Found Footage Friday: STUDD~! WANZ~! COCOS~! NOSAWA~! MASADA~! FANTASMAS~!

Big John Studd vs. Otto Wanz CWA 12/20/83

MD: This is a 40 minute John Studd vs. Otto Wanz match from December 1983 found in the massive lot of tapes that @maskedwrestlers was able to rescue from Germany. Go hit him up if you want to see it. Obviously, I jumped at it. I covered a slew of Wanz matches years ago and he has excellent timing, hits hard, and has a singular connection with the crowd. As the 80s roll on, he becomes less and less mobile and while none of those skills fade, the matches do suffer a bit for it. Then there's Studd. In so many ways, he's the most human of the giants, emoting frustration, fear, hatred, resentment. He's a two-hundred pound stalling stooge in a much larger frame. It creates an amazing dissonance he can use to rile an audience, but that dissonance unfortunately carries over to not being particularly dynamic on offense. 

This overachieved and I think it did so because the environment maximized the opportunity for these two to lean into their strengths. This match takes place over nine rounds. There's a minute rest period with music playing in between each. While the narrative can build over rounds, it creates a clear break and bit of respite. Studd has a reputation of sitting in some fairly uninteresting holds and there's very little of that there. There were other advantages as well. Studd's height allows him to strike down and always have an excuse for getting back into the match. They're both massive and everything, from a lock-up to punch to a snap mare to one of them daring to go up to the turnbuckles feels weighty and consequential. The ten count to win added gravitas to every knockdown as well. Maybe most important of all is the fact that Otto is very good at working from underneath in holds, constantly moving his hands, constantly trying to fight his way to a different position. That's more than half the battle against Studd. The crowd was hot the whole way through. There were two camera angles here, spliced together; one picked up the crowd better than the other, but they were buzzing, constantly chanting "Otto, Otto".

If any one of these pieces dropped, it might have been a slog, but none of them did. Let's take it through the text itself. This is going to be a little dry but I want to make the case knowing people may not have forty minutes for this. Right from the get go, after the anthems, Studd was quick to shove Otto, to demand a test of strength. They locked up, shoved off, crashed off the ropes into each other and shook the entire arena. Studd struck downwards with elbows and clubbers. Otto would come back off the ropes with big meaty shots. Studd would attempt a chinlock, a standing one at the end of the second round with him peppering in a knee, and grounded ones in the third, but Otto was quick to get up and the third ended with him jamming Studd's mare and turning it around, to a big pop from the crowd. 

Otto pressed the advantage in the fourth round, dropping Studd with a single leg and then rowing along in time with the crowd's chants with a standing toehold. Otto had a way to make these interesting and entertaining, whether working on top or from the bottom. They had teased slamming each other earlier, but at the end of this round, riding his momentum, Otto finally got Studd up and over as the bell rang. Right after, I'm Still Standing played for the crowd and it felt like a high point in some DreamWorks animated movie. In the fifth, Studd, desperate, was able to get Otto out of the ring and brawled with him there. He caught him on the way back in and layed in some heavy shots. He couldn't hold back Wanz for long though and Otto controlled this middle portion fairly well, even through Studd's attempt to work his arm in the sixth. 

By the seventh round, Studd was at his wit's end. He demanded they announce over the house mic that he had previously said that Otto was going down in the seventh. Otto charged in, they slugged it out, and Otto got the best of him in the corner at hit his signature flip senton. Studd was a bedraggled, sweaty mess by this point. He managed a cheapshot and a corner  beatdown of his own, but Otto powered up and tosses Studd from the ring. There was a clear narrative throughline in all of this, and while it could have potentially been a bit more dramatic, the crowd wanted to see Otto fight back again and again and it led to what happened after the seventh. Instead of staying in his corner, Studd attacked between rounds. This was treated like a horrific offense, with officials and Wanz's second coming in only to get dispatched with ease by Studd to a chorus of boos. Studd beat Wanz around ringside before pulling down the corner pad and opening him up with the metal underneath. Otto was able to fire back at the bell but Studd had the advantage.

Studd pressed that advantage in the ninth, picking Otto up a couple of times with a level of aggression you wouldn't expect out of him at this point of the match, before crashing into the exposed post himself, and finally getting slayed for the ten count (if just barely) by an Otto pile driver. 

Between the round system and Otto's ability to work from underneath, this never slowed down for long. The level of motion may have been more subdued but how hard they hit didn't. Studd taking three or four big steps across the ring to lay a clothesline across Wanz' chest was absolutely impactful. And those times when they really moved, whether it be Studd missing an elbow drop or Wanz coming flying off the top with a big shot, meant all the more for the build. Lots of little bits of build and payoff throughout too, whether it was Otto hitting that slam or changing the trajectory of the match by jamming the mare attempt. They very much knew what they were doing and while I think this could have been even stronger if Studd took slightly more of the middle, that only made his egregious (and dissontant; why does someone so big have to do that!) cheating between the seventh and the eight mean all the more. This was an unquestioned accomplishment. They went forty minutes, never losing the crowd, always hitting hard, utilizing holds at times but not wearing out their welcome and never just sitting there, finishing strong.

ER: I always think of Matt as the Big John Studd Guy because Matt was the guy who really dove into what made Studd different from other big workers, learning his patterns and strengths better than anyone else I know. I think I was close to the trail. I remember talking to Phil about him years ago, tell Phil that Studd wasn't anywhere near as big as he was billed. I thought he had Big Dick Dudley or Col. DeBeers size and build and was a fake big man. A man with military posture like DeBeers or Nick Nolte in Who'll Stop the Rain. Adding size. But I was just being tricked by Studd's sometimes odd style, the smallest working giant we've ever had. Matt recognized it for the oddity it was and cracked the code on what the best assets of Studd were. So Matt covered this match well, as I knew he would. Matt left me the link to this match in the draft of our review and told me to "give myself time." I did, because of course I wanted to watch 40 minutes of a Giant and an Obese Regional Megastar. I love the fat regional babyface. I love Big Daddy. Imagine if Abdullah the Butcher was the big Puerto Rico babyface and Carlos Colon was the island's greatest heel? The feud would be even more blowaway great than their actual feud. 

This is 40 minutes of big man wrestling heaven, where two behemoths worked like rival lumbering mastodons punctuated by polka and electronic instrumental themed rest breaks. It was slow but always intense. Otto Wanz is a real favorite of mine. I love a country who gets behind a big fat guy who looks like a King of Fighters character, and is the kind of fat guy that looks more normal in a double strap singlet than he does in normal clothes. John Studd has some of the great understated gear in wrestling. The long white tights have literally never been pulled off better. The fit impeccable, the build never more impressive. John Studd looked like a tree of a man and Wanz looked like a Bill Plympton drawing. His face has this youthful woundability, and no matter how short or long any Wanz match is, it will be constantly filled with Otto chants. Otto is a master of falling into ropes in dramatic ways, hitting the bottom rope on Studd's short arm western lariats to the fucking face, falling sideways or chest first into them reeling from other strikes. 

This was not a stiff match but had the appearance of a stiff match, an exquisitely worked long match where every single impact had real weight behind it. The longer they worked, the more dramatic it felt. This felt like a true clash of the titans. Studd was not a cheating heel, and often he would call his shot in a more badass way than I've seen from anyone this side of Stan Hansen: multiple times pointing to his very large flexed forearm before swinging it straight at the bridge of Otto's nose. Every time either one of them fell or was knocked down felt like a major deal. The few spills through the ropes to the floor felt like major moments all, none bigger than Studd kicking Otto's ass around ringside while a worried man on the house mic pleads with him to stop and a large old man in a dinner jacket keeps getting dangerously involved. 

The drama and big match feel were so strong here that you wouldn't even need to know anything about Wanz or Studd. You would be easily able to see their appeal even though nobody else works quite like them. I loved the pacing of this, I loved how it felt like it really could have kept going a full hour. I knew Matt had my best interests in mind when leaving a 50 minute link to a Wanz/Studd match, but I never anticipated feeling robbed of a longer match. 

IWRG Retro 3/8/2001

Suicida/Coco Rojo/Coco Blanco vs. Payaso Misterioso/Nosawa/Masada

MD: More IWRG Retro. This is episode 27 which feels like a high number so I probably have to go back and see what I missed. This is the same show with the Santo/Silver King trios main event. This from the undercard definitely worked for me. Nice mix of Nosawa and Masada moving at high speed with Segura, including doing a great job of getting into position for his stuff and then everyone just playing into Los Cocos' act with a bunch of crowd pleasing comedy stuff. Payaso Misterioso had some heft to him so Segura bounced right off of him, but then he'd stumble into a shot from Rojo or Blanco to get knocked out of the ring, that sort of deal. The primera had the beatdown, the segunda the comedy in the comeback, and then they cycled through fairly quickly in the tercera. The finish had Los Cocos get the advantage on the Japanese with quebradoras into submissions, only for a third figure to come in to disrupt things. Probably Minoru Fujita? What we had here was a little clipped but it was 13 minutes of good fun overall.

Enterrador/Bombero Infernal/Black Metal vs. Fantasma/Fantasma Jr/Ultimo Vampiro

MD: Pretty complete trios match here. Fantasma Sr. was just over 50 here if I'm not mistaken. Jr. is his nephew and, alongside, Vampiro, rounded out the tecnico side with flying since Sr. wasn't going to do that.. The rudo side were better than the sum of their parts. Black Metal was tall and Enterrador ("Undertaker") was wide in an Abyss sort of way. Apparently he'd have a mask match with Ultimo Vampiro later that year and from what I saw here, I sort of wonder if that exists. (Edit: It does.). Point being, in the segunda especially, Bombero Infernal was directing traffic as a poor man's Satanico and it all went quite well. Fantasma, Sr. was very giving, allowing for his mask to get pulled in a big way. He was front and center for the comeback, moving out of the way of an Enterrador dropkick. Black Metal used his height to the fullest, first eating a double dropkick from Fantasma, Jr. and Vampiro and then basing for a huge over the top dive. The finish had Enterrador vs Fantasma where Fantasma fooled Bello Greco (who had ref duties here) by tossing his mask to a charging Enterrador to draw the DQ. Totally blatant, no way the ref should have been followed, but wildly charming at the same time.

Read more!

Found Footage Friday: EL SANTO~! EL HIJO DEL SANTO~! MEIKO~! KONG~! PANTHER~! COLON~!

Carlos Colon/El Santo vs. Barrabas/Rebelde Rojo 2/1/75?

MD: Hijo del Santo posted this and at the very least, the quality is better than whatever we had before. We hadn't covered it and it's a good, focused look at both Santo and a relatively young Carlos. There's so little footage of Santo that you look as closely as possible and really watch how he moves. He was mainly paired with Rebelde Rojo at first and there are the throws you'd expect, but also a nice mat transition into a stretch muffler type submission and these really nice kneelifts that come in from the front instead of the side. Later on, he'd throw Barrabas around by his beard and hit headscissors takeovers and post match, he had a nice tope where he squared up and ran all the way across the ring to build up speed. The heels were game here and Colon had zip to everything he did. In the absence of footage, you always wonder, but from this glimpse of Santo there was oomph and swagger behind his movements and you do really get the sense that there was something tangible to the legend.

PAS: This was just a glimpse, but any glimpse of Santo is pretty great (honestly a glimpse of young Colon is pretty awesome too). Santo moved a little like his son, although without that incredible lightness of foot that Hijo brings to the table. Love those straight knee lifts up the middle, really felt Mr. Wrestling 2ish, which is really what you want from a kneelift. His tope looked good to, and he landed it almost like a Thez press. The rudos mostly bumped and fed, but did it well, would have liked of course to see this in a fuller version, but it's El Santo we take what we can get!


Meiko Satomura vs. Aja Kong GAEA 4/24/98

MD: This is apparently their first singles match. Satomura wasn't even twenty yet most likely. I'm a big fan of these ten minute GAEA Aja matches where someone has to try to figure out how to solve the puzzle/problem of her. Meiko started strong with a trip and some pummelling, but it ended with Aja just staring her down in the corner and crushing her as she ran back across the ring to build momentum. From there, Kong played with her like a cat with a toy. When Meiko dared to come back, Kong smashed her with the aluminum box (fairly mirthful about it as she played keep away with the ref). Yet, as the match went on, it went from being about Satomura surviving, to her just scoring a point or two and not getting completely shut out, to her getting a moral win by really doing a little bit of damage, to her actually having a shot. It was one thing to get a lucky, gutsy slam. It was another to pry off an arm and force Aja to make a rope break. It was something else entirely to struggle Aja up for a death valley driver and the closest of nearfalls. All the while, Aja would shake it off and crush and compact Meiko with one bomb or another. When she finally put her down with a death valley driver of her own and the meanest Uraken imaginable, it felt definitive, but not at all like the mercy killing it might have felt like earlier in the match.

PAS: This was an iconic rivalry which produced some incredible matches. This wasn't one of those, instead it was a really young Meiko just starting to chip away at the mountain in front of her. I loved how Aja just walked through her early kicks and dropped her with one of her own. Meiko was only really able to get an advantage when Aja would get too cocky and head to the top rope, where Meiko was able twice to use cool armbar take downs to bring her down. That Death Valley Driver Meiko hit felt like a big moment, she had tried for it multiple times before, and dropping a big girl like Aja on her is really nasty. Aja DVD was even sicker though, and the uraken was .95 RAW Chaparita Asari level violent. We are going to have to dig through this GAEA youtube channel, lots of stuff on there, and I imagine a bunch of it is new and cool. 

Hijo del Santo/Blue Panther vs. Nosawa/Scorpio, Jr. FCW 5/15/04

MD: A little bit clipped, but 15+ minutes of action with clear transitions and most of the big moments intact. First two thirds of this felt a little like an exhibition, the traveling show, with Santo as the world's best Mil Mascaras and Blue Panther as his trusty Dos Caras. The interesting things to me were how good Nosawa's punches probably would have looked in the crowd but how the camera angle betrayed them and how the announcers were struggling valiantly to fit lucha into their pro wrestling box. I do think we missed some of the violence of the rudo beatdown in the segunda. It started with Panther's knee going out mysteriously but by the time the comeback occurred, Santo's mask was ripped from the bottom and he was out for blood. Maybe it's just the last few matches we've seen with him, buy my favorite Santito now is pissed off tercera comeback Santito. Here he opened up Scorpio with a chair and decided to just run across the ring and kick him in the wound to open it up more. He had a stutter step on the senton-into-a-dive on the finish but by that point I didn't care because he was running about kicking rudos' wounds open and apparently that's my guy.

PAS: Any Santo is great, and he had cool chemistry with Scorpio Jr. over the years, including taking Scorps hair in an incredible tag apuestas match. I always dig Santo working his headscissors spots, and it was cool to watch him snap and bloody up Scorpio. Panther and Nosawa were just kind of there, second banana technico is not working towards Panther's strengths as a wrestlers, and Nosawa is more of a fun character then a good wrestler. I am into Santo digging into his tape library and posting random shit, hopefully there is more iconic shit out there, but this was a fun diversion.

Read more!