Found Footage Friday: VALENTINE~! GARVIN~! CENA~! JOE~! BOTSWANA~! DOUG~!

Greg Valentine vs. Ronnie Garvin WWF 1/14/89

MD: Another new Richard Land find (go seek him out on twitter if you want to see this). Apparently this show did exist but with terrible VQ to the point where it hasn't been looked at. From entrances to leaving this goes ~15 and it's probably even better than you'd expect coming in, which is saying a lot. They're able to balance the best strike exchanges in the history of the company with just enough variety, stooging, stalling, and other little tricks to tie it all together.

The exchanges are amazing, but varied as well. Valentine might go high and low with punches or throw chops. Garvin will fire back out of the corner, in the center, will pick him up to knock him down again. And they do such a great job not just registering each blow by throwing their head back (whether in the corner or not) or Valentine spacing out, but by setting up the anticipation of it all with Valentine dancing back or stalling in the ropes or both of them throwing hands. It's the ultimate combination of anticipation, execution, and reaction that makes this amazing, strike exchange after strike exchange, with Garvin throwing in enough other things (a jackknife pin, slamming Valentine's head into the corner) and Valentine doing his big stooging sells to make it more than just a slugfest but a complete living, breathing tapestry of violence.

ER: We all keep writing in various ways "Greg Valentine's case as an All Time Great only rises with every new match we find" because it just keeps happening. Since we started Found Footage Fridays 5-15 years ago Valentine has been one of our frequent topics, appearing in the feature 10+ times, and each one of those times only raised his stock as a worker. He's incredible. 15 years ago, I had no idea what a huge Greg Valentine fan I would become. It really started with the DVDVR 80s WWF Project, the first set in the project that would make for the best years of my wrestling fandom. Valentine/Garvin was the kind of WWF match I had never seen before and didn't realize was ever happening there. Years later Valentine would be the reason I'd start my favorite wrestling project ever - Complete Berzerker - after seeing his brilliant match against Berzerker. Every piece of footage I've seen since - new, old, seen, unseen - just confirmed how great Valentine was. 

Now here's another new piece of the Valentine lore and it takes me back to 2006 (that can't be right) and the first time I saw the Valentine/Garvin '89 MSG match. It finished very high on my DVDVR 80s ballot, and I got to talk to Valentine at a convention about their matches. He said that nobody liked working Garvin because he worked stiff, and so they paired Valentine with him a lot because Valentine didn't mind working stiff with Garvin. That's the simplest explanation, those were Valentine's words, and then I proceeded to talk to him about BattlArts without ever buying an 8x10. I didn't know the rules, sorry. 

Now we get another take on them beating the hell out of each other and crowds slowly catching on to just how hard these men are hitting each other. Dick Graham catches on pretty quick just how hard the men are hitting each other. My favorite realization from Graham is when Valentine kicked Garvin in the face like Tenryu right in front of the ringside camera, and Graham just shouted out "SHOOT!" You have no idea, Dick. You watch this, and realize this whole thing cannot happen with Valentine. I love Garvin, but Valentine could have worked this match with anybody. Valentine is the one falling all over the place for him and leaning in to his toughest shots. Valentine is the one permitting every piece of nasty action to proceed. When Garvin starts teeing off on Hammer in the ropes, throwing hard overhand chops, mixing up punches to the forehead and body, finishing him with a shot to the forehead in the corner that sent Valentine skidding down each turnbuckle to the mat, I can see why not many others were willing to work Garvin. But Valentine makes it all into more than just stiff shots. Valentine showcases the willingness to throw hands and the over-willingness to stooge (the man must have timberrrrrrr fell to the mat a dozen times for payoff blows), but most importantly Valentine knew how to put over every single thing Garvin did. 

My favorite part of the match might have been Garvin's crucifix pin, because I don't know if I've ever seen a more ligament stretching crucifix. Garvin tied up Hammer's arms and slowly started pulling him back, and if you'd never seen a crucifix pin before you'd think Hammer was getting his arms slowly broken behind him. Valentine made his taking the move look more like a shoot pin than I'd ever seen, like his necktie was caught in a shredder and the more time he spent struggling the closer he was brought to his death. This match could have been All Hands and still been one of the best WWF matches of the decade, but Valentine knew how to take things higher. 

Doug Gilbert vs. Botswana Beast (Kimala II) Barbed Wire MECW 1999

MD: This was supposed to be One Man Gang vs. Doug and you can't just make a substitution late on a match like this and just expect it to work, but they made a pretty good effort overall. Gilbert went into the wire real early which was sort of the only logical way to do this (he took it right to Beast but couldn't actually whip him) unless you were going to take out a knee and keep it on the mat or something. So there wasn't exactly build and payoff. Instead, they actually went to the floor which I'm not sure I've ever actually seen in a barbed wire match. More than that, you had to rationalize Beast even being able to get out under the bottom rope without killing himself. That did allow Gilbert to get some reasonable offense with the chair and then, back in the ring toss Beast in at least once. He came back and had a fun marathon whipping of Gilbert into the wire again and again before dropping the splash. When he went for a second one PG-13 came out to break things up and smash Beast with the hubcap. Reno Riggins hilariously made the save with a chair, which he immediately put down before hitting anyone with it, thus allowing for himself to get swept under so Beast could make the save. Doug Gilbert's Bobcat Goldthwait faces made this work despite the substitution.

ER: Ever since I was the high voter on the Botswana Beast vs. Terry Gordy match from the World Class set, I feel a strong connection to Beast that might not actually be present in his ring work. I've always been fascinated by Beast/Kimala II/Uganda in a similar but different way than I'm fascinated by Gallagher II. Kimala II might have been the worst All Japan worker of the 90s, yet there he was wrestling 800 matches in the greatest workrate fed of the decade, dressed up as the shorter, fatter version of a guy whom everyone in attendance knew. I love that Kimala II existed, I sincerely love that Gordy match, and if he's the worst All Japan worker of the 90s then I love that he got to exist there during that whole magic era. This was from '99, when he was working ECW shows in the states between All Japan tours and is a fun spectacle without being much of a match. My favorite bits were all centered on Beast's low center of gravity, showing how impossible it would be for Doug to shove him into the ropes against his will. I loved that Irish whip spot where Doug pulled with all his might only for Beast's feet to slide a bit forward on the mat, before Beast whipped Doug into the barbed wire with the strength of Andre. 

John Cena vs. Samoa Joe WWE 8/26/17

MD: This was absolutely delightful. It checks so many boxes just from the start. A match we never thought we'd get. Unproduced house show footage, clear as day, from 2010s WWE. A hot crowd. Two larger than life wrestlers who knew exactly what they were doing working a house show style. It feels like a million years ago and I'd say it overdelivered my expectations. You listen to the crowd build and build and build as they take them up and down (but each high getting a little bit higher) and that's just what I want out of pro wrestling more often than not. 

I can't even tell you the last time I saw a Cena match. It was probably for FFF. We watched one in 2022. That was probably it. I think that was a house show too. I can't get over how simplistic, minimalist, straightforward this was. Joe won an early exchange and celebrated, the shine was basically just a build to Cena winning a shoulderblock and it feeling like a huge deal. Joe took over with one (and only one) punch in the corner. Cena went down like a ton of bricks.

He never really looked back. Cena would get hope spots because he was Cena and basically anything he did was a hope spot. He'd dash into the ring before Joe expected. He'd block a punch. He'd heft him up into a fireman's carry out of nowhere, but Joe dropped him each time. The fans got louder each time though. Until it was just Cena standing up in the corner that did it. Amazing stuff. Joe ran right through him then, but then, when it was repeated, Cena moved and that's when he got in his signature comeback stuff. Talk about rewarding the crowd for caring. They went into a ref bump and a phantom win before the actual one, adding in a bit of doubt to the proceedings. I'm not entirely sure that was necessary given the match they were wrestling, but it was no real harm overall. Just an amazing reminder how special these guys are.

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Found Footage Friday: SWEETAN~! TAKADA~! VIERNES 13~! CRUZ~! BANDA~! SHARON~! WOLFIE~! ROGERS~!

Bob Sweetan vs Nobuhiko Takada NJPW 4/11/84

MD: This was a fun underdog Takada match that came in around eight minutes. He wasn't fully formed yet. He'd be positioned as a junior even deep into 87 and this was pre-UWF but he was plucky and chippy, combining some of the junior stuff you'd expect from 84 NJPW like the headlock into a twisting drop toe hold and a body press with some kicks and punches and a nice back elbow that hit when I was expecting his spin kick. Sweetan was as solid as could be, every blow a thudding, imposing thing, be it a clubber or an elbow drop or a slam. Late in the match, Takada fought his way out of a pile driver attempt and got the crowd behind him and Sweetan gave him a bit of a comeback right until the fans stopped chanting; then he shut him down quickly and planted him on his head. A weird match up on paper but it worked because Takada got just the right amount for it to stay interesting. 

Babe Sharon/Milo Caballero/Viernes 13 vs Remo Banda/Javier Cruz/Rino Castro CMLL 1989

MD: This takes me, finally, to the end of the first wave of Roy's Monterrey uploads. What a road it's been. More to come as there's a second and maybe even third wave of these uploads. This gives us a first look at Rino Castro and Viernes 13. Castro was a local in the style of Super Porky, just a big tecnico with funny expressions, a finish where he just sits down on his opponent, and the ability to move better than you'd expect in exchanges. Viernes 13 is, yes, working a Jason gimmick, with the hockey mask and a great logo of a bloody axe on his chest. He was pretty clunky at times, not seeming at the right place at the right time, but fed okay at times. The idea that people would just punch his hockey mask and he'd sell it normally and their hand would be ok was a bit weird.

Everyone else looked good though. Babe Sharon was an always-on exotico (who came out with a turban and poofy robe) with a reaction to everything and a bunch of paintbrushing strikes, plush a finishing sequence of just running someone over with weirdly angled shots like an exotico Ultimate Warrior (just with a flip senton to end it). Remo Banda, being Volador Sr./Super Parka, of course, looked great in some of the exchanges, including a flip over armdrag I had to go back and watch three times, not to mention a huge dive on Viernes. Milo and Cruz played their role fine even if nothing stood out. Structure here was straightforward, with exchanges in the primera, a beatdown in the segunda (including a fun double headstand anklelock deal on Cruz to end it) and then cycling through after the comeback. Not a ton of drama here but some entertainment for sure. It's a shame we don't have much more Castro as I'd be curious to see him in other matches.

Wolfie D vs Tommy Rogers MECW 2/13/00

MD: Nice little five minute TV match palette cleanser. Les Thatcher and Dutch Mantell were on commentary.Rogers looked like he could be a solid mid card act in AWF a couple of years prior or XWF a year or two after. They wrestled this clean with a lot of nice looking chain wrestling. Basic stuff done well for the most part. Wolfie took over mid match with the nicest floatover DDT you'll see and then followed it up by immediately cutting off Rogers with another one. Rogers was able to twist back out of the corner for a pin out of nowhere though. Post match, Wolfie finally let the character shine through and cheapshotted Rogers before opening him up with the trash can lid and pedigreeing him on the lid. Presumably this led to a really good live show match but it was a different sort of look at Wolfie than what we normally got at least.

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On Brand Segunda Caida: Iceberg in TNA! One Man Gang vs. a Sluff!

One Man Gang vs. Avalanche White MECW 1999

ER: Avalanche White, boy what a sight. Bryan Turner has been uploading a ton of southern indy gold from the lost era between VHS and DVD, and this one jumped out at me for a couple reasons. First, One Man Gang was still awesome in 1999. It's weird to think that by the time he was done with WWF, done with his WCW comeback, done with his 98/99 ECW stints, that Gang wasn't even 40 years old. Somehow, the One Man Gang was barely 40 when he worked the WWF Gimmick Battle Royal. As seen in several ECW fancams, One Man Gang could still GO in 1999 (seek out the Sabu and RVD matches, they're out there somewhere). So, knowing 1999 Gang could still go, AND seeing him against some guy named Avalanche White, my mind was made up. One Man Gang against a man large enough to go by Avalanche!? Well, it turns out that this avalanche was more of a guy with an early 90s WWF dumpy jobber physique, and the only avalanche was him hitting the mat whenever Gang beat him down. I am almost surely never going to see Avalanche White again, and that is because One Man Gang packed him up and shipped him out. This was entirely Gang, nothing but stiff clubbing arms, clotheslines, a pair of great elbowdrops, and a nice legdrop that saw Gang hold onto the top rope and not let go until the leg was dropped. Avalanche got choked a ton over the rope and absorbed several kinds of elbow strikes, and wouldn't you know, Gang added insult to injury by flattening Avalanche with an Avalanche. RIP Avalanche White, buried in an avalanche of white. Who has the 1999 Carlos Colon/One Man Gang match? 

Iceberg vs. David Young TNA Xplosion 1/15/03

ER: You could give TNA some credit for putting guys like Iceberg on regional TV, but you should criticize TNA for only using guys like Tank and Iceberg a couple of times when they should have been featuring guys like that. Pro wrestling fell out of love with big fat guys like Iceberg by the late 90s, and we've all been worse for it since. The Atkins diet was all the rage and suddenly a great big fat guy and cool wrestler like Iceberg has no guaranteed employment. Young and Iceberg had plenty of matches in Wildside and the greater Cornelia area, and they fit a lot into the TV time here. Young hit a big Asai moonsault into the entrance but then got flattened into the apron by an Iceberg avalanche. From there we get to see the kind of thing Iceberg can do. He might slow down the longer a match goes, but he lands heavy and takes offense well. He throws Young around with a belly to belly and a delayed flapjack slam, drops right onto him with a side slam, and then hits his awesome running splash. I love a big fat guy splash, but Iceberg has an especially good one. He runs from the corner and dives low like he's the fattest dude to ever do a Pete Rose impression. He uses a real similar motion when he uses his spear, and lo, he also has a great spear. He takes a couple of big bumps: getting his corner punches reversed into a kickass sitout powerbomb, and then running into a spinebuster on the floor. A guy Young's size hitting a spinebuster on a guy Iceberg's size doesn't really work, but I'm real happy we got to see someone even try to bust up a quarter ton man's spine. 

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On Brand Segunda Caida: Tennessee Indy Grab Bag

Bryan Turner has been posting some great unseen or rarely seen southern indy wrestling, and we've been diving in over the past several weeks. Even cherry picking through the best stuff, there are a lot of things he's uploaded that jump out. Here are a couple that jumped out at me today. 

Yokozuna vs. Tatanka MECW 12/99

ER: This is the last recorded match of Yokozuna's career, recorded sometime in December 1999 (two months after Heroes of Wrestling). Yokozuna didn't work many matches in the three years after WWF, and considering that, the match couldn't be edited more painfully. It being the last match of his excellent career, he was obviously at his largest. Knowing that, you'd go into this match expecting a long nerve hold spot in the middle somewhere. If you were editing a match for time to air on local TV, that would be the couple minutes you edit out. Instead, this match is joined in progress for the duration of Yokozuna's nerve hold. From commentary, you get the impression that the beginning of the match was a lot of active Yokozuna work. We start with him already drenched in sweat and breathing hard, and don't get to see what got him that way. When they get standing, you can see Yokozuna still has real quick burst speed. He clearly needed constant rest, as he timed a Tatanka charge really nicely to send Tatanka crashing to the floor, and the entire time Tatanka was on the floor Yokozuna stood bent at the waist, hands on his knees, torso practically horizontal. But, when he had to shut something down or do a quick dodge, he looked surprisingly nimble. His strikes were really good. Arguably the best part of the match was Yokozuna throwing hard rights to brawl down the aisle at the end of the match. He built to his bumps well, with him not bumping (in the footage we have) until Tatanka hits a tomahawk chop off the top, but he takes two more after that one, the third rolling to the floor where this ended. You could tell that there was a great wrestler still in there who could have worked a several more years without the extra 150 pounds. Of course, it's much easier said than done for any man to lose my entire literal person in weight. I sometimes think of Yokozuna still in WWF through 2002, working a whole slew of matches with WCW guys that we never got to see. What a great wrestler. 

Barry Houston vs. Jarell USWO 5/23/03

ER: I believe this is by far the latest Barry Houston we have (and the latest listed match of his that I could find), and it's not exactly the swan song a Houston fan would want to see. Barry Houston is so unlike the Barry Houston you're thinking of right now, that there is a non-zero chance this was some guy using the Barry Houston Name in front of 40 people just outside Nashville. Houston is beefy here, like when Chris Harris showed up for a week in WWE, and he shows no signs of the wrestling ability that made him a cult favorite in WCW. Jarell (graphic reads Jorell but that reads like a Planet Krypton ass name and the announcers clearly call him Jarell then whole match), looks reallll green, and is wearing just khakis and a short sleeve plaid shirt, like he just came straight from his grandparents' anniversary party. Jarell's stomach is already heaving when Houston takes him over with a side headlock to start the match. Jarell has to think  about what move to do next after any move he does, he did bad version of a couple things I like; a bad Jumbo knee lift, and raking Houston's face across the top rope. It's better that someone attempt good wrestling than bad wrestling, if it's going to look bad. Houston has a nice back elbow and clothesline, although Jarell took a bad bump for the clothesline that was so "play wrestling" that it minimized the impact a lot. A chain gets involved and Jarell throws a couple punches somewhere over Houston's head and a few inches in front of his face. Houston's punches look better and have better form, but his were only half successful. One of them was an uppercut that landed somewhere around Jarell's upper boob. I'm happy that an unseen Barry Houston match showed up, but some secrets are better left untold. 

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