few clubbing blows to the chest or a big shot, and he looks good as a guy who tags in to take out Choshu with a cool flying elbow and great powerslam, feels cool as gargantuan cowboy lurking on the apron. But Piper was such a megastar here, loved every second of him, loved him using Inoki's head as a full speed battering ram (and how that backfired into an atomic drop/octopus hold to end a fall), love his punches and his wild movement that he uses to sell strikes. The finish appears to be cut off and/or marred by a screen filled with kanji, but only a wang would complain about that.

MD: We have three or four matches with Piper from 77 and will go through them all in time. What stood out the most here was how fully formed he was. I always find the California footage we have with him somewhat unsatisfying. Maybe that's because of VQ or just how unmoored it is. We have such a scattering, some of it complete, some of it JIP, some of it with poor video or sound. Piper is the sort of guy that you have to see and feel. You have to see the big things and the small things. You have to hear his banter. You have to feel how the crowd is reacting.

Here he was just dogged intensity. Offensively he should have been paired with Hansen instead of Mulligan. He was just relentless, a swarming buzzard with ADHD (or coke, I guess?), peppering knees and elbows and fists. When it was time for him to give, he bumped and stooged, and contorted himself like no one's business for the octopus.

Despite what I just said, Mulligan was game too. I've liked almost everything I've seen out of him in the 70s. He had size and presence and just enough attitude. Inoki was triumphant. Choshu was fiery whenever he was allowed to make comebacks (and these NJPW tags have a bit more of a traditional southern, or maybe given the 2/3 falls structure, Portland feel than AJPW ones). Ultimately, we get a sense of where this was headed with Piper/Mulligan miscommunication but we don't get a full finish. Still, this is over fifteen minutes and you get the idea. Plenty of ideas, actually. Good, satisfying wrestling.

Bruiser Brody vs. Great Kabuki WCCW 6/7/81

MD: Brody was a guy who obviously got it. He understood how to sell himself. He understood how to manipulate a crowd. He understood how wrestling worked. It's not like you can honestly say that he didn't have a very strong grasp of professional wrestling and, past some arguable execution issues with his offense, that he lacked the ability to excute what he wanted to do.

The issue with Brody is that he so often used that knowledge to chose the worst, most self-serving path. Selling is the language of pro wrestling. It's how the story is told. Things can happen, but selling is expressing the weight and meaning of these things. So often, Brody would bump or recoil and then absolutely refuse to sell. This may have served him (especially in Japan) but it absolutely did not serve his matches, especially when he was the babyface, which he was a lot of the time. It makes them an absolute chore to watch.

This was different. Maybe it's because of the big scope of the match (and theoretically the big payday). Maybe it's because he was basically there to serve the Fritz (his boss) vs Hart aftermatch and how babyface-dominant that was going to be. Maybe it's because Kabuki is larger than life and not a normal competitor (even though he's significantly smaller than Brody), but Brody sold, a lot, as much as I'd ever seen him. As such, he became less of an impediment and more of a Hogan-type figure, one who could get sympathy from the crowd and build to these big, colossal comebacks. Yes, sure, Brody constantly tried to get shots in and, as such, made Kabuki always work for it, but that's different than always immediately popping up and winning far more than half of the exchanges. He bled. He sold. When it came time for his comeback boots or his huge dropkick that set up the finish, the crowd erupted. It was a big deal because he let it be a big deal.

Kabuki was extremely effective in his role. His cut-off kicks out of nowhere looked great, despite the size difference. They didn't use the cage as a weapon, but he did use it as a prop, allowing him to ropewalk for chops (including the one that Brody bled after) and to help fly off the top. I immediately want to see ten more Kabuki cage matches out of this. If Brody let himself be this wrestler more often, despite whatever he might have thought or what insecurities he might have had, he would have been even more of a star than he was.

The post-match stuff with Fritz and Hart was everything you'd want. They honored the stipulation down to making sure that Hart had to wear his suit jacket for it, and despite attempts at chicanery, Fritz beat the snot out of him and embarrassed him. Everything you'd want, with Fritz' awesome Three Stooges eyepoke to cutoff Hart's attempts at underhanded eye-rakes once and for all the ridiculous cherry on top.

PAS: Really surprised to see Brody work from under for so much of the match. I am used to seeing Brody eat, here he was mostly the meal. Kabuki is great, does such an awesome job of conveying weird mystery, the spinning around, the walking the ropes, the whole package, he isn't a big guy, but you buy him dominating Brody. Loved the big cutoff dropkick by Bruiser, and the couple of killer superkicks by Kabuki. Very satisfying pro-wrestling.

Atlantis/Negro Casas/El Texano vs. Mano Negra/El Brazo/Gran Markus Jr. CMLL 11/10/94

ER: Dang this was great. Look at that rudo team filled with varying degree of chubby boys! And the chubby boys are all total asskickers which means this is flat our guaranteed to rule. Mano Negra was really king scum here, just assaulting the tecnicos with some of the best knees I've seen, throwing nice whipping kicks and short fast punches, really felt like he was always threatening to show up and kick somebody in the legs even when he wasn't in the match. Negra was such a vicious powder keg in this - and I've mostly seen late 90s/early 00s Negra, who I liked - that I really need to see as much younger Negra as possible. His performance in this match made him feel like one of my potential favorite luchadors ever. My favorite moment in the match was when Atlantis finally made his comeback against Negra, and Atlantis is pasting him with shots on the floor, and Negra selling that beating really felt like an all time wrestling moment for me. If we were making a 10 minute compilation of my favorite moments, I think Negra eating those fists gets on. He went through such a great tonal shift during what was a very quick beatdown, starting out standing tall and just crumpling with each shot, until he's not even lying on the floor, just uncomfortably leaned into the ringpost, struggling to somewhat stay on his feet but wanting no more of Atlantis. Usually if you see a wrestler conveying "guy who talked to much shit and immediately regrets it with ever punch his face takes" it has more stooging, more flair, more flourish, but here it just looked like Atlantis finally beat the shit out of him and Negra sat there hoping he wouldn't come back.

Brazo impressed the hell out of me too, really liked him on the mat picking ankles and grabbing wrists, not someone I remember being a guy who I cared about on the mat, and really Brazo was awesome at everything he did here. There was a moment on the apron that I've never seen before, where he's holding up his arm to show the ref that he's not about to cheapshot...and then with his arm held up in the same position he just runs his elbow right into Atlantis' head the second the ref can't see. Brazo always felt like the least Brazo to me, this whole match he was clearly a Brazo worth knowing. Markus is a big ol' chubby boy and threw hard punches and looked like a real wrecking ball every time he was in. This was a flat out excellent rudo team. The tecnicos really just had to show up to get cheered, and they did! Texano kept really impressive pace with fast rope running, Casas always does one thing in every match that only feels like a Casas thing (here I loved him bumping backwards neck first into the bottom rope), and Atlantis got his big fired up tecnico moments. I loved all of this.

MD: This is a pretty crazy technico side. Texano right off of his 61st Anniversario show hair loss to Ricky Santana, Negro Casas, and Atlantis. The first half of this was a rudo showcase though. There's not much better in wrestling than a good rudo beatdown. This was in the two refs era and that distracted a little bit but in general, it flowed exactly how it should have with cheapshots and doubleteams and ring control. Both Brazo and Markus have these great thundering elbow smashes. Casas has all of the charisma of today but three times the physical prowess and he all but flies across the ring when hit. The comeback went from heated to fluid shtick quickly in the best way and I liked the pin out of nowhere because you don't necessarily see that as a match ender all that much.

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New Footage Friday: Flair, Slaughter, Johnny Valentine, OG Kroffat, Roadies, Freebirds

Sgt. Slaughter vs. Ric Flair Pro Wrestling USA 8/16/85

MD: This is a hell of a thing. It's a 30+ minute Slaughter vs Flair match from 85. We had 4-6 minutes of footage before. I don't think this was on anyone's radar as a possibility to be released, but it's a very unique match up. Maybe there's Crockett stuff with them (I started to look through the 82 JCP results but stopped at seeing Flair vs Jerry Blackwell in St. Louis and gave up because I got too frustrated that we don't have that), and there's that one WWF match that made tape, but this ended up feeling really unique. It's not the best match ever but it had a lot to like.

We've all seen hundreds of Flair matches. Narratively, he's such a loose wrestler. He does what he feels is right in the moment and because of who he is and the presence he has, it's almost a feedback loop. What he does in the moment is right because of who he is. He defines what is right and ultimately, so much of it is about the idea of Ric Flair instead of the specific actions of him. I tend to look at wrestling in a very textual way and Flair is a creature of context, of symbolic ideals. You can't break his matches down move for move. Ultimately, he's about no more and no less than constant engagement of the crowd, filling the time in the most compelling way possible, even if it didn't create a greater whole, and for all I'm able to say definitively, I'm not sure I can definitively say that's not the right ideal to shoot for.

Slaughter was larger than life too. As a heel, he was good at grinding down, bumping and stooging. As a face, brawling and selling. You didn't get a lot of the brawling here but the match shined the most when Flair was working over the arm and Sarge was showing the toll. It was probably weakest, past the early headlock spots (the Slaughter armwork that followed was way more compelling), when Sarge was working over the leg. While Flair had a tendency to sell his leg way more than any other body part (and if I had to guess, that's because it's subconsciously what he liked to work over the most or maybe the broadest, most visual thing there was to sell), Slaughter seemed to be struggling with actually putting on the figure four and it made everything a little clunky. The opening feeling out segment was absolutely great, two over the top characters meeting and Slaughter having a lot of fun at Flair's expense. I don't always love Flair playing as vulnerable as he did here for a lot of this, but against an opponent so over the top like Slaughter, it worked. Flair had to use every dirty trick to get an advantage, but once he really dug in with it towards the end, he was vicious and effective and that made Slaughter's comebacks, especially the finish with the out of nowhere with the cobra clutch all the more exciting. The color was saved for the post match with Boris. There were a few creative decisions I didn't entirely agree with, but this was absolutely effective for what it was and it felt like a dredged up dream match, one of those champion vs champion affairs that are never quite as satisfying as they could be but that felt monumental and important.

ER: I think Matt really wrote all that anyone could have wanted on this match, love his thoughts on Flair's match construct, really fascinating analysis and attention to detail, there's not much I'll be able to provide on this match that Matt didn't already. BUT! I liked it. It was one of those big champ vs. champ matches that we all know isn't ending definitively, so you soak up and enjoy it for the charisma of two legends who rarely matched up (including a couple intriguing/unseen Slaughter/Savage vs. Flair/Mountie house show matches I'd love to surface), and dig how great these two look against each other despite seldom crossing paths. I thought they worked the pace really well considering they were going fairly long, and they spaced out a couple of great big bumps to make them feel like an even bigger deal: Slaughter took a big tumbling bump to the floor, and then Flair took two different ones, the second showing him landing on a ton of different objects before hitting the ground; hits the ringside table, falls onto men, hits a chair, thuds to the floor, it's like a great death scene where someone is pulling down curtains and sweeping some China off a table before hitting the floor. My favorite moment was Flair and Slaughter fighting in the corner, Slaughter selling Flair's chops as well as any man, Flair dialing in some of his greatest punches right to the chin, Slaughter recoiling and holding his face, the chops loud enough to literally change the sound pattern of the crowd din that went the whole match. This match was filled with great moments without ever necessarily building to anything extraordinary, and this is okay with me. For a 30+ minute match it certainly didn't feel like it, so it's not something I'm going to nitpick, this felt like it was structured specifically to be enjoyable to this crowd. There's no way someone watching this in the arena wouldn't have been losing their mind. Boris Zhukov runs in and I like the energy of his shots to Slaughter, and then he goes and dumps Slaughter right on his head with a tombstone. Jeeeeez (this set up a really fun singles match between them). So it's a 30+ minute match that ends with a bunch of hunks like Brad Rheingans, interrupting their Chippendale rehearsal to run out in just jeans and boots (seriously, they looked like a male stripper construction worker flash mob), saving their boy. Historically, this is real important, and made for a great Friday afternoon view.

PAS: Every once in a while the network really drops something special. These are two of the biggest stars of the 80s and we never had them matching up before. I didn't love this match, but loved that we got it. This was a Flair match, and while Slaughter delivered some cool stuff, it felt a little like he got shoehorned in a match formula. I really liked Slaughters work with the hammerlock and headlock, and thought it was pretty lame when he started work a figure four. He looked like Disco in that terrible Russo gimmick with print out. I loved Flair's punches to the face and knee drop, and when this turned into a brawl it got special, still I would have rather seen Flair work a Slaughter match then Slaughter working a Flair one.

Road Warriors/Paul Ellering vs. Fabulous Freebirds Pro Wrestling USA 8/16/85

MD: This felt larger than life, another top-of-the-card war. The Roadies were at the height of their power, with every big move shaking the Meadowlands. I'm not sure I've ever actually see them do anything cooler than Animal press slamming Gordy. No one in the crowd even blinked during the attempt. It took too much effort for the Birds to really get over on Ellering. If they combined the attempt at heat with the real thing and didn't give him a pseudo-comeback in the middle, this would have been stronger. The finish was BS but the best sort. Buddy elbowdropping the ref was visually striking. The Birds took the inevitable lost but immediately got their heat back with the huge double back body drop into a powerbomb (in 1985) on Ellering and then the Roadies cleared the ring to end it. New Jersey knew what it liked and it liked the Road Warriors.

PAS: I do love these big main event punch outs. Birds are really great bouncing off the Road Warriors and I loved Gordy as the big dog willing to growl. Ellering is a weird figure in the 80s, as a babyface manager he seemed to exist only to sell so the Roadies didn't have to. The beat down on Ellering was fun and the Warriors hot tag was really explosive, that Animal shoulder block looked like a missile. This kind of made me want to watch some more Warriors matches, sure they aren't going to sell but I appreciate heavyweight wrestling that looks like it hurts.

Kintaro Oki/Michiaki Yoshimura vs. Johnny Valentine/Dan Kroffat JWA 05/29/72

MD: Big thanks to Loss for finding this for us. Valentine is exceptional. He might be the best total package that we have the least amount of footage of. He makes everyone else look shoddy. The way he utilizes leverage and pressure on the simplest holds shows us just how much we take every aspect of pro wrestling for granted and how much more gripping it could be.

This was my first look at the original Kroffat and he reminded me a bit of Wiskowski, both visually and in his ability to marry really sound tag work with dynamic stooging. This was structured with just total control by Valentine/Kroffat for the first fall, long periods of varied grinding holds, quick tags, and drawing a pissed off Yoshimura in. The second fall was lightning quick, just a comeback, a hot tag, headbutts and a finish. Then the last one having a little bit of everything (including Oki pulling off a "Look to the sky/faked you out" spot), before it ended with Valentine pre-creating the Brock vs Orton spot with endless bloody elbowing which either led to a draw or a DQ or who even cares. It was great. I'm pretty sure we should just watch Johnny Valentine matches all the time from now on.

PAS: Johnny Valentine would be my favorite wrestler ever if we had more footage. This wasn't a world class match, but it was another world class performance. Kroffat and Valentine are a fun tag team, Kroffat is a lot more expressive, hitting every move and bump for the last row. Valentine would tag in and start grinding and pounding away. Oki and Yoshimura didn't do a ton to stand out although they were really solid. The finish was awesome though with Valentine pummeling Oki until he started leaking all over the ring, and Oki fired back with great looking gory headbuts. Every Valentine match is a treasure, and this was minor jewel, but a jewel nonetheless.

ER: I obviously agree with the Valentine love here. I love Greg Valentine (not a bold statement), and imagine just how much of a legendary badass Greg had to be just to not be considered a total joke by people who knew Johnny? Greg should be looked at as even more of a total legend just for the giant shoes that he admirably filled. Johnny is so cool and is a rare tough as hell guy who can be beat. He doesn't just gobble up opponents from what we've seen, and his clear toughness always makes it look like his opponent really went through hell to earn a victory. While I don't think the whole of the match made this legendary, the moment he starts raining down on Oki with elbows SHOULD be legendary. That is one of the more unexpected turns into total outright violence that I've ever seen in a match, things going along just fine with headlocks and grounding your opponent until suddenly you are draining your opponent of blood like it was 1850 and Valentine was curing Oki of an infection. Kroffat (or KING KROW as he goes by for some reason) looks like the toughest version of Peter Tork. He was an odd pairing with Valentine, but I liked his sometimes comically expressive bumps and mannerisms. Overall I thought this went too long, felt more like a 50s match than an early 70s match, but I also liked the slow burn due to that insanely rewarding culmination, that moment you really see Oki's head faucet just getting opened up.

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