Found Footage Friday: IWRG RETRO~! LAWLER VS DUNDEE~! INOUE~! RUSHER~! EIGEN~! OKUMA~!

Mighty Inoue/Rusher Kimura vs. Haruka Eigen/Motoshi Okuma AJPW 11/20/90

MD: We've covered the Andre match from this show but it's pretty overlooked otherwise. I'll go through most of it in the weeks to come. It was right during the RWTL and weirdly we have a chunk of HHs from this month so we get to see a lot of the different pairings. This match was not actually part of it, I think, as Inoue and Kimura were in it but Okuma an Eigen weren't. One fun thing about this, however, is because Baba was in the RWTL with Andre, these aren't the usual six mans. That means that all other non-Baba parties get more chance to shine and show individual personality. 

For instance, this match is all about Eigen and Eigen's pretty great in it. It starts with handshakes, and Eigen goes so far to bow to Rusher (drawing light applause) before smacking him in the face (popping the crowd big). He then dashes out of the ring and raises his hands in victory. Then, right as he was about to lock up with Inoue, Eigen turns and smacks Rusher off the apron before running away and raising his hand in victory once more. Then, once they've isolated Inoue and Okuma has him in an armbar, Eigen runs across the apron to stand on the top and taunt Rusher and after a tag and a double chop, he dashes across the ring to smack him again, drawing him in so they can double team Inoue some more. Just great heatseeking from a place not known for it. 

The initial comeback is Inoue slipping around to hit a belly to back on Okuma, so when Rusher comes in, he can't get his hands on Eigen. Then, they take over on Rusher so the gratification of it all is even more delayed. Okuma's fun in here, running all the headbutt spots with Rusher, even as they're beating him down, but this is Eigen's show, right up to the point where Inoue holds his leg as he's trying to come off the top on Rusher and he gets everything that was coming to him (which means he does his big trademark spit spot on the apron as Inoue and then Rusher and then Inoue smacks him in the chest). What an underrated jerk. 

Jerry Lawler vs. Bill Dundee Memphis Power Hour 2/25/06

MD: This is a four and a half minute segment but we're contractually obligated to watch all Lawler vs Dundee matches and this was a fun three minutes which could have been an uproarious ten if they gave it the time. It's 62 year old Dundee vs 56 year old Lawler, who happens to be wearing these triple high Stacks boots. They work about two minutes based around the boot, Dundee having the fans mock him, Lawler mocking the even more severe height difference, Dundee selling a kick like death, Lawler falling on his ass with an over the top trip by Dundee. They could have milked this forever and it would have been endlessly funny, but after a few minutes they play to the interference and the match gets thrown out. At least Dundee got to punch Lawler a lot and trip him again though. Very much 1990 heel Lawler with a different gimmick every week but that probably felt refreshing in 2006. It's just a shame there was only a couple of minutes of this.

Freelance/Tortuguillos I y II vs. Los Oficiales (AK47, Fierro y 911) IWRG (Retro) 11/10/2007

MD: This is from the 4/6 IWRG Retro, which fell through the cracks due to being around Mania, I think. There's another match on there we'll cover later. This was one fall by design but also by necessity. We start out with Tortuguillo Azul and 911 and they have some loose but flowing matwork. There's some of that anticipation where they end up where they should be a half second too early (especially 911), but it all comes off like baiting our turtle friend in by the end with the next counter, so it's ine. We get just a bit from Fierro and Tortuguillo Rojo and that's quite a bit more struggle laden. Before we can even get to Freelance and AK47 though, it all breaks down with the rudo swarm. AK47 decides it's a good idea to do the Sid style leaping kick off the apron to the floor. This is pretty horrific mistake as it was for Sid a few years earlier and that's the last we see him for the match.

Los Oficiales are good at pressing their advantage, however, and Freelance is very good at reaching for the ceiling while eating a double back body drop. They make short work of the the Turtles without much incident even being down one partner. Maybe if that hadn't been the case there would have been a spirited tecnico comeback, but as it was, this was a pretty satisfying mauling. 911's crane kick stylings and clumsy fall off the top splash weren't nearly as good as Fierro's way of asserting himself with his size and power but combined they were better than the sum of their parts. Hopefully AK47 was ok.

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Put the Bottle on the Table, Stay Until Black Terry isn't Able

Black Terry/Dr. Cerebro/Cerebro Negro  v. Tortugas Ninjas 7/12/15 IWRG-GREAT

We don't see this kind of old school lucha title matches anymore.  Tortugas are a fun comedy spot fest team, but here they wrestle pretty straight forward and are really good at it. Leo has a long mat section where he looks like he belongs with Black Terry. I could have used a longer second and third fall, but all of the work was great, Dr. Cerebro footage has been spotty in the last couple of years, but he looked like a world beater here, violent and graceful.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE BLACK TERRY

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2014 Ongoing Match of the Year List

68. Freelance/Arez/Micke Segura v. Los Tortugas Ninjas 12/13

PAS: Really fun lucha trios with everyone moving at a brisk pace and hitting all of their spots cleanly. Freelance is great at this kind of fast moving sprint, and I enjoyed Arez more here then I have in other more ambitious performances. There is a great Turtle Lady of the Lake spot in the first fall where a Ninja turtle gets stuck on his back and wiggles around, and when Arez goes to capitalize the turtle rolls him up. Finish was a bit of partner disunity between Arez and Segura which felt like a cop out finish to this kind of match, otherwise this was a blast

ER: Fun spotfest with a bunch of great ranas and armdrags, and of course the sheer joy of just watching grown men wrestle in ninja turtle costumes. For the record, I think the wrestling turtle power rankings are 1. Tortuga Leonardo 2. Tortuga Raphael 3. Tortuga Michaelangelo. Donatello was a no-show apparently. Wrestling in the turtle outfits seems really difficult, what with those floppy half shells always getting in the way. Huge bonus points to all of them for doing dives, I could easily see those shells getting hung up on the ropes and sending them to their doom. The outfits are pretty bulky so Freelance and Segura also get bonus points for working pretty spots with those shells getting in the way. Arez is one of those guys who isn't great at acting natural when he's waiting to do a spot. He just kind of runs in place until it's his turn, like a puppy waiting for you to throw a ball. He also usually breaks out at least one spot in a match where you think he took a real nasty move, but then you realize "Oh, apparently that was supposed to hurt the other guy." But here he does a lot of cool big stomps, really trying to crack Leo's shell (and of course there is a move that dumps him on his own head while a turtle takes a back bump, but apparently it hurt the turtle more? Some sort of shell psychology I suppose). Leonardo was the best at taking all of the intricate Freelance/Segura offense, I dug his opening matwork the most, and he did great little things like cut low on clotheslines , lean into super kicks and go for trips on drop downs. Plus he and Raphael knew how to mug best as turtles. This was all good fun.


2014 MASTER LIST

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