Found Footage Friday: JARRETT~! MOONDOGS~! INOKI~! GOTCH~! SUPERSTAR~! MANNY~! GORO~! UEDA~! ISHINRIKI~!

Antonio Inoki vs. Karl Gotch NJPW 10/4/72

MD: As a general rule we don't look at clipped reel type footage. This is pretty historical and timely however, so even though we just get glimpses here, I'd like to recount a few spots. Inoki hits the front dropkick out of a lock up, which felt like one of his early trademarks. In the singles match between Gotch and Inoki we do have, Gotch hits an amazing German. Here he hits a great butterfly suplex but then Inoki reverses an attempt at a second into a backslide in a smooth and beautiful motion. Equally beautiful was the way they turned the cobra twist into a tumble out of the ring to lead to whatever the finish was. In this we also saw hints of a rolling short arm scissors (probably leading to the Gotch lift), a strike exchange, and a Gotch headstand out of an early hold. We avoid these more to save ourselves the grief of imagining what we don't have, but the bits we see here look look great.

Antonio Inoki vs. Masked Superstar NJPW 9/23/82

MD: Bill Eadie is comfort food pro wrestling. He has good stuff for 1982 (Swinging Neckbreaker, Neck Drape over the top, Russian Leg Sweep, Neckbreaker Drop off the ropes), but he's going to grind you down more than that. There's nothing fancy about his holds or escapes, but they're tight and snug and well-worked and there's weight behind them. He has nasty little inside shots and thudding stomps. He'll bump when it's called for, especially on a missed move, but the flash and flair you might get out of a Dick Murdoch on top of all of that, just isn't there. There'd be just enough stalling, just enough getting under the crowd's skin and taking liberties that they were emotionally connected to the ever-plausible action, but it'd never tip them over the top. He wasn't a UWF style guy, certainly not a wizard, but he was an endlessly credible pro wrestler. Inoki knew how to work against someone like that, holds to begin, escapes and counters, slow and steady. Eadie went underhanded and took over and leaned and leaned and leaned. Inoki came back once, got his shots in, even a figure-four, but then was cut off. Finally, Eadie missed a diving headbutt off the ropes and it was ritual from there: the back-brain kick, the flying octopus hold, the elated crowd. Eadie was the match. Inoki was the spark. Together they made fire. Simple, straight-forward, elemental pro wrestling.

Jerry Lawler/Jeff Jarrett vs. Moondog Spot/Big Black Dog USWA 4/8/92

MD: Armstrong Alley/goc/KrisPLettuce has been doing heroic work over the last few years gathering and disseminating footage in the back pages of tape catalogs that were never put online. A lot of that turns out to be oddball promotions which don't have a ton of matches that make sense for what we do for FFF, but here's one that does. This was a handheld from Evansville. It was a street fight, part of a feud a few years before its time in Jarrett/Lawler vs Moondogs, a real predecessor to the hardcore style we'd get a few years later. Richard Lee was seconding the Moondogs, which was the story of the match as they had a numbers advantage. This was probably Jarrett's career year, generally for the sorts of matches he was in and how he was positioned as a babyface fighting valiantly from underneath, and we see a lot more of him, matched with Spot, than we do Lawler, who was goozled in the corner by the Big Black Dog. Whoever was taping this went so far as to say that Lawler hadn't come to work tonight to which his friend asked when did he ever? That was funny. Still, it was a babyface team meant to draw sympathy against not just larger opponents but entirely unfair numbers game in a properly chaotic and violent environment with lumber and chairs used freely. When the time came, there was a fiery chair-laden comeback from Jarrett and enough miscommunication for Lawler to come back and drop the strap. Jarrett led the fans in a count before they crotched Big Black Dog from the inside out, before another Moondog (Cujo or Spike) ran out to draw the DQ. A nice, chaotic ten minute example (even if occasionally hard to see) of just what they were running here and why it's historically important.

ER: This really did feel a lot the exact same thing you would see several years later in ECW, and then in bastardized version several years after that in WWF. Moondog Spot and Jarrett were really swinging on these chair shots. Usually when there's any kind of brawling tag with Lawler in the ring, his punches are going to be the best thing in the match. Well, outside of him running across the ring to punch Spot in the face to start the fray, he's mostly tangled up with Big Black the entire match. And, while there was small joy to be had in Dog holding Lawler up in a big choke and Lawler throwing a couple punches to try to stagger him, all of the fire was brought by Jarrett and Spot. Jarrett wails on Spot with a chair, Jarrett gets run face first into a 2x4, and the trash can used to beat Jarrett senseless at the finish looked like it weighed 30 pounds. Jarrett took a pounding, but Richard Lee was a real megastar here, taking a miscommunication clothesline from Spot that sends him violently back into the ropes, then later takes a clothesline from Big Black to the side of his head. He's the agent of chaos who will take a couple painful bumps and then be dodging punches while tying the ref up in complaints. The whole thing rules, filmed in a dark arena by some guy and now watched in bathrooms on phones by weird guys 30 years later. 

Goro Tsurumi/Ishinriki vs. Manny Fernandez/Umanosuke Ueda NOW 11/8/92

MD: Wild bloody scene with some strange starts and stops, a finish missed due to the Ebony Experience menacing the ringside area, and a few memorable images. Half of this was a weapons-laden bloody brawl. Half was Manny and Ishinriki running spots. It began with women (and a little boy) with flowers and escalated almost instantly to crazy violence as Manny, the sides of his head shaved, rushed in with a kendo stick. A minute or two later, he was having Nam flashbacks (let's all pretend, ok?) trying to stop an already bloody Ueda from stabbing everyone with a butcher's knife. It was all pretty gripping stuff. The exchanges with Ishinriki were pretty good, size and some finesse vs speed and brutal kicks. Ishinriki had a couple of nice dives too. There were a few moments where Tsurumi and Manny were just hanging around waiting to hit each other but there were also flying chairs and plenty of blood to go around. I couldn't rate this one if I tried due to the chaotic nature of the shooting and the stilted nature of the action but it was still quite the spectacle.

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Even More 80s Christmas AWA

Jerry Blackwell/Greg Gagne vs. King Kong Brody/Masked Superstar AWA 12/25/84

ER: More nice tag formula, although Gagne got kind of swallowed up by Brody. Gagne was FIP for most of this with Blackwell getting a big hot tag, but the money match-up throughout was Blackwell/Brody. There was one great moment where Brody was firing up big boots right to Blackwell's forehead, with Blackwell leaning into them and powering through them while the crowd went nuts. Brody played monster well, and AWA is probably the Brody era that I have seen the least, but I thought he was a great fit here. Blackwell is also a guy who is a great babyface (which is also not the role I've seen from most of my Blackwell viewing).

Earthquake Ferris vs. Brian Knobbs AWA 12/25/86

ER: Ferris was the football coach or wrestling coach or P.E. coach or some kind of sports coach at the high school my girlfriend from like 20 years ago went to, and every year he would run a wrestling benefit show for the school. The year I was dating her I went and saw Greg Valentine, saw Sabu, her parents sat through a pro wrestling show and had zero respect for me, it was fun. And guess what, this rules. Brian Knobbs is just a couple months into his career here, and looks like a spitting image of Bridget Everett. Ferris works a couple of really fast cool armdrags and drops Knobbs with a big body slam. Knobbs talks trash about how fat Ferris is. Ferris is more of a bump machine than I remember, especially loved this massive missed elbow drop. Knobbs had some of these weird and violent, almost World of Sport movements on some of his attacks. He drops a super quick knee on Earthquake's leg, and does these great slashing attacks to the arm, started wrenching the arm he was attacking around the ropes. He really brought a more violent attack than I was expecting. I might need to do a rookie year Brian Knobbs deep dive. Ferris shows nice spunk on his comeback, hitting this sky high avalanche, just throwing arms back and diving in with nothing but belly, way high up. Then he gets Knobbs up in an airplane spin (The Ferris Wheel!!!) which leads immediately to a quirky splash finish. This match was fun as hell. When you're grinning your ass off and loving the 1986 melted candle body fat boy wrestling, you tell 'em Eric sent you.

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Fear Not For the Future, Weep Not for Yoshiaki Fujiwara

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Antonio Inoki v. Dick Murdoch/Masked Superstar NJ 11/24/86- FUN

This was from the 1986 tag league. It is a fine little match which really has some excellent Fujiwara v. Murdoch exchanges. Both guys are such expressive wrestlers, that it is a treat to watch them work simple stuff. There is about 2 minutes of really nice brawling, Fujiwara backs Murdoch into a corner and unloads with one of his super fast combos, leading Murdoch to do a big spit take and a great bite a lemon face. Murdoch fires back with a couple of headlock punches right to Fujiwara's nose, which leads Fujiwara to grimace and adjust his nose to see if it is broken. Really simple stuff elevated to greatness by amazing performers. Match itself isn't much, Inoki had a tendency to take some punishment in a match, just to shrug it off and pin the guy. It isn't even like he Hulks up, he just decides he has had enough and perfunctorily finishes someone, he does that here and it hurts the match.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v. Johnny Barrett PWFG 3/4/91-GREAT

Barrett is an early 90's Florida indy worker who was an early DDP tag partner and feuded with the Nasty Boys. Somehow he ended up in UWF2 working as a Greco guy. All of his earliest UWF matches are filled with 3 Stooges style selling and dropkicks, so of course I loved them. Fujiwara of course is fucking Yoshiaki Fujiwara. This was as great as I was hoping it would be, although for different reasons. By 1991 Barrett had gotten the hang of working the style and is actually a really great shootstyle monster, kind of like Gary Albright with takedowns instead of suplexes.

Fujiwara really puts him over great here, as they exchange big shots, including Fujiwara's awesome shootstyle headbutt, which is completely different from his pro-style headbutt . His Pro-style headbutt has him grab the hair and really rare back, the kind of showy headbutt that plays to the back row. The shootstyle headbutt is more like a ram, he bends his knees and drives the top of his head right into either the jaw or the temple of his opponent. It is so different from his pro-style headbutt, that it always looks reckless and potatoey. It really looked like he broke Barrett's jaw. The finish was awesome, Barrett is on top, and tries to maneuver for a cross armbreaker, he slips while trying to apply it, and Fujiwara pounces, grabbing his ankle and sinking in a deep ankle lock for the tap. It actual looked like Barrett blew the spot and Fujiwara just went with, although it might have been intentional. Fujiwara is an amazing defensive wrestler, and this was just a brilliant reaction spot.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Shinya Hashimoto v. Daisuke Ikeda/Takashu Sugiara Zero-One 9/15/01-FUN
Slightly disappointing, as on paper I was totally amped to see Daisuke Ikeda match up with both Fujiwara and Hash. There was a nice exchange or two, but this match was focused on Sugiara. They basic story was pretty cool, Sugiara is this beast of an athlete who is still pretty green at pro wrestling. So he has his moments of explosiveness and domination, but he goes to the well a little too often and leaves himself open to counters from the two Maestros. There is this great spot where he hits a big takedown on Hashimoto and ground and pounds him. When they get back to their feet he tries again and Hash drills him with a nasty kick, which I though may have dislocated his shoulder. Fujiwara is able to catch him sleeping a couple of times too, countering a mount with a kneebar, and a front face lock with a Fujiwara armbar. Definitely some cool shit, but it was very frustrating watching Daisuke Ikeda hang out on the ring apron while Sugiara is in the ring.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE YOSHIAKI FUJIWARA

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