Found Footage Friday: MAEDA~! MURDOCH~! BLEARS~! ROMERO~! KOX~! DANCIN' DICK~!

Dancing Dick Nelson vs. Herb Gerwig (Killer Karl Kox) Buffalo Late 1950s

MD: Another upload from the family of Killer Karl Kox. This was before he had the gimmick. He was the straight man here to the Dancing Polar Bear from Lansing Michigan, Dick Nelson. Nelson had a bit of Rikki Starr in him, but maybe by way of an elk's lodge. He had musical notes on his jacket and just didn't stop, a constant blur of motion as he boogied to a song only in his own head. He was still a scrapper however. They clashed before the bell and Gerwig went right over, the victim of a monkey flip. He took a powder and Nelson kept on dancing.

Gerwig played the straight man here, feeding as much as anything else. Nelson was a scrapper. We saw a couple of colorful bumps and some stooging from Gerwig but he wasn't fully formed yet. He was there to be Nelson's dance partner, which meant eating his share of monkey flips until he managed to take over with some 60+ year old hide the object. Until he ate yet another monkey flip and it was all over.

ER: How gigantic was this ring to make Karl Kox - erm, Herb Gerwig - look like a normal size, or even small, man? A normal size man who somehow doesn't throw a punch, and is only there to be upset by Dancin Dick, a man wearing a homemade sweater with musical notes on it. Dancin Dick also has this weird compulsion to constantly smooth his hair forward and touch his face. He's like a one man 3 Stooges, just constantly slapping his hair forward and, as commentary says, "being realll herky jerky in there". Gerwig is really good at feeding for him, playing into all the shtick. He takes a pre-bell monkey flip right on his butt, there's a great spot where he catches one of Dick's kicks and does a slick single leg takedown only to get upset when Dick crawls through his legs. There's a complicated spot where Nelson holds Gerwig's legs spread and starts mule kicking every time Gerwig tries to sit up, and Gerwig could not have fed for it better. This was not really a "full" match as Nelson got the pin by kind of just lying down on Gerwig (and Gerwig's hidden weapon raking across Nelson's eyes never went anywhere once it stopped) and you wouldn't really have been able to tell what kind of wrestler Karl Kox was going to become, but I'm loving these early career looks at the legend. 

Lord James Blears vs. Enrique Romero (NAWA Long Beach, CA, 03/10/1961)

MD: This was mostly a friendly contest even if Blears had a number of "sharp tricks." You get the sense that he had been reviled at some point but was just a wrestler with affectations now, including the monocle he took off before the match. Romero (Who I assume is a young Ricky Romero) had the athleticism advantage but Blears would sneak a kick around and into his back or tap on said back in order to trick him into breaking the hold, that sort of thing. Blears also had this great way putting on various leglocks or deathlocks but then building to a teeter totter fall. 

It got a little chippy after Blears hit one two many of those sneak around kicks including a huge clubber to the back by Romero but for the most part it was them working in and out of holds. That included a great rolling arm scissors by Blears and both men trading arm pullers. Blears had a great cut off where he kicked the back of Romero's head and then a nice bridging flip over to escape Romero's later on. This built to a nasty drop toehold into a leg stretch by Blears but Romero escaped and hit a shoulder tackle only for the bell to ring as the time limit expired. Fun stuff though it did seem like Blears was leading for the most part.

Akira Maeda vs. Dick Murdoch NJPW 5/17/86

MD:  If you're keeping track, we already had a June 1986 Maeda vs. Murdoch match that was part of the IWGP League and set up a Murdoch vs. Inoki final with a count out (can't have Inoki vs. Maeda in a tournament final because one of them would have had to lose after all). This was a month earlier with lower stakes, and it felt a little like a UWF match instead. 

Maeda spent a lot of it targeting the arm while Murdoch just tried to contain him and stretch him however he could. They worked a headlock right back into a hammerlock quite a bit which was the sort of stooging that Murdoch could still make work within this setting. Murdoch sold it throughout in large and small ways. Whenever Maeda tried to escalate to kicks, Murdoch shut him down, first by fighting out of the corner and pressing his head back over the top rope to elbow him in the nose and then later, after a great spin wheel kick to the face, by just biting his nose. It had highs and lows, escalating to suplexes and charges into the corner, and then ultimately, to the two of them spilling out so it could get thrown out. Pretty amazing performance to show Murdoch's versatility (which we know from the first two thirds of the Kox match, but...). He could do all the things we know him for but he could do this as well.

ER: I thought this was really excellent and provides some really impressive context for Murdoch. The next night he has one of the best matches of his career against Inoki, a grueling 30 minute match that might have been Inoki's best match of the decade. It is Dick Murdoch working essentially shootstyle, a look at Murdoch in UWF that we cruelly never got to see, and you will be shocked at how proficient he is. Well, maybe not shocked, because anyone reading this is already going to know that Murdoch is great at wrestling, but it's kind of amazing to see how well he works against a real shooter, how he responds to all kinds of kicks, how he handles takedowns, and how he doesn't shy away from any of it. It is not overt Shootstyle Murdoch, but he doesn't wrestle this like a typical Dick match. For an almost 20 minute match he does not use many punches, saving them for moments where they really stand out. When Maeda backs him into the corner with kicks - hard kicks, Murdoch absorbing them with his arm and body - that's when he comes out of the corner landing a couple. 

This was never a punch out in any way, but when Murdoch threw any of his few punches it was always in a way that made you go "oh yeah this could go that way at any time". I love how he sells Maeda's big dropkick, running face first into it and dropping to his knees, holding his face. That's a style. Murdoch wrestles with style that is unmistakably his own. This handheld could have been barely visible and I would have instantly recognized the way his butt and legs look during a north-south headlock. Nobody can work Murdoch's style. Our styles are too homogeneous now. The wrestlers who all wrestle the same all look to those who wrestle like them to further themselves wrestling like themselves. But then Murdoch punches Maeda and briefly holds him still so he can hit his own - impressive and ugly - heavy dropkick to knock Maeda to the floor. I don't know how exactly Murdoch was deemed the winner - they were both outside the ring when the bell sounded - but that's not important. This is an essential match in the story of Dick. 

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Found Footage Friday: MORE PARK IN PANAMA~! LORD JAMES BLEARS~! GORILLA MARCONI~! SMOTHERS~! SABU~!

Jan Blears/Frank Marconi vs. Sandor Kovacs/Harry Finkelstein Wilmington, DE 3/20/47

MD: We get around 7 minutes of this and it's with some sound effects and jokey commentary but it's also the earliest Lord Blears we have, a pretty good look at Kovacs and Finkelstein knocking Marconi around the ring, and a shoulder tackle heavy comeback by (Gorilla) Marconi. Kovacs hit pretty hard and Marconi took a nice bump to the floor (preceded by one heel warning the other with a tap on the back). Probably the biggest thing to see here, however, was Blears dropkicking everyone and throwing spin kicks (the Negro Casas variation). He went a bit overboard with it, and the finish was his hair getting pulled mid-air by one of the heels as he was dropkicking the other causing him to take a pretty nasty bump. Someone should steal that. They bumbled around a bit before the pin but it was pretty believable as a match-ender relative to everything else that was happening. I picture him as the old guy announcing things in Japan or chummily commentating in Hawaii so it was striking to see him quite this young.

ER: Is this just the beginning of Matt deep diving into Delaware Catch? Delaware is possibly the state in the union I think the least about (Rhode Island? Mississippi? Montana?), and I couldn't even tell you if there is or was any kind of wrestling scene there. Hogan never worked there. Flair never worked there. WWF skipped out on Delware during the Hogan years and came back when business was dry, so the people of Delaware at least got to see most of the one month Buddy Landel 1995 WWF run, or an Ahmed Johnson/1-2-3 Kid dark match that I would want to see. I wonder how much crossover attendance this match from 1947 had with Scott Putski vs. Leif Cassidy 50 years later. Some poor man in his 70s telling someone, "I was here when James Blears threw some pretty great dropkicks." Marconi had a couple of cool Delaware Catch bumps, including one charging through the ropes to the floor, and an even cooler one where he does a kind of trust fall from the apron into the front row. The closing segment between Blears and Kovacs had some real stiff uppercuts (as well as some atrocious Foley work SFX, just pots and pans clanking whenever anyone made contact) and I loved how all of Blears' dropkicks played into the finish. He just kept throwing them, low, horizontal, feet pumped directly out in front of him, and just as I thought "man he's thrown like 9 of these straight, they're gonna catch on here", Finkelstein blocked one by grabbing his hair mid-flight and yanking him to the mat. Kick ass. 

Principe Island I (LA Park) vs. Principe Island II (Super Parka) 1988 Panama   Pt. 2

MD: Park (PI 1) was the champion here. This is after the mask match with Sandokan. His uncle, billed as his brother (we'll call him PI 2), had just lost his mask and had shaken hands with his opponent after the fact, angering PI 1. He's become a tecnico accordingly and his challenging his former partner here, now representing Panama. They start this out with some really basic and rudimentary holds: headlocks, wristlocks,etc., and I just get it through my head that PI 1/Park is still early in his career and obviously he'd trained with PI 2, so things would stay simple but well-worked and full of basic struggle. Not a bad thing at all.

That's not at all what happens though. Things escalate and escalate and escalate until midway through the primera, PI 1 hoists his uncle up on his shoulder and hits sort of a fall away FU out of a fireman's carry. Park had all of his physical charisma and as much agility as he'd ever have in his career and they were moving on to handsprings and bounding springboard armdrags off the ropes. Park was more than happy to tumble head over heels into the ropes or through the ropes. All of this builds to an amazing finish with PI 2 hitting quebradoras to rousing applause from the crowd, and finally launching himself through the ropes with a tope which Park ducks, leading to a mindblowing sunset flip onto the floor and the countout. Really just an amazing primera.

The segunda started with a bunch of cutesy mirrored stuff where the idea was that they knew each other so well, and quickly moved along to Park using all of the tricked out submissions that they had kept in their holsters in the primera. This built as well, crescendoing to Park diving through the ropes with a huge midair flip and the countout fall.

Then for the tercera they went right into one pin attempt after another. I'm not going to say it was all smooth, but there was plenty of technique and imagination. Very back and forth and with the idea that it could probably end at any moment. Park hit a flying hammer. PI 2 dropped him with a sit out powerbomb. It all built to two huge (if conventional relative to what came before) dives, a nearfall I bought with Park's spinning back kick (as he had used it to win a fall against Sandokan previously) and a very slick switch into a Gory Special for the win. It felt like two guys who knew each other very well, with big ideas, a black canvas, and no reason not to put it all out there. I'm not sure there's any 80s lucha title match on tape quite like it.

ER: We have been posting newly unearthed unseen wrestling footage every Friday for 5 years now, and it still amazes me how much high quality is appearing on such a consistent basis. We are truly living in golden times. As much stuff as we've written about, it's all still exciting, and this footage of LA Parka working Panama is the earliest Park we've written about. It's an incredible find, illuminating a peak even longer than Park diehards have realized. This is a long, exhausting title match that was grueling in the way that family feuds can be, evidence of the kind of inspired brilliance Park has brought across 5 decades. This had big longform drama, 30 or more pinfall attempts, tons of bumps into a firm ring and even bigger bumps to the floor, huge dives, inventive roll-ups, just a real ahead of its time find. A lot of the exchanges felt so modern, some impressive body control from a guy who looked like a lanky punk and another guy with incredible John Oates Private Eyes hair. 

LA Park has to be considered one of the greatest bumpers in wrestling history. His bumping here in his mid-20s is as big as our biggest bumping luchadors. His Jerry bump is as high as Jerry's, he hits the turnbuckles so hard on a whip that the crowd clearly thought he broke the ring, and he had a bump backwards through the ropes on a kickout that's a great example of him using a bump to surprise the viewer. He was bumping this well in 1989, and in 2023 he's still known for painful falls, on an increasingly larger frame. His uncle takes his own big bumps, including hard fast one to the floor that gets him met with a super fast tope suicida, like a bowling pin being whipped into his head. He powerbombs LA Park onto the back of the head later, but nobody was getting out of this war easy. They built to several plausible finishes and knew how to end each fall in a big way. The tope suicida sunset flip that left Park on the floor made the entire arena lunge out of their seats and swarm the ring. LA Park's straight suicide and Super Parka's incredible long distance plancha did the same. Maybe some of the pinfalls went on too long, maybe some falls could have been trimmed, but this felt like a big 80s territory title match the whole time. Outstanding. 

Tracy Smothers vs. Sabu UWA 4/14/99

MD: Everything you'd want from 16 minutes of these two in a random indy, starting with Smothers jawing on the mic, leading the fans in one chant after the other by threatening violence on all of them and begging them not to chant ECW since he just got fired from there, and ending with him shoving the bald ref around and eating a stunner from him like he got shot by a cannon. In the middle, there was plenty to see: Smothers challenging Sabu to chain wrestle him and that lasting for about a minute before elbows and punches entered the fray; most of the transitions in the match being Smothers grabbing at a leg or Sabu sneaking an awkward kick in from the ground, or Smothers just tossing himself at Sabu, nothing pretty, nothing clean; Sabu jumping all around the place; Smothers jawing at everyone proclaiming Sabu not to be too tough; the table introduced relative early and then the guy with the camera having to change film/batteries/etc, and missing the eventual spot. You don't even care about the last one because there was just as much chance the wrestlers would have missed it anyway. This was great fun and a good use of a quarter-hour.

ER: This is a perfect match, because you can show it to your buddy who has never heard of Tracy Smothers or Sabu and he gets to see almost the entire routine in full in the perfect setting: an expo center at a fairgrounds in a mid-size Tennessee town. Tracy threatens everyone in the building with mass scale homicide and hilariously says "I don't want to hear anyone chant ECW. I just got fired from that place." I don't think I realized Smothers was fired from ECW in 1999, but he would know better than I, and sure enough he didn't work any dates starting in April until returning several months later. What's fun, is that this Tracy/Sabu match might be the first one we have, as he and Sabu wrestled on several ECW house shows, but not until Tracy returned later in 1999. Tracy was in great shape and basically worked a Will Ferrell bit the entire time while also being violent. He worked this like a dad that wasn't just yelling about his Dodge Stratus, he was also throwing stiff elbows to the back of the neck and punching Sabu in the kidneys and standing on his throat. 

I thought the work was really tight. Sabu kept punching Smothers full force in the forehead and Smothers leaned into all of them, so they always looked good brawling each other into position. The first ECW VHS I traded for in the 90s was a house show where Sabu moonsaulted face first onto an upturned table leg. Here his jaw is still taped up and Smothers throws several punches into it. They found smart ways to set up prop spots. When Sabu first grabbed a table and started dragging it to the ring, Tracy played dead until one of the legs started to collapse, and the second Sabu went to fix the leg Tracy pounced on him. Tracy could be downright great at occupying himself while waiting for someone to set up a table or a dive. I love how he got himself back onto the table, by missing a clothesline into the ringpost and taking one punch right to the face to fall right on it. Our cameraman gets really poetic, turning away from the action before settling on a wheelchair, picking up the action again when Sabu and Smothers were already lying in the remnants of a shattered table. We got the Scorsese of Cookeville filming this wrestling over here. 

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