Found Footage Friday: OMNI 83~!

GCW Omni 8/28/83

ER: I'm so glad they included the opening promo package for this show, it's so good. Tommy Rich called Bill Irwin "Jack" (the greatest promo guys in history knew to call their opponents Jack), Mad Dog Sawyer has the greatest pro wrestling body imaginable, and the Brisco Brothers cut an honest to god excellent promo on the Roadies. Gerry is a bit rigid but he keeps calling their match a Texas Tarnado Match and talks about how they wrestle tarnadoes in the Great State of Oklahoma every day, but Jack is the real killer. I am not a big Jack Brisco guy. He is one of the All Time Greats whose work doesn't really thrill me. But he sounds so damn cool in this promo. He is calm, and delivers it with a smirk like he really doesn't give a good goddamn about the Road Warriors. There is no fear at all. He even makes fun of their big arms, and asks what they're going to do with those big arms when the Briscoes bend them behind their backs and they start gasping for breath, and then Gerry starts doing this incredible tongue out gagging. These Oklahoma men in their tan suits just out here mocking the fucking Road Warriors. Incredible. That sold me on their match so hard, I can't wait. 

Mr. Wrestling (Jesse Barr) vs. Joe Lightfoot

MD: Good mat-based opener to get over the idea that the fake Mr. Wrestling is capable enough. Lightfoot is basically the definition of a good undercard hand. I may or may not have mentioned it last time, but he was useful in Portland as a guy to build up Jay Youngblood coming in by giving the heels someone to beat first. They worked in and out of holds with some solid rope running. Barr did one of my favorite bits of mat wrestling where he has a toehold on and has to rotate around while keeping the toes in order to avoid his opponent from grasping his head. It's the slickest thing imaginable. Great finish here as he jammed a second headscissors takeover by turning it into a hotshot on the second rope, setting Lightfoot up for the running knee and then a back bridging pin for good measure.

ER: I dug this a lot. Barr does a lot of little things that I really like. I liked how he lay in wait to break Lightfoot's full nelson, holding his hands behind his head over Lightfoot's, motionless, before striking down in one quick motion. His drop toehold to set up his Indian deathlock was so tight. His fistdrop? A great, workmanlike Dibiase style fistdrop. He fell into the ropes selling for Lightfoot's comeback in a way that made it feel like he could accidentally slip through them. The finish is great, with Lightfoot going for a flying headscissors and Barr falling back with a hotshot that drops Lightfoot on the top rope to the middle. He sets up his Mr. Wrestling kneelift like an asshole, calling for it in the corner like an actually cool version of Edge. But the real asshole move was his jackknife neck bridge pin. I would have wanted to murder the guy if I were one of the front row men with their arms crossed. 

Brett Sawyer vs. Bob Roop

MD: This is an aside but I listened to an episode of Roop's podcast (#12 about his first tour of Japan) the other day and it was quite good. I'd suggest it. The more we see of Wayne, the better he comes off. Amazing connection with the crowd. Great seller. Throws everything into both his bumping and his shots, especially his comeback shots. Roop did a great job throwing himself into things too, especially his knee strikes. He used one to knock Wayne out of the ring early and Wayne came back a bloody mess. Blood on the second match on the card is a choice but it worked out here. Some great moments of comeback and cutoff, including a picture perfect posting reversal by Roop. Except for that wasn't a cutoff at all. As Roop tried to get back into the ring, a staggered Wayne managed to roll him up making it for two great, novel finishes in a row. Very good stuff for what it was.

ER: I really love Brett Sawyer now. I used to have not much of an opinion on him. All of these 1983 Omni shows have been so much fun, and everyone on them has had their stock raised by the new footage. Brett Wayne might just be the guy who has been raised the most, for me. Now, a lot of other guys had such high ceilings that they had less room to move up, but that doesn't matter. The Other Sawyer is great. This match was awesome. Bob Roop is one of the toughest men in wrestling history and looks like Ned Beatty. Sawyer looks like the ugly bassist in an 80s hair metal band, but he's just such a fucking great babyface. He has skills completely different from his brother. He was Mad Dog's younger brother, but by a lot less time than you'd think. They were a year apart but Brett Wayne was in permanent Kid Brother mode. Brett Wayne Sawyer was a GREAT Kid Brother wrestler. 

The Omni crowd sat with their arms crossed during a good opener, but Brett Wayne is the one who gets the old ladies waving their arms and pumping their fists for his comeback. This whole match is built around a big posting, where Roop runs Brett down the apron. Sawyer is great at dramatic falls, and I love how he absorbs the posting, how he falls off the apron, the time he took to get back in the ring. Sawyer is a great bleeder too, and as Roop hits a snaring clothesline you can see he has good color from the posting. Sawyer's selling is so good as he's fighting back, and it all builds to this incredible moment that mirrors his earlier posting. Sawyer now has Roop on the apron, now it's his turn for revenge, the fans all want it, the old ladies are screaming for Brett...and instead it turns out to be an incredibly done reversal. Sawyer runs Roop down the length of the apron and at the last second Roop smashes Sawyer's face into the turnbuckle, a shot maybe ever tougher than his posting earlier. I thought that would have played as a great, if demoralizing, finish, buy my boy Brett surprises me again when he gets a tight roll up immediately after, as Roop is getting back in the ring. I bit at all the exact things they wanted that Omni crowd to bite at, their storytelling and Sawyer's babyface fire hooking me just as it hooked ATL over 40 years ago.

Paul Ellering vs. Bruno Sammartino Jr.

MD: Seeing David with the Bruno Jr. name really hammers home how doomed the guy was. He was stocky and there's a world where he could have had a totally different name and been in Florida or Memphis teaming with Jim Neidhart and they could have been a hugely successful heel team, I think.  What we had instead was Ellering really guiding him through one. Paul would eat the mat and end up in cross toeholds again and again, then complain to the ref when he got out. He finally took over working the eyes and he had a great way of selling his fists after the punch or continuing to sell the leg that had him coming off like a vulnerable manager instead of a former muscleman wrestler. The fans were behind David when he came back. Weird spot down the stretch as he got pressed off the top (like Flair or someone would) by Ellering, but he came back again after that and hit a suplex and a belabored press slam before Ellering took a powder for the count out. Pretty transparent overall but still better than you'd expect and a testament to Ellering.

ER: That David Sammartino has BS all over his boots, poor kid really stepped in it. As Matt said, what chance did this kid have? He had his dad's build and none of his timing or charisma. There was a moment where he swept Ellering's legs late in the match and Ellering was just lying on his back, directing Sammartino to start punching him, and it took him forever to pull the trigger on them. Ellering did what he could, but you but my boy Brett Wayne in the same match and he'd have Ellering scrambling and begging off all around the ring. I did like Sammartino standing on Ellering's neck while holding his legs in a deathlock, but much of this was Ellering just making do. When Paul finally took over with a punch to a grounded Sammartino, shaking out his fist, I said aloud "finally" at my desk at work. Ellering had several nice punches and was good at working to get heat, since Sammartino was incapable of connecting with these people. Sammartino's big press slam was a good thing to end on. It looked good and I like how he really threw Ellering, but Ellering was great at deciding to take the count out loss, almost swinging at a cop on his way out. 

Texas Tornado Match: Road Warriors vs. Brisco Brothers

MD: This was already out there so I'll just hit it quickly. Gerry saying "Texas Tarnado" never gets old. What was most striking here was how this was so unproduced and raw. There weren't the sort of momentum shifts that you'd expect. It had all four men in the ring at the same time but very often one Brisco was in charge of a Roadie and a Roadie was in charge of the other Brisco. There were a few moments of double teaming if they got a Brisco out and a few moments of clear comeback, but in general, it was just barely controlled chaos. That's extremely refreshing even if it meant any possible narrative had to be entirely implicit. The finish was fun too since it had the Briscos resorting to using chairs (within the rules) and making it so the Road Warriors were too wary to come back into the ring. They got swung at every time they tried and that forced them to get counted out. It's a match that simply couldn't exist today.

ER: I thought this was mostly pretty bad. The Briscoes wrestled nothing like they said they would wrestle and the Tarnado stipulation played to nobody's strengths. Much of the fighting looked soft and slowed down. Many of the strikes looked so bad I had to check that I hadn't actually been watching the other matches in 1.5x speed and then got brought back to real life. Nope, it was just them moving slowly and throwing bad strikes. Animals kept doing this little hopping stomps, everyone moved like they didn't want to accidentally bump into anyone else, Gerry did a run of four push off double boots out of the corner and not only did it look like the Roadies didn't want to run into them, but Gerry threw them like he didn't want them to make contact. Jack did a couple things I liked, getting out of a bearhug with a big telegraphed eye poke, and I liked the visual of both Briscoes kicking their own Road Warrior in the knee around the ring at the same time, but then that chairs finish quickly brought this back to bad. The wrestling grapplers who were going to immobilize the muscle bound freaks on the mat, instead resorting to getting weapons (the Road Warriors did not do a single untoward action toward them!) and throwing the worst chair shots you've ever seen. Gerry's were especially terrible. The second match on this card had blood, motherfucker, throw a glancing blow off one of their heads or something, anything. No good. 

Mr. Wrestling II vs. Larry Zbyszko

MD: Totally down my alley. Mr. Wrestling II was an absolute folk hero here and Zbyszko was just the perfect heel. II started by dropping the belt between them like a line in the sand. Then, of course, Larry stalled. Until II gave chase and finally caught him as he thought he was free and clear to slide into the ring. A massive beating ensued until Larry stalled more into the corner. Then as he finally let the ref allow II to get close, he hit a kick, pulled the turnbuckle back and smashed II's head into it. That allowed him to control for a while, including a very interesting chinlock where he put it over by leaning to the side. Such a little thing but it was visually effective. II made it up and Larry went for the exposed corner again but II turned it around on him, leading to another beating and the eventual finish, which had Larry hold the rope on a roll up after he couldn't get a pile driver to work. Post-match II hit a kneelift and Larry tossed the belt straight up in one of the best visuals I've seen in a very long time. This was exactly what it should have been.

ER: Now we're talking, now we're back to the good stuff. The Omni Zbyszko has been so good, and this continues that trend. But this is also a tremendous Wrestling II performance, just fire the whole way through. The crowd starts swelling when Larry begins removing the turnbuckle pad, knowing what's coming, and once he smashes II into the buckle the real great shit begins. I love how these two fall for each other. Look how II smashes into that buckle and falls slowly down the ropes to the mat, and look how explosively Larry falls when the tables get turned. The second time Larry got smashed into the exposed buckle he sold it so well that I was sure he broke his nose, lying there on the mat covering his face, I fully expected a bloody nose and mouth when the hands came away. Wresting II was pushing 50 and his work was excellent. He beat Zbyszko's ass around the ring (paying him back for those great punches Larry threw right across his jaw) and scraped his boot all over Larry's face. Zbyszko took at least three back body drops from the guy, fast ones. Wrestling II has the best kneelift in wrestling: short, quick, sharp, damaging. I loved him dropping standing into Zbyszko's head and neck, doing a quick fist shake out to straight his arm after one to the dome. Zbyszko's finish was real scummy, great hold of the ropes after a cool piledriver reversal from II, and the post match fire was excellent. Wrestling II nailing him with another all time great kneelift causing Larry to toss the belt up into the air as he bumped. 

Tommy Rich vs. Bill Irwin (Loser Receives Lashes)

MD: When this show came out, I think people undersold just how great this one-two punch was, as one match led into the next and heated it up to a massive degree. Pez had the crowd anyway and the Kabuki/Hart act was super over; plus you had Ole to cheerlead, but it was all incredibly cleverly done. 

Rich and Irwin really did have great chemistry. There was a way that the two were visually balanced, something about how they both moved, emoting for the back row, big arm movements, a sort of lankiness where the sum of the two was more than the individual parts. And they had a certain explosiveness to how they hit the ropes, and whipped each other. They'd bring it up and down here, going right back to that explosiveness. Tommy got color early, because of course he did. He'd have a great hope spot where he reversed a smash in the corner and fired away for a bit until he got cutoff back in the corner again. The finish had him hitting the damndest small package out of nowhere, with the legs hooked just right. The fans went nuts and then doubly so as he handcuffed Irwin in the corner and started whipping. They had to deliver on the gimmick at least a little so he got a few shots in before Hart and Kabuki ran down to break it up. Then they got some shots in on a prone Rich before the place really exploded as Pez and Ole charged in to stop it. 

ER: Yeah this is another reason why we're here, this is what we want. Two wild men, Wildfire and Just Wild, one of the best bleeders of all time against a guy who will throw a couple dozen pump kicks into a bleeding man's face. Everyone in Georgia was so complementary to each other's style, everyone synced up so well, everyone was great at feeding for everyone else. This footage really is magic. Even before the blood, I could have watched a match built around these two hitting the ropes and Irwin doing drop downs. Irwin stayed on Rich and Rich was great at getting kicked around. It's a simple formula that they kept going to most of the match and I never tired of it, because Rich kept finding great ways to put over the kicks to his bleeding head. My favorite moment was Irwin busting Rich open because before you see that Rich is busted open, you see Irwin looking at his fist after punching Rich, and then shake his fist off. He clearly does not shake his fist because of the impact of his punch, he is shaking it to get the blood off. It's so good. The small package finish works really well, love how Rich grapevined those legs and how Irwin was wiggling to kick out. All of the pins in this were great, now that I think about it. Irwin had a great one where he posted up on Rich's laid out arm, body weight on one arm and his arm pressed down onto Rich's flattened arm, and I have no idea how Rich kicked out. Irwin missed a charge into the buckles really violently, perfect way to set up Rich cuffing him around the ropes. There were only a few whippings before Hart and Kabuki got in there to break it up but they all looked nastier than I expected, Rich really airing out that whip. 

Pez Whatley vs. Great Kabuki

MD: That led right into the Pez vs. Kabuki match, with the crowd on edge from the start. Pez dismantled Kabuki from the get go with each shot drawing that Ooooof noise that is so welcome in these early 80s matches. He got too close to the ropes as he was goozling Kabuki though and Hart got him in the eye. Hart was entertaining throughout since he was constantly trying to evade Ole. They brought it up and down with nerveholds but the fans got up for Pez's comebacks each and every time. Then they built to bigger spots with Kabuki coming off the top until Pez caught him and tossed him off. Finish had Hart grab the leg on a suplex attempt from the outside in but Pez actually kick out (the babyface never kicks out that scenario) and then Ole trip Kabuki off the ropes so Pez could hit the jumping headbutt for the win. Place went nuts, Ole celebrated with Pez. Post-match they had Kabuki ALMOST go after Hart until he got him under control; just beautiful pro wrestling all around.

ER: How good are these OOOF shots!? They added to every match they gave the OOFs and in such an ahead of its time wrestling crowd way. What's the fan crossover of fans who were doing the Omni OOFs and Knife Edge WOOs? Every shot in this match and the other Good Ones had it's own punctuation and since everyone in the territory was capable of throwing a great punch the matches feel like constant exclamation points. That's another reason the Road Warriors/Briscoes match was so bad, it was just a sloppy tornado with punches and soft kicks and a weird legdrop and nobody could find the rhythm. Nobody was timing their strikes for impact they were just in each other's way. No OOFs. 

If Brett Sawyer is a guy I didn't have an opinion on before the Omni stuff started showing up a few years ago, then Kabuki is a guy I didn't have an opinion on before the DVDVR Texas and All Japan 80s sets. The Chris Adams series was the peak but Kabuki revealed himself to have a real consistent TV match quality and a style I really like. Maybe our greatest Mysterious Asian Striker gimmick worker. He felt violent like Abby but with no weapons, just the savate kicks and throat thrusts and aura. Pez Whatley has been a real treat on these Omni shows too - they're a gift that has raised many boats - and his big headbutts and the way people were living with his selling were so good. The way Kabuki bumped for Whatley's first headbutt, flying back into a leaping bump for the first time all match......then the way Gary Hart bumps for Whatley's headbutt!!Hart takes it on the apron and leaps up high enough that I gasped, thinking he was crashing off the apron to the floor, but instead he gets tangled in the ropes in seven different ways before getting to the apron. It's the best Tangled in the Ropes bumping ever done among heel managers with the latest name Hart. Kabuki leapt high in the air to absorb Whatley's flying headbutt and it was the right amount of cartoon impact the crowd needed for one gigantic OOF. 

Dick Slater vs. Buzz Sawyer

MD:  The first thirty seconds of this went exactly how I was expecting. The two meet up on the floor and you get every impression that this was going to be a wild draw. But then it went in a completely different direction and stands as an incredibly complete match, just a real heated, grudge-filled but grounded main event (with some big high points) and it's almost surprising there wasn't a title match involved given how they worked it.

Slater controlled the arm early. They'd go out of it and right back into it. Sawyer would pull the hair or get a cheapshot in but they'd run two or three bits and then Slater would drag him back down. Varied stuff, hammerlock and wristlock variations, with the best of it being Slater throwing in a bunch of headbutts while he had the arm. The transition here had Ellering get involved, whacking Slater as his head was between the ropes and Buzz had the ref distraction.

First heat was chinlock heavy but they worked it well and the fans went up for every hope spot with the cutoffs being sufficiently weighty, including the last one where Sawyer tossed Slater to the floor. He started to hulk up out there and came back with big punches. This could have well built to a finish but instead the ref went down, Ellering handed Buzz some knucks, and they went around for a second bit of heat, Slater now bleeding. He survived the power slam, though, started firing back again, beating Slater around ringside. When things got desperate and Buzz went back to the knucks, Slater got them and KOed him right in front of the ref for the DQ. 

Just super complete. That's the best word for it. This is one of those matches that closed every parenthesis and was full of compelling stuff in the middle. Second time I went through this (even not remembering the details), I could feel every banana peel slip or cut off by Buzz coming but it all felt just right, perfectly placed, perfectly timed. You could program a match like this but of course it's Buzz and Slater's mannerisms and wild abandon that turned it from theory to gripping practice.

ER: 20 minutes of new Buzz Sawyer means 20 more minutes cementing him as one of my favorites. Can you imagine seeing a guy looking like and shaped like Buzz Sawyer walking into an Olive Garden in a mint green polo? A guy with that hairline who is jacked in that specific way looks like Instant Trouble. I don't know that there are five looks in wrestling history that I love more than Buzz Sawyer's. The fact he's not just a Perfect Look but he knows how to use it is lighting in a bottle. The way he uses his look, the way he bends his back taking payoff punches, the way he false starts and stomps before locking up, the way he walks around in a circle before bringing it back around to taking a shot. He's the beefiest Chris Candido possible and Dick Slater is like a strong silent Roddy Piper. People respond to both. 

They can work slow and they can work big and they have no problem filling 20. They could have filled 30. There were three different points where it felt like they were peaking things to the finish and they all worked, and the small stuff in between was no less interesting. The highest peak - and what certainly felt like the push to the finish - was Slater finally zombie staggering furiously after Ellering at ringside, throwing chairs and kicking tables in a rage while Ellering runs away in his silk robe like Don Knotts. Mad Dog grabs Dick from the ring and gets his lights punched out. You'll see two different great powerslams, Slater throwing a series of 8 consecutive headbutts short arm headbutts after also being the one to hit a charging JYD headbutt earlier, two hidden weapon punches that look like the finish, a great ref performance from Nick Patrick - a guy who needs to get more praise for everything he does - and a post match sour grapes stuff piledriver that could have started a riot. Pro wrestling. 

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Found Footage Friday: OMNI 8/14/83~! PIPER~! BUZZ~! ZBYSZKO~! GARVIN~! SHEIK~! TOMMY~! IRWIN~! ROAD WARRIORS~!

GCW Omni 8/14/83

Arn Anderson vs. Joe Lightfoot

MD: Interesting to place this one. This was Arn's second to last match in the territory. Borne had flaked out before this leaving Arn on his own and aimless. He drifted over to the babyface side and was mainly used for putting over the Road Warriors in various ways before heading to Alabama as Super Olympia. So this was more or less a babyface match. Arn was the aggressor maybe and ate a whole bunch of chops leading up to the finish but this was really just on the mat for the most part. Anyway, Lightfoot was a solid hand, a guy I know mostly for being Youngblood's little buddy to set up a program in Portland. This was five minutes in and out, and certainly didn't wear out its welcome before the double pin finish and Arn getting his shoulder up. Post match he shook Lightfoot's hand and past one Tony Zane match a couple of weeks later, that was it for Arn in Georgia.

ER: This got really entertaining when they transitioned out of the ground work and Arn was staggering into Lightfoot's chops, and that was the last 10 seconds of the match. Arn was 23!!

Fake Mr. Wrestling I (Jesse Barr) vs. Rick Rood

MD: Yes, this was Barr. I'm not sure if he was trying to work like Woods or not. I do know that he'd feud with Mr. Wrestling II after this and Wrestling II would take his mask in October. This went ten minutes as a draw which may have been surprising but Wrestling was supposed to be a bit of a fraud and he got his heat back after the match by attacking Rood. He had pretty solid armwork throughout with some big comebacks and revenge armwork by Rood. Rood had good fire and it was funny to see him do things like a headstand to get out of a headscissors which was very not Rood. Ten minute draws are far more palatable than 20 minute ones and this made me wonder what a babyface Rood might have looked like later in the decade.

ER: This was among the earliest Rick Rude matches I've seen, and it's very early. This is like 30 matches into a 1,500 match career early. It's impressive how far along he was this early while also wrestling like a completely different guy. This early on he still had elements of who he would be a thousand matches from now, in how he moved and how he sold while feeding. He already had an honest use of physics in his basics like dropdowns and shoulderblocks. He was already delivering his offense in a way where you could tell he knew what the goal of his match was. He also of course did a few funny things I have never associated with Rude, like a headstand escape out of Mr. Wrestling's great headscissors. I didn't actually know it was Jesse Barr until after I watched this. I was real confused when he beat Rude's ass after the loss after working an entire 10 minute draw without ever trying to beat Rude's ass. The crowd was really pissed off and I thought there was this great 50 year old Tim Woods heel run. 

Brett Sawyer vs. The Iron Sheik

MD: Brett was really good. Obviously there was a ceiling to him as a drawing card (Flair match from Portland and teaming with his brother vs. the Road Warriors aside) but he was just a great mid-card presence, very down home and folksy in a way that would never make it to TV today, not without being more stylized like a Mark Briscoe. But he just came off as a guy down the street with a lot of fire in his heart. 

The first third of this (after getting under Sheik's skin with the patriotic chants) was all headlocks and rope running and Sheik really was pretty lithe stooging his way into these and keeping up off the ropes. Brett eventually got caught and then Sheik jammed his face into his boot (with his boot on the top rope, which was a nice bit that he may not have been flexible enough to pull off in later years). That started the blood and with it came the woundwork and it was pretty glorious. A bloody Brett would wave his fists and try to power up and fight from underneath and the crowd ate it up. Sheik cut him off and did more damage right until the banana peel finish where Brett fell on Sheik on a suplex attempt and the place became unglued. Post match Ellering and Sheik pounded on Brett until Rich and Buzz (certainly not aligned) ran out for the save. Pretty electric stuff. This was third match on the card and it inspired so much emotion. Beautiful pro wrestling.

ER: There were at least five other matches on this show I was more excited to see. I don't know if I even registered this match when my eyes skipped past the bottom of the card to where the Valentine, Tommy Rich, Buzz Sawyer, and Road Warriors matches. I'm so glad I didn't just skip to those other matches as this match is a condensed gem. The fans really like Sawyer, hate the Sheik, and you get to see a vicious quick Sheik that would be a completely different wrestler in less than two years. Sheik is one of our great weird body wrestlers, and it's not a coincidence that so many of our great weird body guys were high level amateur wrestlers. Gary Albright's small arms and hunched shoulders and powerful belly, Tamon Honda's full long upper torso with his short sturdy legs glued to the canvas, and Iron Sheik's shredded distended belly with small arms and close shoulders, all weird amateur grappler bodies and all great. Sheik moved so weird and here he moves really well...while still moving the weird way Sheik moves. He has the same stiff old man posture as he did when he was ruining indy cards in the late 90s, but he has this cool unexpected quickness. When Sheik did a hindu squat splits dropdown into a leapfrog to set up a fast Sawyer sunset flip, I yelled aloud. 

Putting your boot up on the top turnbuckle and slamming someone's face into your boot is a real Lost Great Spot. Think of the last time you saw it. I saw Barry Horowitz do it 20 years ago and maybe it was something FTR pulled when they were The Revival. Tag partners should also yell at their partner on the apron to give them a boot more often. The boot eyelet raking made a comeback at some point, somebody needs to bring back the boot smash. Sawyer gets busted open from biting and Sheik pushes it well past biting when he throws a gorgeous belly to belly that started with him picking up a bearhug. His missed cannonball that gave Sawyer some fight was so unexpected. It's so weird watching Iron Sheik do a huge front flip. I love how it didn't lead to Sawyer's actual comeback, it just gave him a little time to fight to his knees and get the crowd believing. The finish coming right after as its own surprise was a great way to triple that reaction just as it was dimming. 

The post match was great with Buzz Sawyer and Tommy Rich coming out to save Buzz's bro from one of seven or eight Paul Ellering fueled beatings. Tommy looked so loyal, standing over Sawyer wanting to fight anyone who got near, but Buzz had this unreal aura. It's so unmistakably bad ass, a guy you don't want to cross who keeps this dangerous cool composure. "I know people don't like me but I'm not a total asshole" big brother energy. The way he carries himself with his hands in his sweatpants pockets, that torso in a tight 50/50 blend blue t-shirt, the fucking bandana essential to the look, sending calm threats to Ellering as he walked up to him. An unemployed adult older brother who stays at home all day coming out to the front yard to tell his teen brother's bully how he's going to cut him. 

Larry Zbyszko vs. Ron Garvin

MD: The TV title was on the line for the first ten minutes here. I'll be honest that there are single matches i want more or less out of the Omni footage, but if we're talking a run, then I want as much as Larry's run as possible. We have bits and pieces but it's right down my alley on paper. I think it ages better than a lot of heel Dibiase footage for instance.  

Anyway, this was the panacea to Larry's usual tactics as he only had ten minutes to try to take Garvin's title. Yes, he got punched out of the ring early, but he couldn't linger. He had to be more aggressive than usual. Tons of great punches in this one, especially in the corners. There was one comeback by Garvin where he knocked Larry down and then held on to the arm after he fell and the crowd realized it, realized that he was going to pull Larry back up to hit him again, and were elated about it. Larry was able to fire back out of the corner using the ref as a distraction and took about half the match pretty soundly. He had an advantage at the end as Garvin missed a knee drop and it seemed like he might have a chance of taking the title with a pile driver but Garvin turned it into a pin and got the win. This was a nice subversion of the Rood match which did go to a ten minute draw. It seemed like it would here too or that Garvin was going to lose and then he snuck out the win at the last moment. 

ER: I love this era of Zbyszko. Yeah Garvin looks like a jacked up super tough brat pack era Judd Nelson and hits with his trademark up close short range power, but Zbyszko man. Zbyszko sells the impact of Garvin's strikes better than maybe anyone. I love the tough guy sturdy gravity Valentine sells them with but Zbyszko is so moveable, a wiggly guy who bounces off ropes and uses body movement the same way Tully did, recoiling fast but being punched and physically reacting to those punches exactly the way 9,000 people wanted to see. He knows exactly how I want to see Larry Zbyszko reacting to being hit. He also punches exactly how I want to see a man punch. All the punches were great for the whole match, but Zbyszko's tight, straight reared back rights looked perfect. The finish of this was incredibly done and I didn't see it coming. We had our 10 minute draw already and every single piece of wrestling language made this look like a frustrated Zbyszko unable to win within 10 minutes. I actually but when Larry pulled off a sweet and smooth inside cradle to block a bodyslam in its infancy, but the actual finish was a great surprise. Zbyszko looking like he was going to cave in Garvin's teen idol 'do, with all the execution of Zbyszko lifting up the way you do just before you sit down, Garvin shifting his weight at the peak of lift off to tip the weight. Great finish, great match. 

Road Warriors vs. Mr. Wrestling/Mr. Wrestling II

MD: I really enjoy 83 Roadies. They were raw but they hadn't quite settled into what they'd become a year or two later. They wrestled much more vulnerably, more stooging, more backpedaling, while still being monsters both aesthetically and when they were doing damage. We've been hearing it for the last few matches but it's so great to have the crowd make that primal guttural noise whenever a babyface threw a shot. It was chaos to begin and chaos to end with Mr Wrestling having to fight from underneath in the middle. Wrestling II came in hot and it was rousing stuff but Zbyszko nailed him from the apron out of nowhere after a couple of kneelifts. All of this felt larger than life especially to this crowd.

ER: Man I LOVE the way the Road Warriors sell for two 50 year old man throwing big arm swinging punches. The Road Warriors sell so well for the Wrestlings that I want to see 1983 Roadies against 1989 Baba/Rusher. I couldn't get enough for Wrestling's big swinging punches that are thrown like nobody else threw punches and the way Hawk perfectly knew to throw his head back for them, just enough. We know the Road Warriors were not yet the monsters they would become just a year or so later, but it's still wild seeing Hawk taking multiple back body drops. This had another spectacular finish, with action so good I had to keep rewinding to watch what each individual was doing. Wrestling II was fending off Animal in the top corner, Hawk was roughing up Wrestling in the foreground. Wrestling gets thrown over the top down onto a table and almost into a front row before charging back into the ring by stepping up onto that table and getting back into the fight. Animal keeps charging into Wrestling II in the corner and keeps catching knees, until he charges in and catches two boots shoved squarely into his chest and gets bumped back hard. Zbyszko sneaks in and bashes II in the back of the head and staggers him into the greatest This is the End powerslam from Animal. This was not the structure I expected going in but now I want more Hawk and Animal selling for great old man strikes.  

Greg Valentine vs. Pez Whatley

MD: Pretty remarkable Pez performance here. He came in hot, even while Greg still had the title in hand and had Valentine rocking and falling over the place with headbutts early. Greg took over with a nasty kneeling piledriver and started on the arm. Pez came back with one arm with some great silly in his hope spots, using the head when he could, really solid stuff. They dropped the arm selling for the most part as it went on but you almost didn't mind because Pez was so good at working from underneath on a chinlock, just constant motion fighting up and engaging the crowd. Transition was another pile driver attempt which was a little like the Garvin/Zbyszko match but they had Valentine go into the corner again. Things got out of hand and it ended up as a DQ with him using the belt repeatedly, but Pez drove him off so the crowd got at least some satisfaction out of it. Very good match overall though, even if the arm selling went nowhere. 

ER: Every heel in this territory knew exactly how to sell the strikes of every top babyface and it's all so beautiful. Valentine makes Pez Whatley a god and Pez wiggles his way up to it, and once again, this rules. Valentine is on the Found Footage Friday Mt. Rushmore as we've now been uncovering unseen classics of his for nearly a decade, every one of them broadening his case as one of our greatest workers. Here's another for the pile. I'm so used to seeing Valentine take strikes from fellow tough guys and hitting them back. I've seen that Valentine more than I've seen the Valentine who sells for smaller ethnic babyface, and this one is great. With Valentine's selling, his head whips and stunned cobweb shaking, Whatley's headbutts looked peerless, the culmination of decades of black wrestler headbutts. His perseverance and big time style and charisma through his comebacks were getting reactions louder than any part of the Dog Collar main event, and it was such infectious babyface energy that played incredibly off the tough guy champ. Whatley's reversal out of the piledriver was such a cool spot, upending Valentine into and off the turnbuckles. It's one of those spots where, no matter how much wrestling I've watched, there's always something like that waiting to show me something new. 

Bullwhip on a Pole: Tommy Rich vs. Bill Irwin

MD: I've always been pretty high on Irwin. Great body language. Big lanky guy who was willing to throw himself into everything he did, and there was so much to throw himself into here. Every time either guy went for the pole, the other was on top of him instantly. Really gripping stuff. People don't understand today just how compelling these pole matches could be when the wrestlers put forth so much care towards whatever was on top of the pole. 

Here they had to really incapacitate the other. Irwin kept escalating things, hitting a gut wrench suplex, tossing Rich out of the ring, knocking the head against the post. Rich on the other hand got out of the way for Irwin's corner charge and he bumped huge over the top knee first, etc. Just more and more until finally Irwin started working the leg, a necessity since Rich wouldn't stay down. Even that didn't quite do it but it allowed for a hotshot and Irwin to finally get up the pole. One thing I wish we had were more pole matches from the 70s when there probably WASN'T an inversion of the finish. By the 80s, whoever first got the weapon tended not to be the one who got to use it and to see that once could be satisfying but to see it in every pole match gets a little frustrating. Sometimes you just want that nice clean feeling of something happening how it's supposed to. Still, Rich grabbing it mid swing and firing off on Irwin was a greater level of enjoyment for the crowd and this was really good stuff overall.

Dog Collar Match: Roddy Piper vs Buzz Sawyer 

MD: Pull this back up. Just watch a minute of it, any minute. Watch Roddy. Watch him move. Nothing specific that he does, though if you catch a bump or some selling or a punch, that's all the better. But just the in-between. Did you see it? Go look out a window or down the street. Find a neighbor, a spouse. Hell, look in the mirror. Watch yourself move. Whatever you see, it's not as alive and vibrant and vivid as this forty year old footage of Roddy Piper.

The anticipation early here, both of them six feet apart, the chain between them, a rabid game of chess to decide which would rush first to strike. At the start it was Buzz but when it was Piper's time, he became a man possessed, cutting the distance with wide eyes and a wild snarl. Buzz scored first blood but Piper's comebacks on the floor were things of myth and legend.

Matches like these, from this era, often end shortly after that first huge comeback, after the turn of the tide, after revenge is grasped. This one, however, went around one more time, as Buzz was able to sneak in a low blow. Things spilled back out to the floor but Piper fired back once more, moving the guardrail and basically punching Buzz back into the ring. Gripping, satisfying, refreshing stuff. In some ways a prototype for what would come later in both of their careers and something that almost impossibly lived up to the picture we had in our heads.

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New Footage Friday: KKK, Harley, Baba, Jumbo, Wrestling 2, Roop, Dream Machine

Network and Dan Ginnety continue to deliver the goods, and now we have too much footage each week. In this very specific way (and really only in this very specific way) what a time to be alive. Tomk jumps on a couple of these as well. 

Giant Baba/Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Killer Karl Kox/Harley Race AJPW 2/11/81

PAS: Dan Ginnety's 1981 TV set delivers another Killer Karl Klassic. I might even like the Race/Kox team more then the Kox/Murdoch team, even though I don't like Race as much as Murdoch. He brings a variety to the attack, more big bumping, more suplexes, plus the legit credentials of being an NWA champ. Kox was the star again though, what a nasty killer he was, everything was done with such force and viciousness. At one point he just drives a half a dozen elbows into the side of Jumbo's neck, it felt like he was trying to chop off an especially knotty piece of wood. We also get a gorgeous brainbuster to finish the first fall, and a great drunken sell of a Baba chop. I loved the finish of the second fall too, with the American's getting counted out as they stomp Baba on the floor. Finish of the third fall was unusal, with Baba tripping Race when he had Jumbo up in a suplex, with Jumbo landing on Race for the pin, that is a classic heel finish in a tag match, and I had never seen it done by faces before.

MD: Kox with Race felt very different than Kox with Murdoch, interestingly. With Murdoch he was much more of a stooge (or maybe a stooge's big brother). Everything was bigger and more sweeping. Here, everything was meaner and grittier. When he was using the object, he looked like Bulldog Bob Brown but had the aura of Abdullah at his most fearsome. Race, on the other hand, was less effective than Downtown Bruno. Every time he came in, he lost the momentum and got clowned by his opponent. This wasn't a heel title defense against a local challenger. I have no idea what he was doing. I just don't think he could stop himself. I thought this was really good whenever Kox was in though. Baba can portray sympathy after a beating so well given his almost skeletal frame. Jumbo's dropkicks were amazing. The way that they got to the finishes of the falls all had a bit more though to them than you normally get in an early 80s AJPW tag match. Good stuff even if Race couldn't get out of his own way.

ER: Karl Kox is a total superstar. He just comes into this All Japan ring and completely owns things. Harley Race worked this as a bizarre Stevie Richards, bumping all over for Jumbo and getting next to no offense, as Kox sat on the apron constantly looking for the advantage. The dynamic was incredibly fun, and kind of weird, in the best way. I love how Kox worked Baba, just bringing a constant attack, and for a guy already in his 50s Kox had such a cool and well utilized offensive arsenal. He punches and kicks Baba all over, drops elbows, throws the best back elbow in wrestling, throws downward elbows to the neck, somehow comes off the top rope with elbow strikes (which is something we've seen in his AJ matches, and he never looks comfortable up there but always hits exactly what he's trying to hit, and the fact he looks like someone who shouldn't be coming off the top only makes it that much better), grabs a tag while Race is taking a bump, and works the apron better than maybe anyone. He drops one of the finest brainbusters I've seen, and Jumbo gets in the match as we're nearly approaching mercy killing time for Baba. 

So we get a lot of Race/Jumbo, and Race is just hammier than a Hormel factory in this whole thing. He bumps a backdrop on the floor from Baba, takes two huge suplexes from Jumbo, takes a few of those Race bumps where he takes a back bump and then slowly flips his whole body over to bump again, tries a bit *too* hard to take his over the top rope bump, hits the most absurd spit take bump I've seen (the sheer amount of spit he shot out could have filled a shot glass), and is all about frantically getting Kox back into the ring. Baba was great and super aggressive here; I loved how violent he was with his big boots. I'd gotten so used to seeing old Baba have opponents getting thrown into his boot, that it's almost jaw dropping to see him running towards someone and kicking their face, throwing them exactly like prime Taue (well, Taue was throwing them like prime Baba, but you know what I mean). Jumbo is all fired up babyface in this, throwing awesome dropkicks, chucking Race with a high belly to belly, constantly punking out Race. The match has a spot I've never seen, something really cool, something I didn't see coming, where Jumbo runs up the buckles on one side of the ring to hit a headlock takeover. Then, he tries it on the other side and gets his legs grabbed out of the air by Kox from the apron, who yanks him from Race and Jumbo ends up spilling into the ropes, falling on his head. This tag is kind of weird, and completely great, and I just cannot get over what a huge deal Kox still feels like in his final year. True legend.

Dream Machine vs. Jumbo Tsuruta AJPW 1/15/82

MD: Graham, while we have decent amount of footage, most of it is from one or two territories and all of a similar style. We know what he can do in southern tags and Memphis-style brawls. I'm a big proponent of taking holistic looks at wrestlers, at seeing them in a lot of different situations. This is absolutely a different situation.

The big questions here would then be: Could he hang in AJPW and could he hang with Jumbo? The answer is absolutely. Honestly, this felt more like a Hansen match than anything else. Once they got past some really fevered chain wrestling to begin, he just kept coming at Jumbo, to the point where, at times, Jumbo seemed almost visibly frustrated by it. He jumped into every bump, leaned into every shot, and traded bomb for bomb. They really ran the gamut between the chain wrestling, grinding holds, the striking, big throws, a table shot on the outside, flying knees, and Jumbo's killer suplex out of nowhere to end it. It seemed like Dream Machine brought grumpy Jumbo to the surface years early and the match was all the better for it.

TKG:  So yeah, 1982 Dream Machine debuting John Walters innovative offense is absurd but everything about this is absurd. Pre-Choshu sprint everything was contested in heavyweight AJPW. 70s Baba is awesome as him and opponents will fight to fend off every hammerlock, arm drag and whip. At worst Jumbo in 70s, early 80s was this guy who would be really awesome spending 2 falls fighting off opponent’s atomic drop, or backbreaker or atomic drop…then would eat it pop up and do all his offense…But even there a good chunk of the style was about non-cooperativeness. This match was completely cooperative, this wasn’t Choshu sprint this was more worked like a Fujinami juniors match from same period. Like I went into this hoping that Jumbo would give Dream Machine enough that it would be like a cool Dream Machine v Dutch match…instead this was a juniors Dream Machine v Nightmare Danny Davis match. As such both of these guys have cool offense, beyond the big suplex into frontcracker monkey flip, Dream Machine’s 2nd rope knee drop was top rope knee drop looking nasty.


PAS: I really enjoyed the stylistic shifts in this match, the early armdrags in this match did feel really juniorish, but they do end this up with some big time moves. Dream Machine really had the offense of a guy who could have had a career working Puro heavyweight wrestling. The top rope knee to the throat, and brutal piledriver combo really felt like it should have beaten anyone. Hell that top rope knee to the throat should have started a long feud where Jumbo sits out two months and comes back in a neck brace. The back suplex which Jumbo ends it with was really brutal, and I have no problem with it finishing the match, although the match almost felt clipped when it wasn't, we go right from the mat wrestling section into the huge finish with out much of a middle. Still a great look at Dream and one of my favorite early Jumbo performances too.

Bonus text dialogue between Tomk and Phil

Phil: I liked Dream Machine vs. Jumbo more then you did

Tomk: I liked it a bunch but it was a juniors match. Like Fujinami vs. Keirn which is not what I was expecting at all. Did my write up come off negative? Didn't mean it to be.

Phil: John Walters can't be a compliment

Tomk: There was a front cracker into a monkey flip spot. I lost my mind at a fucking front cracker spot in 1982. Did Alex Shelly do back cracker/front cracker variations?  Is there anyone who did it who wouldn't come off as insult?

Phil: Fair Point

Tomk: Shelton Benjamin?

Phil: Cerebro Negro?

Tomk: Cerebro Negro is a good call.

Mr. Wrestling 2 vs. Bob Roop GCW 10/23/83

PAS: The Network uploaded the entire Omni show headlined by the previously released Last Battle of Atlanta, and this was clearly the on paper undercard standout. Great chance to see 2 working the Omni which was an arena he ruled for decades. This was a mask match, with Roop repping an injured fake Mr. Wrestling who was putting up his mask against Wrestling 2. This was worked more like a crowd pleasing undercard match then a huge stips match (makes sense with the huge bloody blowoff in the main event.) It certainly pleased the crowd, 2 has a ton of charisma, and is one of my favorite dancing babyfaces of all time, I really dug Roop running full speed into a 2 knee lift with 2 sitting on the second rope, and the indignation of crowd when Roop clocked 2 with fake 1's crutch. Roop was working more of a brawling stooging heel, then the wrestling machine he was in Mid-South, I love wrestling machine Roop, but he is fun as a foil too. Would have liked a bigger finish then sort of the banana peel end we got, but this was a total blast, and the idea of semi-regular Omni show uploads is mindblowing.

MD: I'm with Phil on this one. They could only go so big given the card placement and what was to come. Context, when we have it (and it's great that we have it here), is important in understanding matches. Roop is such a mean bastard. Everything he does looks nasty. Wrestling 2 has this almost magical way of hitting a shot out of nowhere. He comes off as a complete star, almost as a folk hero. Phil noted Roop doing the work of running into the kneelift on the second rope, but what stuck out to me was the timing in 2 getting his knee up at the absolute perfect second.

The transition with the crutch was one of those moments in wrestling where time just stopped as the shot rang through the crowd. It was wrestling perfection. I liked the finish, if only for the amount of effort they put into the escape from the shoulder breaker. Post match was a little underwhelming, but the fact that a rabid fan reached over the barricade and pulled off Wrestling 1's shirt that he was using to hide his face just shows how great and celebratory this crowd was.

TKG: We don’t have a lot in the way of Arena footage of either of these guys and the idea of them matching up for an apuestas was really exciting to me. I’m a big fan of the guy holds onto headlock while opponent stays mobile trying to escape a spots and the variations on it here were really cool. I especially liked the Roop gets out of side headlock by pushing II off into ropes for II to bounce off ropes into a front facelock. I liked a bunch of the body work after the crutch to body shot and crowd clearly got the desperation of II trying to escape Roop’s shoulderbreaker finisher, but I wanted five more minutes after that escape.

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