Found Footage Friday: DUSTY, JR.~! EIGEN~! OKUMA~! GYPSY JOE~! FUJI~! HENNIG~!

Mr. Fuji vs. Curt Hennig WWF (Kuwait) 1982

MD: There are plenty of things that are interesting about these Kuwait matches. Often times they're on smaller cards with smaller crews and need to go longer than what you'd see even at MSG and sometimes with hierarchy slightly off because the shows have to make do with what they have. They're also in front of crowds that are game but maybe less familiar than the New York faithful. Sometimes that lets a wrestler lean into strength, like Roddy trying to cause a riot or Putski doing as much as possible with as little as possible and being super over in the process.

Sometimes you get a match like this which is eighteen minutes, and maybe eight too long, and that's with us coming in just a bit JIP, which means we lose a little bit of the opening shine. Almost immediately, Fuji takes out the eyes with a foreign object and the next ten minutes or so are Fuji working nerve lock with Hennig working up, hitting some dynamic piece of offense and then immediately Barry Houston-ing himself with some huge bump (missed dropkick, dive through the ropes, giant dive onto Fuji's knees, all starting with that huge spasming sell of the eyes).

All of that works pretty well, if only because Fuji's such a jerk, perfect for this crowd, and because Hennig is so far over the top with everything he does. When he finally punches up, however, they go into what should probably be a finishing stretch, but because they're so far from home, they can't go home. It just lingers for minutes after that, with Hennig locking in a long front facelock. Mercifully, Fuji eventually goes back to the object, allowing Hennig to get it and get revenge on Fuji's eyes. He stooges around the ring blindly, all but beckons Hennig over to hit an elbow drop, and they land the plane with maybe the only 80s abdominal stretch I've ever see end a match (with some great exhausted selling from Fuji on a close up). I like seeing wrestlers facing challenges like this to see how they react. I wouldn't say this passed with flying colors but there was a pretty good twelve minute match in this eighteen minute frame.

Mark Scarpa/Dusty Rhodes Jr. vs. Haruka Eigen/Motoshi Okuma AJPW 6/5/90

MD: This is more Found than New, but it was buried on a tape list for quite a while, long enough for some of us to be ready to state our appreciation for Eigen and Okuma at least. This one showed that their act was probably a little dependent upon their opponents (I have new respect for Rusher after it) but it was also a good match for Dustin to be in to learn a thing or two. Dustin was billed as Dusty Jr. here. Not every punch hit exactly how you'd like, but overall, he was well on his way. His size was absolutely noticeable against Okuma and Eigen and let him take a lot of the match, maybe more than ultimately was enjoyable since they're so good at getting scuzzy heat.

Scarpa was, of course, Jay Youngblood's kid, also Mark Young. He had an Evel Knievel thing going with his gear and did some breakdancing arm movements that had the announcers calling him a "squishy pose" man. Eigen did play off of that amusingly. In general, for a guy that had over 150 matches at this point, a lot of them on WWF house shows against name opponents, and that had 15 matches on this tour already to get used to the AJPW rings, he was jarringly bad at getting whipped into the ropes. It's something that you take for granted with almost anyone you see at this level (especially that made it to an All Japan tour). Sometimes it might have been part of a spot Okuma wanted to do, such as missing a leaping headbutt and wiping out, but even that didn't look like it should have. He was capable at other times and took a great bump off of Okuma's head in the corner, for instance, but it's hard not to remember those whips.

So without heat and with Scarpa offering a little bit of sizzle but not too much else, the big draw here is just to see Dustin fit into the Eigen and Okuma show. That meant hitting elbows to little effect early given Okuma's hard head but being able to floor him late with the full flip, flop, and fly, or doing the spit spot on the apron with Eigen, increasingly realizing what he had until he hammed it up for the crowd bigtime on the third smack to the chest.

ER: Matt and I, big Eigen and Okuma guys, were excited for this one, and even though it's probably more exciting on paper than in execution, this is the Exact Kind Of Shit I Like. Matt might not know this, but I was a major Mark Young Guy when I was 7 and 8 years old. Before I knew what a job guy was, Mark Young was my favorite job guy. Even I, a 7 year old, figured out quickly which WWF wrestlers were going to be winning matches on WWF weekend TV. If one man was named The Widow Maker and then other man was named Dennis Allen, I was smart enough to know that things were about to go poorly for Dennis (especially once I asked my dad what a widow was and what "makes" widows). But Mark Young was the job guy who got more offense, and occasionally got close pinfalls. He looked like a guy who was primed to get a win, and I was excited to see him get that win. He also did breakdancing and flips, and that shit certainly didn't make me like him any less. Watching him with adult eyes, he basically looks like Dave Meltzer and runs the ropes like a guy in his first week of wrestling school. 

But that's okay! While it is alarming how poorly literally any spot that required him to run the ropes went (this All Japan tour came after he had already been working the WWF house show/TV circuit for at least a year) I thought it was impressive how well the match worked. Eigen and Okuma were in there with a gangly 6'6" large adult cowboy baby and a breakdancing goofball who couldn't properly run, and Dustin/Scarpa provide two of the most uniquely odd opponents I have ever seen Eigen and Okuma deal with. I loved every single instance of Eigen getting almost Actually Upset by Scarpa's breakdancing. Eigen is angry that he even has to attempt to lock up with a man who is wiggling his arms like Plastic Man. I loved all of Okuma's headbutts, especially how Eigen would run Dustin and Scarpa across the ring to slam them face first into Okuma's head. Scarpa was so weird, because he couldn't begin to understand Irish whips, but he actually had really impressive bumps. I loved how he bumped and sold after being run into Okuma's head. When Okuma ran at him with a headbutt to the stomach, I loved how Scarpa fell to his butt. Scarpa also had a really incredible sunset flip, leaping to the top rope and twisting in midair to glide perfectly over Eigen. It looked like a legit finisher, and also created a great moment where Eigen was not there and Scarpa just flipped off the top onto nothing. 

Dustin was mostly in there to be the son of Dusty Rhodes. Is it kind of weird that Scarpa didn't also go by Jay Strongbow Jr.? It's probably because Strongbow was a WWF guy who really didn't wrestle much in Japan, so they wouldn't recognize whatever family offense Scarpa would have been doing. They recognize Dustin doing the jabs and hard Dusty elbow to Okuma. Eigen/Dustin was a fun pairing and after Dustin took a tough bump to the floor, hitting the apron on his way down, I actually bit at Eigen's tope feint. Eigen got such a head of steam that I actually thought this man was hitting a tope into the large target of Dusty Rhodes Jr.  I was NOT expecting Dustin to facilitate Eigen spitting into the crowd. I don't think gaijin usually got involved in that spot. It's almost always one of Eigen's peers, and I wish I had behind the scenes footage either explaining the intricacies of the spot to Dustin, or letting Dustin know he would be trusted enough to have the honor of facilitating Haruka Eigen spitting all over Chiba salarymen. 

Gypsy Joe vs. Hot Rod Biggs (First Blood) Hardcore Championship Wrestling 1997(?)

MD: This is the main event starting around the 1:38:00 mark. Gypsy Joe was mid-sixties at this point and he had a series of matches with Biggs. This is the one we've dropped in on as it's a recent upload. It's First Blood, which, as best as I can tell, meant that Joe could win, but Biggs could still be protected due to the haphazard nature of "First" and especially get his heat back post-match by really laying out Joe and opening him up.

There's a real art to an old pro being able to hold court in the center of the ring and having his opponent create motion. In order to make this work, things have to look credible, the fans have to respect the old lion, and everyone has to be dedicated to the act. Jose Lothario in Houston was amazing at this and I've seen Lawler manage it pretty well before his stroke. Joe and Biggs do great with it here, with Biggs coming at him again and again only to feed and fall. The flip side of this is the post-match beatdown, where it feels like an real heat-drawing affront that Biggs is doing so much damage to someone so old and beloved and (from a kayfabe perspective at least) admirable.

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On Brand Segunda Caida: The Genius vs. Mark Young! Finlay vs. Barry Darsow

The Genius vs. Mark Young WWF Prime Time 12/25/89

ER: You ever unearth a (hopefully good) memory and can't really place it, but you do a little digging and figure it out? That's Mark Young for me. When I was a kid the only wrestling I saw was WWF's weekend morning lineup, and Saturday Night's Main Event. We didn't get PPV (zero chance my parents would have ordered one), and any friends I was on "sleepover" level with weren't really wrestling fans (one of those friends didn't even have a TV, and he's a cop now, so yeah). So weekend jobber matches and SNME were my insulin. And once I found out that SNME was a thing, it was harder to get excited about the squash matches, because the results - even to an 8 year old - were never in doubt. But there was this one guy who I never saw get a win, even though his matches were always way more competitive than most, and it was exciting because it made child me believe in the power of an underdog, the possibility of an upset. I randomly thought of this guy the other day, no idea who it was, only remember that he wore stars and stripes tights and I specifically remembered him having a competitive match against Mr. Perfect. Well, yesterday a random occurrence brought these memories back: someone posted an old wrestling magazine photo on Twitter, stars and stripes tights guy was in one of them, memories came rushing back, and it allowed me to pinpoint who he was and line it up to my memories.

It turns out this guy who I so desperately wanted to get an upset win through my young childhood was Mark Young. That's a name I definitely don't remember, I only remembered him having a "boring name" like the other guys who lost every week (you know, it would always be The Widowmaker vs. Greg Davis, or Mr. Perfect vs. John Jackson), but this was definitely the guy. Mark Young had a couple of fairly lengthy WWF stretches, a guy who occasionally won on house shows, rarely won on TV, and never won on the TV that I got to see. So I looked for a Mark Young match that I remember watching when it aired, and was pleasantly surprised to see how it held up, although not in specific ways that I loved when I was 8. The Genius was someone who I didn't even think was a wrestler when I was 8. When he fought Hogan on a SNME I thought there was zero chance Hogan would lose against this "tiny" guy (me being a child, I didn't notice how cut Genius was because he was standing next to this giant Hulk Hogan). I wasn't watching wrestling during Leaping Lanny Poffo, that SNME match against Hogan was my Lanny Poffo jumping off point, and if someone had tried to tell me Genius was brothers with Randy Savage I would have called them a liar (even though I was telling people that Shel Silverstein was Bad News Brown, because kids just lie a lot). And here he was against my boy Mark Young. A guy who was barely even a wrestler, vs. my boy Mark Young, who had gotten a close nearfall against Mr. Perfect? Surely this was Young's best chance to get a TV victory. I was confident this match would be the thing to finally allow him to break in.

Obviously Mark Young did not win, but the match holds up as extremely fun, and Genius holds up as an absolute asskicker. It's easy to see why I responded to the energy of Young so much: he did flips, derpy breakdancing, fast armdrags, and floated over with a cool high leaping hurricanarana for a nearfall. He felt like a guy who could beat The Genius. But the rest of this match suddenly made me want to go on a Genius deep dive. Genius had a haircut that would look great on one of the Vivian Girls, threw a bunch of nasty stomps into the back of Young's head and face, his prancing stooging still makes me laugh, and he (thanks to Young being a bit of a bump freak) practically invented the crucifix bomb. I'm so happy I figured out the identity of one of my earlier wrestling memories, and happy that it lined up with reality. Sadly, Mark Young also died young, passing away just a couple years ago. He made a very real impression on me that was still nestled somewhere in my brain 30 years later.


Fit Finlay vs. Barry Darsow WCW Nitro 9/21/98 (#158)

ER: A week ago I posted a couple WCW Worldwide reviews, and someone on Twitter started making up dream matches that they wished happened in WCW. It's a great idea, and part of the joy of those WCW syndicated shows is the dream matches you end up getting that you didn't realize were dream matches until after you watched them. Somebody in the replies mentioned Finlay vs. Blacktop Bully as their WCW syndicated dream match. Now, that match couldn't happen because Finlay wasn't in the fed while Darsow was using that gimmick, but here is the only singles match between the two, and it was used to kick off an episode of Nitro smack in the middle of the Hogan/Warrior feud. Darsow isn't a guy who really gets talked about as a legit tough guy, but he really comes off as an under the radar tough guy. He's a really big dude, and he had so many comedy gimmicks that it's easy to forget that he had no problem lacing it in against the opponents who demand it. Finlay is obviously a guy who is going to demand that. It's awesome when Finlay gets a guy like Darsow to step up. I loved Darsow throwing this meaty right hand into Finlay's jaw, and plowing straight through him with a hard as possible shoulderblock. This is Finlay's wheelhouse obviously, and he responds in kind. Darsow wins the "who has the hardest shoulderblock" game, but watch how hard Darsow bumps for Finlay's shoulderblock! Finlay pays him back by stomping on his hands, and grabbing him by teeth 3 thru 14 and elbowing his nose. This is a tight 3 minutes and I wish we had gotten the chance to see 8.

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