Found Footage Friday: VILLANOS~! UNIVERSO~! PIRATA~! PANTHER~! ESPECTRO~! MANDO~! MARKUS~!

Villano IV/Villano IV/Milo Caballero vs. Universo 2000/Hijo del Gladiador/Babe Face Monterrey 1991

MD: The sort of lucha trios that hits just right for the most part. Villano IV was paired with Babe Face who was happy to stooge all over the place, feigning getting hit by low blows and making faces. Villano V was matched with Universo who was heatseeing (punching the post and getting DDT'd for instance). Both pairings were heated and seemed to have issues. Gladiador and Milo were more or less along for the ride.

Lots of feeding (more than basing) in the primera with an exciting escalation. When the rudos took over there was a nice bit of Villano V grabbing fans' hands on the outside after he took a beating. The comeback moment was just Milo recovering and attacking from behind but the Villanos more than made up for that. V got some great punches in on the floor on Universo while IV doled out justice on Babe Face. They rushed to pinfalls in the tercera but then had the Villanos make an illegal switch despite the fact they were the tecnicos here. The rudos complained but it was too little too late. Fun stuff but it almost would have been served better as a straight tag.

Pirata Morgan/Mascara Sagrada/Kato Kung Lee II vs. Indomito/Blue Panther/Espectro, Jr. Monterrey end 91/early 92

MD: The big appeal to this one was that the rudos had recently turned on Morgan and now he was with the tecnicos. It was straightforward overall with more exchanges than heat even with Morgan's turn but it was all pretty masterful so you don't mind. Primera pairings were Panther/KKL, Indomito/Morgan, Espectro/Sagrada. Lots of Panther matwork. He worked a short arm scissors/gotch lift sequence with you don't see every day in Lucha. At the start ot the second round of exchanges (rope running) he knocked KKL out of the ring immediately before eating an arm drag on his way back in and that was funny for the matter-of-factness of it. Equally funny was watching Morgan work staright tecnico including some flashy things like a Mule Kick out of nowhere. Espectro  and Sagrada didn't go as long but the had the most tricked out stuff overall.

Rudos took the primera with a beautiful Panther northern lights out of nowhere. That led into a fairly simple beatdown, simple because it didn't last long. The second they cycled to Morgan, he started firing back and tecnicos won quickly. Likewise, the third fall was quick, full of crowd pleasing tandem stuff (including an estrella with KKL using a victory roll into the center instead of a 'rana. So fun stuff but I wanted to see Morgan really go on the offense and that wasn't what this one was about.

Mando Guerrero/Centurion Negro/Monarca vs. Corsario Negro/Gran Markus Jr./Azteca de Oro Monterey 1991?

MD: This, on the other hand, was all heat. The issue was between Centurion Negro and Corsario Negro (the latter of which had no mask anymore). Corsario dodged him well enough during the primera (which was full of posturing), even if it meant that his team was at a bit of a disadvantage. In the segunda, they went all in on Centurion's mask, tearing it apart. The commentators were trying to get any glimpse they could, noting definitively that he did not have a mustache. The comeback in the tercera was because they were focusing too much on the mask allowing Mando and Monarca to come in and even the odds.

At that point, Centurion laid a pretty colossal beating on Corsario. The refs wanted to just award it to the tecnicos but they didn't want to stop. Nothing wildly over the top, just stomps and stomps and more stomps but they were pretty brutal ones. Eventually that let the other rudos come in and even the odds and they fairly quickly got a banana peel win. Post-match they had to do everything they could to keep Centurion and Corsario away from each other. If this led to an apuestas match, I would have bought a ticket for it. I think we might have five or six minutes of a JIP match actually. I should look at that.

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FOUND FOOTAGE FRIDAY: FRED OLEN RAY'S ALL STAR CHAMPIONSHIP WRESTLING??

 

Freddie Valentine/Terry Funk vs. Mando Guerrero/Cincinnati Red ACW 3/24/00

MD: On paper, I wanted some iconic Terry vs Mando encounter. We don't really get that as the first half of this is Mando out of the picture (Attacked before the match? Late due to traffic? An unannounced substitute?) so it's instead an absolute two-on-one mauling on Cincinnati Red. The math on that isn't exactly right as Terry Funk, as present in the moment as any wrestler could possibly be in an ACW ring,  counts for about six men and Freddie Valentine, as nonchalant as can be, counts as around a quarter of a man. All of Terry's stuff looks credible and brutal. The camera cuts back to Freddie at one point and barely comes back to see Red sprawled on a table, his hair jutting out of his head, obviously wrecked. Terry somehow throttles the life out of him just moving him around the ring. Meanwhile, Freddie hits him with the tamest chairshots and a goofy neckbreaker variation as he sort of idles around the ring. We do get something of an iconic moment as Mando finally arrives, whacking Terry in the back with a trashcan over and over. Meanwhile, Valentine casually glances at the carnage and decides to just laconically pound on Red to the beat of the slow jazz running through his brain that no one else can hear. Things fall apart from there, but Terry's intensity never flags even as Valentine glides through the match. It's a bizarre scene but somehow just makes Funk seem all the more mythical (Funk as Ares and Valentine as a skeezy Dionysus?) for the contrast, even just as he's holding his arm in victory post match. 

ER: Terry Funk is 56 and putting on a performance worth the ticket price. Fred Olen Ray's Freddie Valentine looks like a leather-sporting Mike Graham, but with the good sense to not have flame tattoos. Cincinnati Red comes out to Judas Priest's "Breaking the Law". Low effort. When I'm getting Cincinnati Red on an LA indie show, I at least expect Afghan Whigs while eating out of a Skyline can. Represent your town. A fan gets a real reaction and threatening swagger from Funk when he yells out that "They call him Funk because he stinks!" Funk is really violent with Red. He really punches the shit out of him and throws his full arms into swings, and hits a DDT with actual power, like he was doing a shoot DDT. Freddie is an entertaining non-trained guy with a nice elbowdrop (because he just drops his entire body onto people). He also has one of those clotheslines that lands under the breasts. 

Mando makes his presence felt by really bashing Funk with a trash can and then an old hotel conference room chair. Mando runs the ropes so slow. He runs the ropes so slow that the force he gets behind his dropkick is jump scare shocking. This man looked like he was running using somebody else's legs, and then drill presses a chair into Valentine's head with a dropkick from a near standing position. There aren't many genres of wrestling I love more than men in their late 40s to late 50s working too stiff with each other. Valentine throws a fireball with a sound effect, Funk puts on an real spectacle throwing a couple dozen chairs around, just a perfect indy wrestling main event. 

Barbed Wire Match: Freddie Valentine vs. Mando Guerrero ACW 6/2/00

MD: I don't often watch barbed wire matches, but when I do, I'm not necessarily looking for the gore and the gristle but for the geographic limitations created by the barbed wire and how wrestlers deal with that. There are sort of intrinsic possibilities therein too, so long as they don't go right into the blood. Here, they started on the mat, wrestling this like it was a NWA title match or something. It made sense as the center of the ring and specifically the center of the mat was the only safe place. It was fairly even until Valentine tried whipping Mando into the ropes (and therefore the wire). Mando stopped himself but that opened him up to a big move from Valentine, one that probably wouldn't have been so possible so early in the match otherwise. That's the sort of stuff that's interesting to me.

Also interesting was Mando's two big comeback moves. I don't know where he picked it up, but he hit diamond dust twice, once off the turnbuckles and once in the middle of the ring to reverse a move. Baffling? Out of place? Pure Mando? All true. They did a pretty good job using all of the plunder organically within the match. Nothing seemed too contrived. There were spots where a chair was utilized similar to a Vandaminator but at least they tried to toss it back and forth at each other first. There was a ref bump but it was because he was pressed in the corner and he ate a nasty straight punch from Mando. That led to a visual fall for him, an object slipped in by the valet (kind of silly in an environment like this), and a cheapshot leading to Mando losing the match. As bizarre as the Diamond Dust was, there were some other strong visuals here. Manny bled buckets from his forehead and Valentine was bloody all over his body. When he scored the final pin, his arm was trapped in the barbed wire around a table so that was something you don't see every day. Mando got some shots in after the bell, but given the stip, Valentine got to stand tall in victory (just the sort of victory where you're trailing a barbed wire board stuck to you as you try to gloat on the mic). 

ER: I thought this was really good. Fred Olen Ray directed Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers, and he throws better worked punches than you would expect him to throw, and they look even better aimed at Mando's bleeding head. Mando is wearing real genuine street fight gear, and looks incredible, like a visible background construction worker in They Live. He's got work boots and knee pads over jeans and the perfect sleeveless shirt with belly folding over belt buckle. The man looks like a man who's dangled legs off an I-Beam while eating a ham and cheese from his pail.  He gets immediately into the They Live spirit by punching Valentine in the kidneys a bunch while holding him down with a knee, but this whole fight is good. The blood is good, the barbed wire teases were good, and the actual fighting was good. Mando breaks out two different Diamond Dust variations, which was still a really new thing in 2000. His standing version was fairly ambitious for a non-wrestler and a man in his 50s, ending with a dangerous enough landing that the live mic commentator was unsure who got the worse of it. I would go to any local indy running a jeans and sleeveless t-shirt barbed wire match with a couple of old mustache guys and it wouldn't come close to being as good as this one. You don't go into a match with two old guys expecting to see someone suplexed through barbed wire and chairs, even IN a barbed wire match. Super Indies killed the low budget genre filmmaker vs. Mexican GLOW trainer main event. 

Exploding Barbed Wire Boards: Freddie Valentine vs. Crayz ACW 7/28/00

MD: When done well, these things are all about possibilities and limitations, anticipation and payoff, and the inherent danger of the gimmick. Two matches in and it's pretty clear Valentine understood all of this pretty well. Here, the boards (explosive, with barbed wire) were in the corners, so they could move around a bit more to start. They went into the corner pretty quickly, building the anticipation, but Valentine, at least from a kayfabe level, was able to capitalize on the wariness and hesitation more than Crayz who put all of his eggs in one flesh-tearing, explosive basket. That allowed for a low blow and a whip into the opposite corner. The first explosion was a dud but that worked for the match. It let Valentine both take over and use the barbed wire board remnants as a weapon moving forward, which was pretty clever. After beating him around the ring for a bit (including with another object from the valet), Crayz managed a desperate reversal into another corner. This time the explosion went off and he got a quick pin soon after. You buy it due to the explosion (and the previous dud) but the match would have probably been better served by that starting a big, bloody comeback and everything hinging on a third toss into a corner as part of a more expansive finishing stretch. The counterpoint there is that it creates an almost shoot-style type of expectation with the crowd moving forward that a match can end at any moment due to the danger of the gimmick. 

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Found Footage Friday: DOUBLE DOG COLLAR CAGE MATCH~! ADNAN IN IRAQ~! GUERREROS~! CHICANA~! LA FAMILIA MARKUS~!

Adnan Al Qaisi vs. Ian Campbell Iraq 1970

MD: Long 2/3 falls match that ends 1-0 for Adnan at the time limit (either 45 or 60 depending on clipping). This had been out there in parts but is newly clipped together in a welcome effort. You get a real sense of the imperial pageantry here, officials and a band and parade feel, even though the same footage of a few fans (out of the very many) is interspersed now and again. Let me put it this way. Campbell knew what was good for him here, knew what was safe and what wasn't. They weren't going for heat. They were using this as a showcase for Adnan's technical superiority. As such, it was a pretty effective dog and pony show.

Campbell had a size and strength advantage, but Adnan had an answer for every hold. Towards the last fifteen minutes, the answers were a little harder to find and Campbell could press harder with a full nelson or chinlock, but even those ended quickly enough by prying off an arm or pulling out a leg. In return, Campbell could use his strength to escape Adnan's stuff, but he'd find his way back in sooner than not. It meant that individual exchanges could be interesting, but that the total picture was a bit toothless. At times they'd break out into strikes. This first happened around the ten minute mark as Campbell was starting to register some of the damage to his arm. He had a great little bit where he trapped the arm behind his opponent's back with a hammerlock and tossed in a nasty forearm, but even there, Adnan fired back with a flurry and a jumping elbow smash soon enough. They repeated this a few minutes later and that's when Adnan got his one fall.

Considering the locale and the one repeated shot from the crowd of someone sweating profusely, it was probably sweltering there and Campbell was a big, hairy guy, but they kept a pretty good, competitive pace throughout. They'd go from a handshake to mean shots and back to a handshake so things were never going to come close to boiling over, but as they got towards the end of the time limit, Adnan increased his intensity, using leg kicks and just tossing Campbell out over the top repeatedly. That made it seem something of a moral victory for Campbell that he was able to survive to the bell (whistle?) even if he was a fall down. It was wrestling as celebratory propaganda, but as such it was fairly fascinating to watch, just maybe not 50 minutes worth of fascination.

Sangre Chicana/Gran Markus Sr./Gran Markus Jr vs. Chavo Guerrero/Hector Guerrero/Mando Guerrero CMLL 9/18/87 

MD:  Roy's back posting, always a good thing. This was from the 54th CMLL Anniversary show and at the very least hasn't been streaming online for quite a while, if ever. The bits in between falls are clipped out so it moves at a fast pace. The announcer also gets Mando and Hector confused for a good part of this and almost psyched me out, but no one moves quite like Mando. Primarily, it's another Sangre Chicana match in his prime, so that's exciting, but he's more of a dodgy chickenshit here, throwing shots now and again but mostly on the run. He gets slammed onto the floor right as this ends, so that's some comeuppance but it's more about everyone else. Markus, Sr., maskless, has a sort of enjoyable weighty swagger to himself. This is the guy we saw in so much of the Houston footage, just older. Jr. on the other hand, is younger than what I'm used to and a bit more spry. This opens up with fun in-and-out matwork between him and Chavo. Chavo's in the most but Hector has a nice snap belly to back and the end of the primera is a combo of that belly to back and an axe handle off the ropes. And of course, Mando is a ridiculous beast like always, full of contorted, tricked out offense: takedowns and monkey flips and bounding around the ring. There's a lot more to the opening feeling out stuff than the beatdown or the comeback, but both are spirited enough. If this led to some sort of Chicana vs Hector or Mando match, I would have liked to see that too.

Bart Sawyer/Steven Dunn vs. Ashley Hudson/Flash Flanagan (Double Dog Collar Cage Match) MCW 1997

MD: Very timely Bryan Turner upload here, though not timely enough to make Phil's list as an honorable mention. Sawyer was attached to Hudson and Dunn was attached to Flanagan. Babyfaces dominated early. There were a bunch of chairs in there, both wedged in the corners and just free floating and Dunn used them liberally. That led to free flowing blood. They'd switch advantage for a bit. Very few big setpieces here and just a lot of violence. That said, both Sawyer and Hudson did fistdrops off the turnbuckles with the chain wrapped around their hands onto the other. My most vivid memory of the match itself was probably Sawyer choking Hudson with the chain as Dunn stomped on his groin. There was a lot of that sort of thing here, but plenty of cage shots, chair shots, and chain shots too. It all built to a ref bump and Dunn accidentally clocking Sawyer. That's when things got really fun. Sawyer stared at Dunn, slowly took off the dog collar, snatched the key from the ref, and went to leave the cage. Dunn tried to stop him and ate a kick and a DDT for his troubles and Sawyer locked the cage back up on the way out, taking the key as the fans shouted 'traitor' at him. Hudson and Flanagan made short work out of Dunn after that, finishing it with a leg drop off the cage from Flanagan. Then, as Prentice (I think) taunted everyone on the house mic about how this was his New Year's present for everyone and not to worry because "It's just Steven Dunn", they absolutely dismantled him after the bell. No one could help since the heels had the key. Finally, Sawyer came back in to finish him off. Good match and a truly great post match angle.

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Found Footage Friday: EDDIE~! CHAVO~! MANDO~! REY~! FIERA~! ESPANTO~! NAVARRO~!

Rey Mysterio Jr. vs. Eddie Guerrero WWE 4/8/05

MD: 20 minutes or so, with Eddy bringing out a Make-A-Wish kid to begin and Carlito getting in his house show interaction with the two of them (and a bit of Torrie) at the end. So it's not the thirty minutes that the video suggests but it still gets a ton of time. Eddy and Rey were the tag champs together at this point so that made it feel even more special and timely for this week.

They use the time to really let things breathe, with Eddy attacking Rey's arm with a lot of different and varied holds. Maybe what I loved the most about this was how into it the crowd was based on the way they put over each bit of wrenching or cinching of a hold. Eddy would land a drop toe hold out of nowhere and the fans would "oooof" in unison. He'd do a headstand to tighten up a hammerlock and it'd lead to an "ooooh." You have to love that level of investment on even simple things. It is hard, sometimes, to go from 70s French wrestling where everything, a top wristlock or a hammerlock or a short armscissors would have a four minute elaborate series of escape attempts to 21st century wrestling where we have to live with one huge fly mare out of Rey instead of three attempts of it with Eddy hanging on, but that's a me thing, not a match thing.

When Rey really got going, he really got going, hitting from one direction and then the next and the next, all fluid, all with oomph, all believable. Eddy could do no wrong at this point. He cheated and the fans chanted his name, so while he was the aggressor and Rey had to work from underneath, it still felt like a babyface match, just with different tools used than usual used to achieve the same ends. That was a testament in itself. Having not seen it for a while, I love to see Eddy do the three amigos, because unlike all of the tribute spots now, there's no hesitation to milk the moment. He just bursts into the sequence. The finish was the old, tried and true, splash mountain into a 'rana, but it, like everything else in the match looked great and got over huge.

PAS: The dream is to find the bloody house show brawls these two had, but it is really cool to see them work a basically scientific face vs. face match, even with Eddie being a lovable cheat. Really simple effective wrestling with Rey taking a corner post bump and Eddie really showing every step in how to crank and damage an arm. Good point about the Three Amigos, he has a ton of explosion and force on the move, which is never really captured by the tribute spots. I love getting another chance to watch Eddie, what an electric and compelling performer he was

Eddie Guerrero/Chavo Guerrero/Gacela vs. La Fiera/Espanto Jr./Predator Juarez

MD: This is posted on the Juarez YouTube page and is about ten minutes but only a few of an actual match before mask pulling, post match fighting, and Chavo making challenges. Eddy had some really good strikes here though. That's my biggest takeaway. It's not something I usually think of when I think of pre-modern Eddy. In the short amount of footage we have here, he launched a spinning backfist, an awesome European uppercut that reached for the ceiling, and a really nice elbow smash, and then post-match took a bunch of shots well and sympathetically as he was tied up in the ropes. You catch him too early in his career and he often comes off as an afterthought. That wasn't at all the case here. Just given who was in this one, if we had more of it, or if there even was more of it, it'd probably have been good, but we come in on the chaotic violence and as chaotic violence goes, it's solid stuff.

Mando Guerrero vs. Negro Navarro

MD: The only record I see on Cagematch with these two is from 1981 in Los Angeles. It's possible. Navarro is certainly young with a full head of hair. There's a brief bit in English in between the Spanish commentary. Fact of the matter is that I don't know. What I do know is how well these two are matched up. Both have a certain amount of over the top theatricality in what they do. In his later career, Navarro would overlay that on top of the maestro style. Mando was more apt to roll around the ring and eat up opponents. Here, Navarro had control with bit offensive flourishes. He'd grab what I assume is Mando's cape and wrap it around his hand to beat him down. He'd bite. He'd pose. Mando would fight his way back, making sure to preen to the crowd for half a second before big shots. Navarro would cut him off. Just when I thought the 8 minutes of footage that we have would cut off without a finish, Mando snuck through the ref's legs for a roll up and a banana peel win. Whatever vintage it is, it's a good look at Navarro earlier in his career and a very apt pairing.

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New Footage Friday: Thesz, Valentines Jr. and Sr., Flair, All the Guerreros, Kikuchi, Slinger

Lou Thesz vs. Johnny Valentine Florida 9/1/73

MD: The Thesz/Valentine match had some frustrating cuts. We basically lose any time Valentine gets over on Thesz. What we do have here is pretty great though. It feels like a completely different beast to wrestling we have today. There are little things like how Thesz controls the center of the ring and Valentine has to work around him, the way that space and distance is used, the sheer effort in Valentine just trying to press Thesz' head down. Some of it is timeless and universal too, with Thesz getting fed up and starting to unload with the forearms, for instance. The headlock takeover counter to the bodyslam would be striking in a match now. Just a really good finishing sequence. Here's a testament to this thing: We only get seven or eight minutes but when they shifted to the up-close alternate angle, I knew exactly what spots/moments I was looking at, and in a world of flimsy HD, it's amazing just how good and legitimate this stuff looked close up.

PAS: I have a hard time watching and rating clipped up matches, feels like judging a movie based on the extended Red Band trailer. The highlights in this match were pretty choice though. Johnny Valentine is the best ever at making simple things look awesome, there is an extended armbar where he just shoves Thesz's neck to his chest, he feels like he is going to pop it off like spare button. I loved Thesz unloading in the corner with a flurry and Valentine's droopy selling, Valentine going glassy eyed really put it over the top. I was really hoping for a whole match, Valentine is an all timer, and we have very little of him, still I'll take what I can.

Ric Flair vs. Greg Valentine Mid-Atlantic 7/17/80

MD: The Flair/Valentine match was all cuts. You'd get one every few seconds. That said, you were sort of able to cobble together the narrative of the match. We don't have a ton of Flair from the summer of 80, but he was 31 (which, to put in perspective, is how old Roman Reigns was two years ago) and he was electric. The initial armwork shine was just over the top great. (The story behind this feud was Valentine coming back to the territory in late 79 to find his partner, Flair, as a face now. They had an altercation and some matches, and eventually Valentine says he wants to change his ways and work with Flair. Of course he turns on him in a cage tag match). There was blood. There was the two of them just mauling each other with shots. There was a pretty good finish. You can't judge something like this on merit considering how clipped it is, but you can tell instantly just how great a babyface Flair was that year. Hopefully they have more. Hopefully they have something complete.

Hector Guerrero/Mando Guerrero/Chavo Guerrero/Eddie Guerrero vs. Negra/Crazy 33/Ari Romero/Bonzi WIN 11/26/89

ER: This is a fun 10 minute Guerrero Familia showcase, similar to the 4 Horsemen showing up on the Pro to take on Bobby Walker, JL, and Men at Work. This actually works out to be mostly a Mando showcase, which is a fun twist, and I really liked his quick Indian deathlocks and fast work around an armbar, and he even got to be the one to save Hector (during the one moment the Guerreros weren't really in control) with nice babyface punches. The match is mostly pretty simple ring cut off stuff, some arm drags, some backdrops, fairly one-sided towards the Guerreros, but we build to a really great early tower of doom spot with every single person in the match getting stacked and climbing on top of each other like a big cheerleading routine finale, before everybody crashed to the mat with back bumps. Couldn't get a big sense of the non-Guerreros in this: Romero felt like a guy I'd want to see again, loved him stooge bumping to the floor and running down the aisle through the crowd to get away; Bonzi seemed like kind of a load, or like a not-nearly-as-good Phil Hickerson type who shows up in new masked gimmicks every other week; Crazy 33 felt like a Bestia Salvaje type professional, and there's probably a reason he was in for a lot of this.

MD: Sometimes we watch things because they're great. Sometimes we watch them because they're new and novel. Sometimes we watch them because we just have to. This is a little bit of all of that. Despite the size of the video, the match isn't all that long. The first half is a presentation of a plaque to Gory with all of his kids involved. Each one comes up to him in turn. It's heartfelt, special stuff. The match itself was fun. The rudos were game. Crazy 33 stood out enough as a stooging base that I'd like to see more of him. Mando shines in an environment like this, one where the good guys are meant to be triumphant and the rudos are meant to be clowned. The Guerreros work like a well-oiled machine. There's no real heat to this, just some moments where they rile young Eddy or get Hector in the corner for a minute. It all breaks apart at the end in a huddle in the corner, with Eddy coming out of it with a big electric chair drop off the second rope. Good, celebratory stuff.

PAS: Crazy 33 is Rocky Star who was in that cool mask match with Fuerza and Santo so it makes sense he is the standout rudo here. Eric really hit the nail on the head comparing this to a WCWSN semi-squash, but it is still super cool to see all the Guerreros together. I would have loved to see a little more of Chavo, but I am on record as enjoying watching Mando eat folks up. Eddie was a little unpolished but was an athletic marvel, so fast and explosive. Would really love to see these four against some real competition, but this was nifty.

Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Richard Slinger AJPW 3/3/91 

ER: For a guy who is the ultimate babyface in trios matches, Kikuchi certainly takes every chance he gets to show what a prick he can be. This gets unprofessional really quick, but never verges into "somebody stop the damn match something is wrong!" territory. Both guys appear to be working together, while also clearly beating the shit out of each other and taking liberties at any chance. Slinger starts with some simple light leg kicks to gauge distance...and then Kikuchi pounces in and starts unhinging Slinger's jaw with elbows. And from there that's what this match becomes, and it's incredible. Kikuchi clearly starts elbowing Slinger in the back of the head on the mat, and Slinger doesn't look super cool with it, so Slinger starts picking his own shots; my favorite was when he was locking in an STF and "accidentally" kicked Kikuchi in the back of the head while swinging his leg over. And that STF. My god. Slinger bends Kikuchi back into the most demonic upward dog pose you've seen. The struggler is real in this motherfucker. Every elbow looks angry, every kick lands on a jaw, neither man can stand up off the mat without stepping hard onto the other's face....and yet this isn't some no selling dick contest. These two sell and bump for the other...while looking like they are trying to injure and sandbag each other. It's incredible. Kikuchi has to muscle Slinger through on a backdrop, really looking like Slinger just got as heavy as possible. I was expecting Kikuchi to turn around and kick his teeth in, but instead Kikuchi sells how difficult it was to muscle him over by falling into the ropes. We get THEE GREATEST backslide exchange in pro wrestling history, looking like the only instance of two guys trying to shoot backslide each other. The struggle over this backslide is the stuff of legend, the most struggle during the most violent backslide skirmish you've ever seen. Both of my shoulders would have been dislocated if I were part of this exchange. Slinger hits a wicked spinkick under Kikuchi's chin, Kikuchi locks in a super vertical crab to snap Slinger's back, and you KNOW the chickenwing that ends the match gets held WELL after the tap out. This match would stand out as notably violent on any card in history, a truly incredible find. GOD BLESS CAMCORDER OWNERS WHO ALSO PRESERVED THEIR FOOTAGE.

MD: This is a good problem to have, but the amount of AJPW footage we have to comb through is daunting. There are the endless six man tags with a lot of the same guys that you know will all be good, which add to the litany of these matches that we already have and that are part of the canon. Why do you go for one instead of the other, etc. Really, the only way to handle this is just to watch everything, but who has the time for that?

That said, this was a disc I wanted to look at because it was full of bonkers tag matches (main evented by yet another Mitsuharu Misawa, Toshiaki Kawada, & Kenta Kobashi vs. Jumbo Tsuruta, Akira Taue, & Masanobu Fuchi sort of match). The first match on the card was this though. I figured I'd start there since we just had fun with Slinger last week.

That's the thing with these. You never know when you're going to find something great. This is great.

Just from the get go, you have Kikuchi responding to a few Slinger low kicks by charging in with brutal forearms. Slinger's response was a roundhouse superkick out of nowhere. It never lets up from there. They follow it up with gritty, competitive yet somehow still tricked out grappling, bookended and enhanced by the two of them just beating the crap out of one another or Kikuchi grinding Slinger's face to dust with his boot (something that Slinger reversed into a Dragon Sleeper/STF, by the way). Later on Kikuchi moves out of a grounded armbar into a front facelock, respositioning Slinger to lift him up into this big twisting slam, and following it up with a deep crab/half crab. A minute later they'll work organically into Slinger hitting a floatover suplex or taking Kikiuchi's head off with a spinning wheel kick. It never really feels like two guys just hitting spots though. Everything has weight and impact and time to settle in. Everything's earned and takes a couple of extra shots or finding an opening for them to hit it. This is even true for the finish (Slinger throwing kicks, Kikuchi catching a foot, Slinger going for the enziguri, Kikuchi ducking it, both guys being down for a moment, and then Kikuchi taking advantage of the positioning for a Tazmission of all things). It's just that sort of match.

PAS: This was a blast, Slinger who was Terry Gordy's cousin seemed to only have a career in Japan (are there any TN indy Slinger matches? Someone ask Beau James or Kris Zellner) and he is fully qualified to have a banger with a guy like Kikuchi. Kikuchi was half himself, half his arch enemy Fuchi in this match,  he gets tortured with some sort of violent reverse STF, which some indy guy needs to steal ASAP, and also lies in a boston crab that looked like it would snap Slingers back. I liked how both guys would fire back, refusing ever to get washed away with the wave of the other guys offense. That backslide was as awesome as Eric described it as and basically the whole match had that sense of real struggle.

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New Footage Friday: Funk, Abby, Big M's, Twin Devils

Mando Guerrero/Carlos Mata/Al Madril vs. Twin Devils/Coloso Colosetti Olympic Wrestling 1979?

MD: Let's start with the good. This was not just fun but impressively fun. It goes close to thirty minutes and feels, more often than not, like a fast-paced 80s lucha trios where the tecnicos clown the rudos. They manage this without the three fall structure, however, and without any real period of long heat. Despite that, it never feels incoherent or meandering and never wears out its welcome. It never really feels excessive. I'd argue that it's even more impressive because you have two vaguely interchangeable guys on the heel side in the Twin Devils. Their gimmick is that they're the same, so past a little bit of the heat that does exist and one illegal switch, there's less variation on the heel side to work with. Basically, everything worked just like it was supposed to from the introductions to them raising the ref in the air and celebrating at the end.

That said, I'm going to harp on Mando some more. The guy coasts through the entire match not taking any offense at all for the first twenty minutes and then when he finally ends up in a hold, he picks up his opponent in it, powers to the corner and tags. Then when he ends up in another it's only due to the illegal switch and it's still just for a short time with him never really at risk. Sure, this was a face-dominated comedy match for the most part, but his partners handle things much differently.

Look at the start of the match with the initial exchanges: Mata works fairly evenly, taking a bit but getting the upper hand, with his opponent looking competent and he looking all the better for overcoming him. Madril teases vulnerability but only to clown his opponent, but it's still elaborate and carefully orchestrated (while seeming natural). There's anticipation and payoff to it and at least the threat of danger. Mando just eats whoever he's in there alive with spot after spot. They're impressive spots but it's so one-sided. That repeats basically every time he's in the ring and follows the pattern I always see with him. You can't unsee it once you realize what's going on. Honestly, I think it was ultimately detrimental to him in the match. Mata's stuff felt much more earned and ultimately, Madril's was much more memorable. Anyway, I won't harp on it here but if Phil keeps tossing me Mando matches, I'm going to call Mr. Guerrero on what he's doing. Yeah, I'm a killjoy.

Still, I'm going with "impressively fun" on this one.

PAS: Fun chance to get a look at a bunch of well known guys without a ton of footage available. We certainly get a lot of time to see what they can do, although it basically stays in one gear the entire match. It is like the first fall of a house show lucha match with the technicos doing all sorts of tricks to make the rudos look foolish. I really dug them three stooging a Twin Devil in the corner, and the spot where the technicos kept dogpiling on both Twin Devils. Madril looked the best, his punch combos were especially spicy. Still this never cranked up into something special and it is a lot of time to invest in something which stays this inessential.

ER: This match simultaneously felt like not a whole lot happened over almost 30 minutes, but also didn't drag a whole lot over 30 minutes. I don't think it was great, at times it felt like they were going long to stall for time for some unknown reason. The whole 30 minutes felt like a feeling out process, and the match was like 85% for the tecnicos, which is really odd for a match this long. The Twin Devils come off as both lazy and fun, bumping big to the floor one minute, slowly walking into place for spots the next, or doing a weird spot with Madril where Madril is lying on his stomach and a Devil lifts him into the air and drops him back on his stomach. But it just looks like Madril is jumping up into the air and landing on his stomach. Colosetti had a ton of energy in this and fed Mando really fast, and generously. Sadly he disappears for most of the last half of the match so we don't get to see a lot of what he can do. But I really liked Madril in this. Madril is a guy I've seen enough of, but had no opinion of. This is the most I've liked him and he puts in a super charismatic show. There was this really fun and really silly (in the best way) moment in the corner where a Devil is backed in, and Madril throws these short tiny shots to the ribs, like a brother annoying his sister on a too long car ride, and then starts poking him in the face and plucking at his eyebrows. It's preposterous and looked like a ton of fun. The match is probably too long for what it is, but I imagine if I had been there live with friends we'd still talk about that 30 minute match where everybody just kinda fucked around and told jokes the whole time. The Dean Martin Roast of fading territory wrestling.

Dusty Rhodes/Junkyard Dog vs. Ted DiBiase/Matt Borne Houston Wrestling 2/11/83

PAS: I loved every second of this. We have two of the greatest "Walking Tall" wrestlers ever, walking tall over two great heels willing to fly all over the ring for every punch or kick. Awesome performance by the Rat Pack, they stooge like total All-Stars and then flip to vicious when they need to. They have great looking stomps and punches. Most of the match though is the Superteam running rampant. Dusty is dancing and throwing punches and dancing and elbowing, and the Dog comes in and lays waste as well, he unloads an awesome punch combo in the corner. They even break out a Star which is something you rarely see outside of WOS and Lucha, DiBiase and Borne really sold it like they were tearing a groin. Totally satisfying send a crowd home happy match, and a credit to the performance chops of all four guys.

MD: New Houston is the best. We have a gap late in 82 and early into 83. It was just one of the periods that wasn't covered as much, definitely a shame because I can't be the only person who really wants to see that Bockwinkel vs Johnny Rich main event, right? Right? We miss a bunch of Stagger Lee and almost all of Borne.

Flaws first: Some of the hot tags could have been set up/timed better. You have two singles wrestlers on one side and sometimes that happens. It's not the end of the world as the crowd didn't care, but they would have cared all the more if a bit more work was put into that. This simply wasn't going to be a match with a lot of heel control. More blatantly, this was noticeably sloppy at times, with stuff downright and obviously missing, more so than usual, more so than you'd expect from guys at this level, and generally when JYD was not in the ring. I don't think it mattered all that much, though. While a whiff might be sold, they made sure not to sell it too much (some of that was just because the faces weren't going to sell at that much in this match anyway). Moreover, it added to the wild and desperate abandon that Dibiase and Borne were portraying.

Honestly? The whiffs aside, this is one of my favorite vulnerable heel Dibiase performances. He was in craven beg off mode basically the whole match, feeding and feeding and feeding, and he was just so over the top that he sort of transcended the usual black-gloved technical bad guy ted. He'd always bump and stooge but when you're in the ring against two beings as larger than life as JYD and Dusty, in front of a crowd that was absolutely crazy for them, it gives you a certain ability to take it up a few notches higher. There were certain faces Ted made in this match which were all-time great and he turned his head into a heat seeking missile for Dusty and JYD's fist in the most unbelievable but effective ways.

I'd call this just a really good (though certainly not perfect) house show style star-studded main event. Remember, a couple of years ago we were getting two or three of these a week.

Terry Funk vs. Abdullah the Butcher NWA-NJ 5/12/95

ER: I love when this kind of 90s indy wrestling shows up, even if it's not actually technically "good". I love the snapshot it provides, always love seeing the crowd and wondering what kids in the crowd were thinking as a really fat guy stabs an old guy in the head with a fork. I have no idea how I would have reacted to something like this in person. The match itself is about 6 minutes, most of it Funk and Abby locked in an eternal struggle, Abby struggling to stab Funk in the head with a fork, Funk struggling to not get stabbed, Abby drops his fantastic elbow and later misses one with almost as much force. Tony Rumble is around, so Abby doesn't have to take bumps into the timekeeper's table or take a sloppy DDT onto the floor, many members in the crowd are modeling previous years' New York Giants Starter clothing line, a dad holding a baby laughs and points as the two large sweaty men brawl right past them fighting over a chair, and the ring announcer repeatedly warns fans to stay in their seats and the more he says it the more he feels like Leslie Nielsen in Naked Gun telling people to move along, nothing to see here, please disperse. 

It gets thrown out when both men shove the ref but continues long past that. We get a good look at the lobby of the rec center as Funk wildly wings a chair towards an area with too many people, as Abby hides in the dressing room. In the background on the wall, there's a hand written flyer that screams "POGS R HERE!", which, if we hadn't known the date of this match already, would have given us a decent idea. Funk hits himself with a chair and gets Abby to come back out of the dressing room, but they almost immediately fight back into the dressing room. We fade to black as other wrestler's try to save their duffel bags or jackets from getting rolled on by both of them as they brawl through the dressing area. We fade out with images of Dan Severn and Devon Storm and other wrestlers, amused in the background.

PAS: I thought this was a blast. Exactly what you would want if you paid for a ticket at an indy show to see Terry Funk vs. Abdullah the Butcher. Stabbing, Funk beating up Tony Rumble, Abby dropping his meat cleaver elbow. Both guys bleeding on fans. Funk is in the tail end of his third prime and is still willing to take a beating and bumps. Abby is a terrifying force of nature and I can imagine how great it would have been to see waddling towards you holding a bloody fork.

MD: I'm completely in sync with Eric on this. What will stay with me years from now is the announcer repeatedly calling for safety and calm in the blandest tone imaginable. It was both completely in line and completely dissonant with what we ere seeing. The words lived up to the unpredictability of Abby and Funk just going at each other with pulsing violence, waxing and waning as they orbited one another around the ringside area. That said, this wasn't a Puerto Rican soccer arena packed full of people. There was space for everyone to move in and around the action, so that there was violence and unpredictability but never quite the danger that ought to go along with it, certainly not enough to justify the frequency of the message, yet still deserving far more than the tone it received. This was the sort of thing that could only have existed exactly where and when it did.

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New Footage Friday: Mando, Chic, Flair, Race, Youngblood, Briscos, Steamboat

Mando Guerrero vs. Golden Boy Olympic Wrestling 5/80

PAS: Roy Lucier is uploading some dying days Olympic Wrestling from LA, and this was corker of a match. Its a Mexican death match which basically is a street fight, Golden Boy is Chick Donovan working a Nature Boy gimmick. Mando jumps him at the bell and wrecks him. Throwing him around the ringside, including using the empty front row seats to run and dive off of (cool use of the seats, not good that the whole side of the front row is empty.) He grabs two straps and laces Chick with them and just rips apart his arm including chair shots and nasty crossarmbreakers. Mando is a force of nature in this match, coming at him with such intensity. Donovan rakes the eyes to take over and opens Mando up by smashing his head into the turnbuckle bolts. He works the cut and gets the pin after a thrust to the throat. Golden Boy comes off like a total badass for surviving that onslaught. Kind of an odd structure with Mando taking 85% of the match before losing, but the work in it was great.

MD: Mando is my least favorite Guerrero. I totally get why someone would like him, and I respect certain things he does. He's the most over-the-top, theatrical Guerrero. He understood how they were viewed by most audiences and most promotions and leaned into that the most. I think he ought to get credit for that with all of his tumbling and flash. It makes for something that really stands out. It just doesn't usually make for good matches.

Here, I had some hope, because some of that mentality, distilled to a straight up brawl, could create something fairly bombastic and memorable. In the first couple of moments, we start to get signs of that too. Unfortunately, it doesn't last. Mando was losing this one and fairly definitively as well. His response? He takes most of the match with holds and containment. Chic barely gets anything. I'd say that this was a context issue in as we don't know what led to a match with such severe stips, but Chic was presented as the next Gorgeous George and the fans didn't seem to care at all that he was getting early and frequent comeuppance. They sat on their hands. By the time the heat and the blood came into play, it was too late. I think these two probably had a really great brawl in them, but that's not what we got here.

TKG: Holy fuck that was great. Have we seen a lot of brawling Chic Donovan before? I’ve seen Donovan live on the indy scene as technical heel doing more Austin Idol mannerisms. But this is full on brawling Donovan and I’m not even sure if you can compare what he was doing to Austin Idol. The announcer compares him to Gorgeous George and he brings a man purse to the ring but not mincing. Donovan’s punch bitchslap/chop combo was like Tenryu if Tenryu looked like a Long Island Jewish Helen Reddy. Mando who were also kind of used to working AWA midcard technical doing carnyish spots also great in brawling showcase. Cool seeing him really attack a bodypart like an illegitimate Anderson brother in match where you expect to be going for KO. Left this wanting to see every match in their feud.

ER: This was great, loved it all. The structure was maybe a little weird, with Mando taking the first 70% entirely and Chic taking up most of the last 30% before winning, kind of a weird almost babyface comeback for Donovan, who really had taken an absolute shit kicking up to that point. Mando punches Chic around ringside, absolute dynamite right hands. Chic takes bumps into the ringpost, into empty front row seats (the crowd didn't feel small, but for whatever reason an entire front row was empty), Mando doing this great downward punch to the forehead while standing on the seats, then running across the row to do a kind of by the hair bulldog onto the seats. He even whips him hard back in the ring with TWO straps, and yanks on his arm a bunch with a big armbar spot. Donovan's comeback was suitably violent too, I agree with Phil that he looked like a total badass taking that beating and then really firing back. It's so weird because he's clearly a smug prick, but here he is getting all this fabulous babyface build and comeback. Mando gets busted open and Chic bites at the cut, and really has cool theatrical punch combos, looks like Sid Caesar doing a Buddy Landel character. This was two guys who I rarely take a look at, and this made me want to see anything they've done that's like this.

Jack/Jerry Brisco vs. Jay Youngblood/Ricky Steamboat NWA 7/9/83

MD: I got a little worried at first since out of twenty minutes of footage, the first few were taken up by the fans pelting Jack and Jerry with trash. I'm always up for that sort of heat, but I still wanted a match too. (I didn't know that the last few were full of the faces stealing the belts and the Briscos complaining about it too). I should have known better. The fifteen minutes or so we got were downright sublime.

It starts with posturing, with Ricky pointing and pointing, a Brisco swiping, a duck, and an atomic drop and it never stops all the way to the finish. I haven't gone back and revisited these matches so I'm not sure entirely how much of this was done down around the horn but it felt both fresh and organic and completely seamless with absolutely no wasted space. Everything didn't just mean something. Everything meant everything.

Steamboat was the king at this. He's already got the biggest armdrag in the world, but here everything was big: every bit of clapping on the apron, every tag, every swipe from the outside. The beatdown on Jay is great, with them targeted the theoretically damaged back with everything in short order: gnarly holds, a Billy Robinson backbreaker, this amazing suplex right onto middle the top rope, back first. The hot tag doesn't feel entirely earned, but the fans buy it and it leads to a little loop that allows Jay back into make an even better hot tag. The finishing segment is great with the faces demolishing a leg (with both these great Dibiase fistdrops onto it and the most beautiful Indian Deathlock you'll ever see) before shenanigans allow the the Briscos to take the win. Just a great match from a great series.

PAS: This was excellent, one of the best new matches we have seen from the Network. Classic tag wrestling set up, with all four guys working at a high level. The Briscos beat down on Jay was an all timer, they are both such asskickers, I have found title match Jack Brisco a bit dry, but heel tag wrestler Jack Briscoe is great. That suplex on the tope rope, looked like it might have put Youngblood in traction. Steamboat is a dynamic hot tag too, just so good at portraying hyped up energy, and the Briscoes fly around for him like champs, I love all of his goofy karate chops, totally what you thought martial arts looked like before anyone actually saw it. You don't see a ton of face tag team limbwork, but man do Steamboat and Youngblood go after the knee, the Indian deathlock by Jay is maybe the best I have ever seen, he is floating off the mat with a perfect bridge. We get a solid BS finish and an irate crowd ready to murder the Briscos. Thought this was way better then the Starcade match, and was up there with the top 80s tags.

TKG: Early 80s Race and Flair are guys you think of as having pretty big movesets but really they get eclipsed by Briscoes and Youngblood/Steamboat. These guys are just whipping out moves. All the cool stuff working over Youngblood’s back: the first back backbreaker etc. People talk about Steamboat’s moveset shrinking in WWF mostly in terms of him dropping the superplex but there is so much stuff he shelved. Also you think of Flair and Race as big bumping guys and while they have their more elaborate bumps, the heel Briscoes flying around are really slapstick amusing. I wish Roughhouse reffed this match too

ER: This was incredible. What a all time great tag match. This honestly made me rethink the standing of the Kobashi/Kikuchi vs. Can Ams match. This was the first time I think I've ever thought the Briscos looked more kickass than the Briscoes. Jack Brisco in this match would be one of my all time favorite wrestlers. Brisco is a hyped guy I usually don't get excited for, but here my god. What a colossal dickhead, and a dominant one; he beats Youngblood around the ring, great punches, big knees, drops two vicious kneedrops to Youngblood's chest, hits this almost press slam bodyslam, just major strength. Gerry was an absolute savage here as well, in ways I've never seen. He looks like he's going to snap Youngblood in two places when he stands way too far away on a slingshot suplex, just bending Youngblood over that top rope and muscling him over. He even saves the match and wins it in one fell swoop by diving in with a huge outstretched splash as Steamboat is pinning Jack. And that babyface team my god! Youngblood took a furious asskicking and by the 15:30 mark of this match you start noticing that Youngblood has garnered so much damn sympathy through his beating that this building is rabid. Men and women, old and young alike are just screaming there heads off for Jay and Ricky. It's beautiful pro wrestling. Steamboat has a magnificent hot tag, heavy as hell chops, big haymakers, big mannerisms, everything explosive. He's making up fistdrop variations on the fly, drops two great ones onto the screaming Gerry's inner thigh. What?? This was smoking hot, screaming loud, hard hitting, worth the ticket price professional wrestling. What a find.

Ric Flair vs. Harley Race NWA 7/9/83
PAS: New Flair matches aren't really that interesting to me at this point, but this was a new babyface Flair match, and he works pretty different as a face. These are a pair of really dynamic offensive wrestlers, and I really enjoyed watching them tee off on each other. Race has some shtick I don't love, but man does his stuff look great, he just crushes Flair with knee drops and punches. Flair breaks out some offense we don't normally see from him too, a flying forearm, some cool looking uppercuts and he actually hits his top rope elbow instead of getting punched in the stomach. Flair actually press slamming Race off the top rope is a nice bit of role reversal. We get a version of my least favorite Race spot, where he does a brainbuster on the floor, instead of a piledriver, but it is as dumb that Flair has to go back on offense so soon. This wasn't a match with a ton of substance to it, but it was a real go go offensive match which totally got the crowd into it, and any chance to see different shades of these great wrestlers in appreciated.

MD: This was a pretty standard 20 minute title match. Unfortunately, they worked the first part like it was more of a 60 minute one. Watching Flair-as-champ matches, almost always the most enjoyable part is how he works both on top and from underneath during the initial holds, the struggle, the abandon, how they work in and out with spots. Here, Flair was the face and there was very little of that. It was pretty boring and it was almost a relief when they cut to the crowd doing something interesting instead.

Thankfully, it picked up from there, mimicking some of the other Flair-Race matches we have from that summer. I liked seeing the wrinkles. There are a few matches where Race suplexes Flair on the floor, but here, instead of reversing a pile driver to recover, Flair dodges a diving headbutt. The suplex itself was super nasty because Flair's foot got caught on the rope barricade. (There was also the fake out elbow drop as Race rolls, which is a great spot in any match) The back half is heated and exciting, building to amusing sequence where they almost couldn't decide on which bs finish would actually end the match. The real star of the show was the little girl they kept cutting to who was increasingly annoyed by everything Race did. I'm glad we got this one, as it's always notable to see another pure babyface Flair performance, but the worst parts of it didn't live up to the best parts.

TKG: Camera person spends a lot of time on a girl who you expect to be picking a daisy in an anti-Goldwater commercial and she really is into this match and you get why it would work for her. I love some babyface Flair. Love the babyface Flair bumps, the offense etc. This is more Flair from above babyface Flair then you get in say 89 or so and early parts of this are Race begging off till he headbutts Flair in the dick. I’ve complained in the past about Race’s suplex on the floor spot where it demands that opponent get back in ring before 10 count and often is next guy on offense. But it’s perfect here as the missed diving headbutt to floor set up Flair’s transition to offense and Flair knows how to continue selling while transitioning. The match is reffed by Sonny Fargo who is fantastic, does a great job eating his first bump and just all his timing and interactions to set up finish really make sense and are believable. He knows Flair doesn’t want to win by DQ and is willing to let things slide for a while but…

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