Richard Charland: Most Nondescript Wrestler Ever!?

I saw a post on Twitter a couple of months ago from Rob Naylor, calling Richard Charland "the most nondescript wrestler", and I was intrigued because I had never heard of Richard Charland. Or, it's possible that I had heard of him, and had seen him multiple times, because perhaps he was so nondescript that I had forgotten about him multiple times over. Well, no more. I'm going to increase the digital footprint of one Richard Charland, who has also gone by the name Garth Vader, which is such an incontestably great and stupid gimmick name that it may disprove Naylor's claim before any footage is even watched. Imagine Big Van Vader dressed up like Garth from Wayne's World! Before now, I never have, and never would have. But because of Richard Charland I can't stop thinking of Vader in a huge Aerosmith shirt, flannel, and big black glasses. Richard Charland has already brought untold joy into my life before ever seeing one second of his wrestling footage, so I am now afraid I am so biased and in the "I will die for Garth Vader" camp that I won't fairly and accurately judge these cherry picked Charland matches. But I will try. 

Richard Charland/King Tonga vs. Jacques & Raymond Rougeau Montreal 6/13/85

ER: This was more angle than match, as Tonga is eventually jumped by Butch Reed and Charland aids Reed in the attack! But he looks fine up until the attack. His tandem dropkick with Tonga looks good, he takes a great backdrop bump, I loved him committing to his missed standing splash that allows Jacques to hot tag Raymond, and I loved him desperately leaping for Jacques a split second too late to stop the tag. There were only a couple minutes to judge, but he seemed like an interesting wrestler in those couple minutes. I'm giving Charland the point in this one.

Richard Charland/Eric Embry vs. The Fantastics AJPW 8/18/90

ER: I really love All Japan matches from the 80s and 90s featuring gaijin who went on only one or two All Japan tours. You get a fun mix of WWF job guys, or guys who just knew guys, and it adds another dimension to their work. And Charland is more interesting than many of them for the fact that he was not on the winning side of ANY of his All Japan matches. It is fairly common practice to give a gaijin a win on their first night of the tour, even if they're only going to be the guy taking a fall in six mans the rest of the tour. Richard Charland took the pin in every All Japan match he worked, and got pinned in a singles match by Haruka Eigen to end the tour. Eigen was not a guy who was winning a ton of singles matches in 1990. He traded wins with Mark Scarpa and Goro Tsurumi, and beat Richard Charland. He lost 3 times to Rusher Kimura. Richard Charland may have had the losingest All Japan tour of the 90s. And this feels important. Richard Charland was Christian Laettner at every Dream Team practice. Charland's squad was going to lose just by virtue of having Richard Charland on it. Now, it should be noted that this is also Eric Embry's only All Japan tour, and while he was also on the losing side of almost all of his matches, he did pull a draw with Isamu Teranishi, and I assume he would have had the opportunity for other tours if it weren't for his accident.

This is joined way in progress, and we only get the final 4 minute stretch, but it is a great final 4 minute stretch. The Fantastics came off like a tiny Kroffat/Furnas, with both impressing the hell out of me with their stiffness and aggression. It's a tight 4 minutes, starting with a cool rope running section where Charland ducks out of the way of a flying Fulton, and Fulton immediately returns the favor ducking away from Charland, leaving him uncomfortably on the top rope. Fulton and Rogers came off almost mean here, and were seriously working like a tiny muscled up Can Ams, which is great! Rogers hits a heavy Samoan drop and a really great powerslam that made him look like a mini Dr. Death. Embry is awesome here, giving us a glimpse of exactly what it would have looked like had Dutch Mantel did some early 90s AJ tours, bringing that brawling element and just planting Fulton with a sick piledriver. Fulton was mad in this one though. I'm not always a Fantastics guy, but now I want to see all of the Fantastics in AJ. Fulton is throwing great punches and even flies off the apron with a knee. The Fans' short legs work to their advantage, as they get no hang time so every time they leave their feet for a move it feels like it's landing faster and heavier, like Fulton cannonballing Rogers with on arc, just flipping him straight down. Fulton's kneedrop/Roger's splash is a cool combo hit well. The Fantastics kind of owned this 4 minute stretch, and Embry outclassed Charland, but Charland looked like a guy who belonged and could have managed just fine in All Japan. I wish we had the full match. 

Richard Charland/Eric Embry vs. Dan Kroffat/Doug Furnas AJPW 8/21/90

ER: This was JIP just like the Fantastics match, but had some great moments, including an absolute holy shit spot. The Fantastics match was hotly sequenced and made the Fans look like mini Steiners; this doesn't seem as tight, and the layout was a little more "guys doing things until the end happens" without the same build. That's not an uncommon early 90s All Japan tag structure. And I liked watching these guys do stuff, so I liked this match. Furnas hit two really big "couldn't stop them if you tried" suplexes including an Albrightesque belly to belly, and the Can Ams don't seem to be treating these two as very credible threats, even though Embry has a singlet that perfectly matches the red/blue AJ ring, and Embry brings the south to Japan by lowering BOTH STRAPS. But this JIP tag was all about one spot, and my god what a spot it was. I have no idea why Kroffat even agreed to take it. Charland plants Kroffat on the top rope and tags in Embry, and Embry climbs up to the middle buckle, his back to the ring. He's fiddling around with positioning, Charland is holding him steady...and Embry jumps backwards into the ring with a classic piledriver, off the middle rope. We've seen more flipping piledrivers than we ever needed to, but I honestly don't know if I've seen a classic piledriver delivered this way. It looked insane. Picture how great Lawler's standing piledriver looks, the way he kicks his legs forward to land in a perfect seated position...and now picture him doing the same thing off the middle rope. But it does not win the match. Obviously. It was performed by a man teaming with Richard Charland. But at least Furnas broke up the pin instead of Kroffat kicking out of THAT piledriver. Charland eventually takes the L by eating a big Doug Furnas powerslam off the middle rope, but I would have taken that powerslam 10 times out of 10 over that piledriver. 

Richard Charland vs. Demolition Ax NEWF 9/27/91

ER: Now this will be a true test of Charland. Teaming with a cool wrestler against other cool wrestlers in the coolest fed of the 90s is going to produce some fun matches. But this is Charland working a newly mostly retired star on a Vermont indy show. And there are a few things that you could say certainly prove the thesis we set out to determine, and one is that the commentator for this match doesn't know who Richard Charland is, and he even says "I don't know who this guy is". That's bad. The screen graphic then states it is Demolition Ax vs. Richard "The Magnificent" Sharlan. The commentator misses the (misspelled) name and from that point on refers to him as "Richard the Magnificent One". And look, I've enjoyed my little dip into Richard Charland, but he's not a guy who is magnificent, at least not how the term is commonly used in wrestling to describe pretty and/or egotistical heels. But he is now Richard the Magnificent One. And to add to Richard Charland's problems, he's literally chased into the ring by a giant lumberjack holding a giant axe. It's Paul Bunyan, who was a legitimate giant that worked one New Japan tour (teaming mostly with Ax) as "Canadian Giant". 

But I dug Charland here. He was a stalling stooge, a guy who got clubbed in the neck every time he got close to Ax, so he would bail to the floor, beg off, toss a microphone, and then get in close and get clubbed all over again. When he took over he did it by cheating, a lot of choking Ax with a ring mic cord, and Ax was always a guy who put over a choking really well because everything about him read like a guy who wasn't getting proper blood flow to his heart. Charland even blasts him with a great kick from the apron, and the pan back reveals this to be a very well attended Vermont indy show. When Ax fires back Charland gets thrown nicely several times into a ringside table, and eats a great clothesline. I love how quickly Charland went down, and I love how low swinging and blunt Ax's clothesline was. Ax even goes to the middle rope for a crossbody. After losing, Charland refuses to leave the ring, claiming it was only a two count. He starts appealing to individual fans and it's hilarious. He points out people, holds up two fingers, points to another guy, nods and points at him like "yeah this guy is with me!", gets down on the mat and does a slow 2 count followed by a slow "safe" sign like it was a play at the plate, and call me crazy but all this reads even better because of his full motorcycle cop mustache.


ER: So what did any of this prove? Is Richard Charland the Most Nondescript Wrestler EVER? He's got a mustache that makes him look like Liam O'Brien opted to get into wrestling instead of forming a bowling team with Jesus Quintana, and he was a non-zero part of these four very fun and different matches. He worked a fun 10 minute match around punches kicks and chokes with an aging star, and it ruled.

So...if Richard Charland ISN'T the most nondescript wrestler ever...who is?


It's Ted Dibiase Jr.


Obviously.

Read more!

New Footage Friday: Jake the Snake, King Tonga, Piper, Dick Slater, Inoue, Steamboat

Mighty Inoue/Ashura Hara vs. Dick Slater/Ricky Steamboat AJPW 5/14/82

PAS: What a nifty match. Steamboat and Slater were working as a workrate heel team, dominating the natives with hit and run offense,  which is one of the only times I can remember Steamer working heel  The late Dirty Dick was an offensive juggernaut he had this great amateur scramble with Hara and lands some nasty jabs and knees to the throat and a dope piledriver. Inoue had a great series of rolling sentons, but this was mostly the native team fighting from underneath. So weird to see Steamboat hit his big crossbody as a heel double team, there is an alternative universe where Steamboat/Slater was the Midnight Express as opposed to a random one off team on an All Japan tour.

MD:It's hard to understate just how much we have to watch right now. We're looking at dozens of matches virtually unseen by the eyes of the community over multiple years of AJPW TV as well as handhelds and whatever else pops up. Just on what we have available to us in this moment, we could probably run this feature for six months or longer. That said, when Dick Slater dies, you probably should watch a Dick Slater match.

He gets a rap for being a Terry Funk clone/tribute act, but if you're going to be a tribute act for someone, you could do a lot worse. As a kid, I first encountered him as one of the Hardliners, with Murdoch, and while both guys were past their prime and while the act was short lived, they left a mark on me and probably set the stage for my enjoyment, later in life, of that sort of mean, gritty meat and potatoes heel tag team that would just credibly beat babyfaces up. Later on, I encountered him as heel ace while Flair was away being champ in 84 Crockett or attached to Dark Journey as a heatseeker in Mid-South or as a wild babyface in Southwest/Houston and that's not to begin on the stuff we don't have much of his like his big runs in Florida or his reportedly excellent team with Orton. He's a guy I really like and that I'm always glad to get more footage of.

This is just a straightforward, well worked, tag with a bit more substance/narrative than you often get from this setting. It might be the best I've seen Steamboat look in one of these random AJPW matches and maybe the closest to a heel I've ever seen him look. After the initial workrate-heavy (and very good) back and forth, it settles in with long stretches of dueling legwork, well-executed, and Slater and Steamboat working well together as a heel unit. Steamboat doesn't do anything outright dirty, but he's focused and unrelenting with just a hint of flash. It's a trip to see him breaking out a tandem elbow drop or atomic drop with Slater.

TKG: Aw man, I dug this a bunch. I am a big fan of Slater as WCW 89-97 rudo who you can just stick in anything and he’ll make it work, and that’s what this felt like. We need some scientific wrestling with Steamboat on one side and Inoue, Hara on other…get Slater and let him take over body of this. This is some fun scientific wrestling here and a neat Dick Slater showcase. I think my favorite section of this match was the early mat work where Inoue/Hara are working over Slater’s leg. Slater is just super active as a guy getting body part worked over, constantly looking for escapes, ways to break hold, ways to reverse etc.

Brett Sawyer vs. Jake Roberts GCW 10/23/83

MD: We watch footage. That's how we get at wrestling. That's how we understand it. Footage is our language. Most of the time, that's a blessing. When it comes to conventional wisdom and remembered narratives, sometimes it's a curse. It's disheartening to watch Ray Stevens matches and not see evidence of what everyone said made him special. It's downright aggravating to see Brody's offense look terrible time and time again. Then there's Jake. Jake Roberts, the self-professed master of psychology, the grand manipulater of the crowd. If you watch a hundred Jake matches, more often than not, it's either not there, or it's there to no great purpose. If it's there at all, it's there, instead, to replace greatness, as a lazy crutch to make it through the match, one that might bring a crowd up and down a bit, but never too up and never too down and never, ever all the way over the top.

Here, in the midst of one of the most legendary nights at the Omni, buried in the middle of a card that they had to structure somewhat carefully to leave the crowd with something left for the big main events, here against Brett Sawyer of all people, we get to see the Jake we were always promised and frankly, it's glorious.

Sawyer came in with a taped up leg, but despite giving up size to Jake, took the early part of the match. That is until Jake caught his leg in the ropes and starts in on it. After that he's just unyielding, attacking it from every angle, utilizing the full breadth of his tall, lanky frame to dive onto it for the sake of the last row, preying upon the weakness to bust Sawyer open, using dirty tactics like tying him back up in the ropes or hitting chop blocks from behind even when he didn't have to, and soaking in the rising tide of boos from the crowd. He oscillated between tearing it apart and letting everything sink in, slinking around the ring as Sawyer writhed. There was a palatable anticipation in the crowd for Sawyer to maybe make it back up in those moments and downright outrage when Jake rushed back in. Buzz came out as did your elder statesmen babyfaces in the form of Ole and Wrestling 2, making this seem downright momentous.

In the end, after the towel came flying in, Jake was escorted out by four police officers, and even then, I think the only things that halted a riot were the promise of the main events to come and the hope that sooner than later, Buzz was going to get his hands on Jake to avenge his little brother. It's everything we were always promised, finally.

PAS: It is pretty crazy on the night of Buzz Sawyers most legendary match, that Brett Wayne had the better match. This was masterful stuff by Jake, such a sleazy cheapshot artist abusing a poor babyface. From the moment he points to the knee brace, you could tell he was going to unleash some violence. I loved the early knuckle lock section where Jake kept climbing to the first turnbuckle to gain leverage, and even put his knee on Brett's shoulder. I also loved all of the knee work, it felt less like a scientific wrestler working on a limb for a submission, and more like a sadistic child torturing an animal. Roberts slinking around and chop blocking the knee, kicking Sawyer, lifting him up by the knee (which led to a great spot where Sawyer climbed up his body to land a big punch). Sawyer really leaks all over the ring too, and it brings out the council of elders 2, Ole and Buzz to eventually throw in the towel and save this kids career, as Jake just starts punching at the knee and staring down the crowd and the babyfaces. Bizarrely they didn't run Roberts vs. Buzz in the Omni after this, because this was one of the best set ups I can remember seeing.

TKG: I don't know man. I always like Brett Wayne Sawyer, and normally dig Jake egging on crowd. And liked some of the little moments like when bleeding Sawyer firing himself up by shaking fists and slapping mat and Jake cuts it off by stomping on his mat slapping hand. And loved the big Ole, II, and Buzz stuff ringside. Ole wanting to prevent Buzz from getting involved while interjecting himself and trying to fire up Brett was cool, but didn't do a ton for me

It felt like it just stayed at one level of intensity for 15 minutes, never felt like I wanted it to go from Jackass taunting audience and attacking leg to jackass challenging audience and trying to break leg...it went from jackass attacking leg and egging on audience to him continuing to do it until match ends

Roddy Piper/Cowboy Bob Orton vs. King Tonga/Superfly Afi WWF early 1986

MD: There was a moment right at the start here when I saw the paltry, somewhat disinterested crowd and all those empty seats, when I realized it was 1986 and not 1984, when I saw the two teams standing in the ring, seemingly calm, that I thought they might just phone it in. What gain was there to give this crowd, in this setting, anything but chinlocks? Yeah, it was Piper and Haku and Orton, but I had my doubts. No one's ever talked about this match, or even really this tour. There's not much evidence of it anywhere.

So, I was wrong. Very wrong. Piper saw this as a canvas full of possibilities and gave a performance that reminded me of Terry Funk in Puerto Rico as much as anything else. Some wrestlers see empty seats as an opportunity to have a night out. Piper saw them as hundreds of weapons with plenty of space for them to be thrown. It became less of a match and more of an open world battle, down to Haku chasing Piper across a field to tackle him.

Eventually, it more or less settled into a normal match with the heels getting heat and the crowd slowly but surely figuring out how to react, but even then there's the ever-present possibility that Piper was going to run off into the field at any moment. He'd settled down a little since 84 but really only a little. My biggest regret with this one was that the camera didn't stay on him all the time. Orton's great but it's the manic unpredictability that you can't look away from. When I watched this, it only had about 130 views and it still has less than 200 as of this writing. Go watch this now and boost that number. You'll thank us.

TKG: Was this good enough to have made the WWF 80s set? It’s not as good as any JAPW or Puerto Rico arena tour match but it is a fun arena tour match. And doesn’t have the inexplicable heat of the Spoiler v Rocky Johnson match from the same Kuwait tour, but this is so much more entertianing. The arena tour stuff is fun as all the attached chairs seem super awkward as they got tossed around and I dug big chunks of the in-ring stuff. Was this a smaller ring than they normally use? Really felt like the heels could hit a top rope knee drop to anywhere in the ring. I dug all the top rope knee drops to cut off faces. I think there were three or four. People complain about big finishing moves getting used in body of matches, but fuck those people. The Sivi Afi eating death finisher also looked as nasty as you wanted it to.

PAS: On the eve of one gulf state stadium show we get a look at an earlier version. There have to be max 150 people at this show, and for some reason Piper/Orton and the Tongans go completely crazy, I can't remember any 80s WWF match being worked like this, as it was closer to a Memphis arena brawl then anything else. They immediately spill into the crowd and guys in thobes are fleeing as the wrestlers are stumbling through the crowd hurling chairs at each other violently.  Piper and King Tonga was especially great with Tonga open field rugby tackling Piper in the soccer stadium grass and whaling punches at him. Afi some how ends up busted open and is really bleeding badly, and one point he is trapped under a table as Piper tries to crush his chest. Both heels take some athletic bumps, and Piper does his awesome blinded shadowboxing. Totally off the wall match, which would have been legendary if it was on a Saturday Night's Main Event instead of in front of two dozen Kuwaiti shieks.

ER: I had no idea WWF did a Kuwait tour in 1986, though I found an LA Times article from that year talking about how Hulk Hogan's single was popular in Kuwait. I always love wrestling matches held in unfamiliar areas, wrestling fans arranged around a ring differently than you're used to, and most importantly a crowd filled with people who don't seem like they typically go to wrestling shows. I have zero clue what the Kuwait wrestling scene was like in 1986, and it's not too much of a stretch to picture Piper and Orton talking backstage before the match and saying "Let's put on a show for these guys in dresses." And almost immediately the match spills into the crowd and the people in the crowd respond as if they have zero idea how to handle what is happening. People are scrambling to get out of the way, Orton takes a flying bump over the guardrail, all the chairs in the crowd look like every single person just brought their own chairs from their kitchen, Orton jams a chair into Afi's groin, Piper runs from Tonga and gets tackled from behind at the knees like a fleeing perp, there's a good chance the commentator thinks Afi is actually Superfly Snuka (which could help us timestamp this match more to the first 3 months of 1986, as the Superfly nickname certainly didn't last long, and Piper was gone after Mania and came back months later as a babyface feuding with Orton), chairs get thrown and there's a genuine sense of confusion and chaos among the crowd. Nobody has identifiable Event Staff gear, so there are some random guys just running up to the action, really could have been any old psycho. In ring there's some classic ring cutting off, Orton especially is awesome doing false tag claps and actively talking trash to ringside fans. We spill out to the floor again, Piper upends a table and throws it on Afi, stomping on it. Fans genuinely seem unsure how to react to any of this. When we get back in the ring we get a great spot where Orton and Piper cheat enough to make Tonga get in the ring, and as the ref orders him back out Tonga gets rushed and knocked off the apron, taking an absolutely nasty bump, falling backwards while getting his foot caught in the bottom rope and lands right on the back of his head. The ref checks on him while a double team front suplex easily finishes off Afi. Phil is totally right that none of this at all felt like a WWF tag match from this era or the next couple eras. Do we have any info on what else was on this show (other than the Rocky Johnson match that also showed up)? Do we have any information at all on why WWF ran Kuwait in 1986? Hogan popularity? Sold show? Fascinating discovery.

Read more!

WWF 24/7 BOSTON GARDEN THOUGHTS

Boston Garden 6/27/86

Les Thornton/Tiger Chung Lee v. Danny Spivey/Mike Rotundo

I grew up on WWF Superstars, where guys like Lee and Thornton got beat in five minutes, it is fun to see them work a long competitive match. The Thornton v. Rotundo sections of this match were really great, the Chung Lee v. Spivey parts of the match, not so much. 1986 Spivey really stunk, and Chung Lee had a couple of amusing comedy bumps, but not much else. Thornton was super, he had a cool mat section with Rotundo, nice European uppercuts, nasty knees etc. I am really digging a lot of the WWF enhancement guys. Thornton was no Bobby Bass but he was pretty great.

Handsome Harley Race v. Tony Atlas

Tony Atlas was always really bad, and by 1986 he was way past his prime, but Harley Race is a guy who worked as a touring NWA champion. He knows how to work a fun match around a useless black babyface working a hard headed ethnic gimmick. You have to figure Harley probably had multiple 60 minute matches with Rufus R. Jones and he can pretty much graft that match structure on this match. Race has a lot of different "I am headbutting a black guy" spots, the initial headbutt which establishes the thick skull, various revenge spots from Atlas, and then an almost Fujiwaraish headbutt to the jaw which circumvents the think black skull. For a match that wasn't very good, this was pretty good.

King Tonga v. Duke of Dorchester Pete Doherty

This was a little disappointing. The Duke is really not a high end WWF 80's WIMPY. Tonga is really athletic at this point, but the match wasn't much. They worked the match around Tonga's thick skull, in the match right after they worked Atlas with the same gimmick, all that was in addition to the JYD match in the semi-main. Who was the road agent for these shows Orval Faubus?

Pedro Morales v. Moondog Spike

I was excited for the chance to see the Moondogs work in separate singles enhancement matches. Still 80's Pedro Morales is rough. I did enjoy the finish which was Moondog Spike and Pedro Morales working a two count roll up sequence. I almost expected them to do stereo kip-ups and a pose to crowd applause.

Jake Roberts v. Ricky Steamboat

There were two of these on the WWF 80's set, and this was better than the Toronto match but not as good as the other Boston Garden one. This was worked as a brawl with Steamboat breaking out all of his illegal karate, and Roberts bumping around more then I remember him doing. There was some great sneaky Roberts, although he was on defense for the majority of the match. He really is great at the little things. There is a spot where he can't get his snake bag open, because of his sweaty hands, he just kept getting more desperate and it was a great way for Steamboat to get back on offense. Every time I see WWF Steamboat I am shocked at how roided he was, in the Wellness WWF he would be booked like Bobby Lashley. The match ends with a count out, and Roberts totally splits his head open in the post match, which was weird to see on an house show.

Hulk Hogan v. Randy Savage

This was your standard match between these two guys. Savage bumps all around the ring for Hogan's crappy looking offense, Randy gets a couple of offensive moves before hitting his top rope elbow which Hogan completely no-sells. Then Hogan hulks up and squashes him. No wonder Macho Man wants to stab Hogan today.

Moondog Rex v. Billy Jack Haynes

Yikes, WWF Moondogs are not Memphis Moondogs. Billy Jack really blows, he kept throwing these godawful dropkicks, over and over again. For a guy who was working a strongman gimmick he was clearly less roided than Steamboat.

King Kong Bundy v. Junkyard Dog

This was shockingly great, maybe the best JYD singles match I have ever seen. JYD has really nice pacing in all of his matches, but his big flaw is that he is a punch, kick, headbutt wrestler with shitty looking punches, kicks and headbutts. They all looked great here though, Bundy must have been leaning in to them. There was a bunch of cool punch exchanges, and Bundy doing sneaky shots with the chain. There was a great fight over the chain which JYD won by landing a really great looking headbutt. JYD actually had a giant encephalitic head, when you add that to his being Black, you really bought him having headbutts stronger then anyone else's, it must have been like getting hit with a frozen turkey.

Don Muraco v. Paul Orndorff

This was as boring as Don Muraco v. Paul Orndorff. I think I fell asleep four times in an eleven minute match, and I was watching in fast forward. I can't believe anyone ever liked either guy

Read more!