Found Footage Friday: OKI IN KOREA~! DUK~! HEEL TITO~! TOR~! IDOL~! PATERA~! BRET~! HAKUSHI~!

Kintaro Oki/Kim Duk vs. Dick Blood (Tito Santana)/Tor Kamata Korea 1978

MD: What an amazing find. Oki and Duk as native heroes. Plus we had that one Andre match where Tito and Chavo are his little buddies from 79 but this is some of the only heel Tito footage ever. It goes 40 with all sorts of pomp before and after the match (check out the robe on Oki) and is a fully fleshed out 2/3 falls match.

Tito isn't fully developed yet, but he's a stooging (lots of early headscissors foolery), big bumping (he must go over the top rope hard five times), dropkicking (the big finishing bit is Oki avoiding one of his dropkicks), heatseeking heel, as fiery as we'd expect. There are a couple of fun strike exchanges or flurries, especially in the third fall when he's kicking at Duk's wound leading to a huge comeback moment.

Duk's actually the standout here. Oki's fun on the mat once or twice and when he unleashes the headbutt (first in the corner as Santana was taking liberties, then against Kamata, driving him back on the outside, and finally to take out Tito to build to the finish) the crowd erupts but this is really much more the Duk show. He's super charismatic here, calling Tor into the ring, gesturing to him when he has control of Tito. After Tito won the first fall with a sunset flip in, Tor spends a chunk of the second, keeping him on the floor by knocking him off the apron again and again to the crowd's delight. You don't usually see a babyface king of the mountain bit but it worked here. He even had a football charge from a three point stance.

In the third fall, Tor pulls the pad back and opens him up with it, working over the wound like you'd want him to. When Oki finally gets in after Duk's big comeback shot on Tito, Tor tries to get Oki's head with the post, but he no sells it and takes out Tor which sets up the finish while Duk and Tor are brawling on the outside. This match was full of a lot of the conventions of the time but the roles were reversed and it made for just an amazing bit of lost footage.

Austin Idol vs. Ken Patera Memphis 9/5/83 

MD: This was on the Savoldi network and it's about as far from those Idol vs. Hansen matches as humanly possible. It's still really good but it's conventional as can be. You can shut your eyes and see this match play out for the most part, but the crowd was up the whole time and the performances were good and sometimes pro wrestling just works the way it's supposed to. 

Idol got the fans riled early which upset Patera. It was a contest between him waving them on and Patera posing. For a chunk of it Idol controlled the arm and teased punches to the fans' delight as Patera tried to cheat to get out by pulling the hair, that sort of thing. Patera got over on him and worked the back with a great bearhug. Idol was perfect in it, lilting sideways and appealing to the crowd to support him, appealing to God to look down and bless him, appealing to you, the viewer, decades later. Just a transcendent over the top selling of it.

He fought out but Patera cut him off with a reverse of a whip and a clothesline out of the corner and got on the full nelson. Idol climbed the turnbuckles for a double pin but apparently he got his shoulder up at the last second. Post match, he took out Hart, dodged Patera's jumping knee into the corner and put his leglock on him. Again, delighted crowd. As straightforward as could be and I wouldn't change a thing.

ER: Patera in '83 was such a feast for the eyes. He's constructed like a freak Rob Leifeld drawing; cut, but with incredible mass. You catch him at certain angles and it doesn't seem possible to be that rock solid and have so much space between your belly button and spine. It's incredible. Perhaps more incredible, is that Patera has that body but Idol is the one posing, and the posing is the best. It all happens when Idol holds the ropes on a whip and breaks out all these excellent little kneeling poses and flexes. And I just kept waiting for Patera to wreck him for it. It's a crime that Patera has that body and that power and mostly wrestles like a guy in a mid tier Russian gimmick, all clubbing and axe handling. I need more bearhugs, more presses, more whips with crazy pull strength. I wanted a Patera/Idol match and this felt more like a match that Idol could have had with Don Bass. I dug the way Idol sold Patera's grounded bearhug - I actually wish we got more bearhugging in this - and was excited to see how Idol would sell the full nelson. We didn't get him selling the full nelson, instead we got him doing one of the messiest, loose ropes versions of the Austin/Bret finish (yeah I know this was well before Austin/Bret but it sounds better than describing what happened). His missed knee into the corner, after the match, looked really cool with his size, wild that he used it in a post-match deal. I don't know enough about Patera to know if he's a guy who usually limits his bumping in a match and saves it for after.  

Cage Match: Bret Hart vs. Hakushi WWF 7/25/95

MD: Dark match from a taping. Honestly, I won't lie, I would have rather had Brad vs. Flair which lost the poll to this one. The best part of this was probably Hakushi's entrance in the cage which was moody and will stick with you. The biggest issue overall is that they went to too much selling too soon, before it was earned. Whenever Bret hit the ropes or the corner, there was a big clunking sound from the cage but he wasn't really selling cage shots from it. I'm not sure if he ever went into the cage. Instead, he got the early advantage but both of them crashed into each other in the first minute or two with a double clothesline and they went right into the labored slow attempts to escape for the next ten minutes. They probably should have led with an extra five minutes of action before that double clothesline spot instead?

There were bits I did like down the stretch. There were certain parallels, like Bret missing his second rope elbow drop and then Hakushi instead of leaving the cage, choosing to hit the diving headbutt and wiping out. Bret snuck in the five moves in interesting ways and yeah, sure, there was always the sense that they were trying to win, even if like I noted, the drama didn't quite feel earned. The finish was a superplex where Bret was able to recover first and scoot out and the fans responded to a lot of the big moments but this all felt just a little underwater to me due to that narrative choice early.

ER: I thought this was both really good, and felt unnecessarily long due to the narrative choice Matt pointed out. It's really strange, how much weight they each decided to give a double clothesline. The entire match can be divided into two, uneven parts, by that double clothesline. The single minute before the clotheslines was absolute fire, both men throwing worked strikes so great that the entire match could have been sustained by them. Hakushi throws a throat thrust (one of many, but one in particular) that sounds insanely loud, the crowd reacts to it like death, and Bret crumples from it like a hardened hand of stone had just smashed his trachea. This was a battle. 

Then there was a double clothesline that carried the weight of a thousand bad decisions. And that double clothesline seemed to double as the missing 6-7 minutes of work that led to both men being tired slow climbers the rest of the match. Here's what's important: I thought all of the slow climbing and tired selling was really good. That ring looked like unmoving concrete, and every bump Hakushi took off the ropes onto it was completely unforgiving. There are three different landings - before the insane match ending superplex - that had no give, no bounce, nothing but a man's skeleton absorbing his landing with no bounce. The speed they worked had actual drama, the crowd bit at the cage escapes, and the final 10 minutes of escalation felt right. It also made a 12 minute match feel like 20, instead of a 20 minute match that was missing an important 8 minutes. It's so weird. All of the elements we have are good, nothing is missing, it just feels incomplete and also too long as is. Bret's bumps into the buckles looked damaging as ever, and the superplex is something that I literally don't understand. I don't see how it's possible to be doing bumps like that when they "don't count". You watch that ring. It does not budge. Hakushi came off the literal top of the cage, suplexed onto a sidewalk, for a match that was never supposed to air, and is still wrestling 30 years later instead of in a chair. And I guess it's bizarre to me that, in a match that went on to have several high end skeleton-eroding bumps that should have naturally led to slow down, they paid so much more lip service to a double clothesline. 

 

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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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