Found Footage Friday: KNOBBS~! SAGS~! DREW~! TAYLOR~! YAHAMA~! CHOSHU~! KIDO~!

Chief Yaqui vs. Karl Kowalski 1/30/50

MD: This is worth watching, but I suggest doing it on mute. It's a fake audience track with sound effects and Bill Stern being particularly irritating and racist. A joke a minute and none of them good (well the one about how the white man wouldn't have made it further west than Hoboken if their opposition all fought like Yaqui was pretty good). The action itself, while clipped, was pretty good! Yaqui had a thousand little tricks when it came to getting presumably crowd pleasing little shots in with both his hands and his feet. Kowalski was bald and had a greased head gimmick, maybe.

When they took it to the mat, it was pretty gnarly, actually, not that you'd tell from the commentary. They got tied up pretty bad once or twice with some fairly unique leglocks and counters. At one point, Kowalksi had him upside down after jamming a rolling leglock type move and was peppering shots into the side. The finish was Yaqui locking in a sort of deathlock and rolling with it to turn it into a bridging pin. I'd like to see either of them in literally any other setting than this, but we're beggars and not choosers when it comes to footage from 1950.

Yamaha Brothers (Kantaro Hoshino/Kotesu Yamamoto) vs. Riki Choshu/Osamu Kido NJPW 1/24/79 

MD: This has been hidden for a couple of years but it was definitely new to me. This card had Jose Estrada vs. Fujiwara and I want to see Super Medico vs. Fujiwara, but we won't dwell on that. Let's just be glad for what we have. This is about fifteen minutes, JIP, and while maybe a little formless and back and forth, the wrestling is good. Choshu and Hoshino trade armholds early, but it gets kind of wild when Yamamoto comes in and just slaps the life out of Choshu repeatedly. You sort of wish this was the Choshu of a few years later to fire back. In general, Yamamoto looks great here.

There's a moment later on where Choshu comes in hot and hits a couple of double arm suplexes in a row and looks great, but some of his other fiery stuff doesn't hit like you'd expect from him. Hoshino's a little tank, like you'd expect, high impact charges into the corner, some nice teamwork with Yamamoto, and he matches up well with Kido, as he would for years to come. At one point Kido comes in with a bunch of bodyslams and it's funny because you're expecting takedowns and what not. There were some fun moments with clear momentum shifts and parallels. Yamamoto misses a giant turn around flying body press as Hoshino fails to hold on to his opponent and gets wiped out by his own partner. The finish is a similar set up with Choshu and Kido crashing into each other off the ropes. There wasn't a bad exchange in this one, but I'm not sure it all came together to form a coherent whole.

ER: I don't believe I have seen any 70s Yamaha Brothers so I had no idea what the hierarchical dynamics would be when I started this, but I was only excited to see a match with four extremely short legged men. You couldn't find shorter legs in 1979, this was the match for that. I'm so used to Kantaro Hoshino as a junior that I forget he was more beefed up in his 30s, but even then he and Yamamoto are still clearly smaller than Choshu and Kido...so color me surprised at how much of this was dominated by the Yamaha Brothers. The idea of Hoshino dominating Choshu or even Kido just a few years later is preposterous, but this gem takes us to the point in time where the Yamahas easily and efficiently cut Choshu off from Kido for the first half, peaking with Yamamoto just rocking Choshu with punches like he was Kurisu (Kurisu wrestled Hector Guerrero on this card by the way and holy god does 1979 Hector Guerrero vs. Kurisu sound incredible). Yamamoto really comes off like a supreme badass every time he's in the ring. At one point he gets swarmed by Kido and Choshu and in mere seconds he winds up holding both of them by the jaw in headlocks, standing on the bottom buckle, threatening to remove their mandibles from their heads until Hoshino comes in and punches Choshu to the floor. The hierarchy was so damn different in 1979, which is why something like this showing up is such a treat.   

Drew McIntyre/Dave Taylor vs. Nasty Boys WWE 11/20/07

MD: Look, if you're reading this, you're reading it to see what Eric has to say. I'm reading it for what Eric has to say. I included it to see what Eric has to say, and I'm sure that'll be here soon if it's not already. Let me say just a few things. My understanding is that the Nasties lied about the shape they were in and were there to show off in front of a bunch of their buddies in the front row. Knobbs comes out and hugs a bunch of people and Sags has a long talk with one kid. They're super over. They come out to a version of their song I'm not familiar with (I know the "We're the Boys; we're the boys... the Nasty Boys" one). This had a Janet Jackson rip off to start and sampled lines from Gorilla and the Brain. Big Nasty Boys chant to start too. 

And you know what, I kind of dug the first half. They had a ton of heft behind everything they did. Drew was demonstrative and working big. He called out Sags which... I don't get why but it was kind of funny. I could have absolutely seen them have a 2 year run as sort of ambassadors and doing high school things like the Bushwhackers; they were about the same age as the Sheepherders when they signed in the late 80s and they obviously knew how to work a crowd and come off as stars. It felt almost like watching the Freebirds in 92. The back few minutes were pretty rough though. After Sags hit the craziest pumphandle slam I've ever seen (I was kind of glad to see it since I always wondered what would happen if someone took a slightly higher angle on the drop, like a powerbomb, and now I know!) he sort of just stood around for Drew to kick him for a brief, very brief, bit of heat leading to miscommunication and then casually walked over to make a hot tag. Brutal stuff. And of course the finish didn't work at all. So not a lot of gas in the tank but that's not to say there wasn't any at all. 

ER: So this dropped just a few days before we wrote about it, and I didn't watch it until last night, but all I saw written about it was how the Nasty Boys were unprofessional sacks of shit who went out there completely out of shape and took advantage of poor young greenhorn Drew McIntyre, and how Dave Taylor (in his second to last match in WWE) looked outraged on the apron and broke character to tell off the Nasty Boys. They showed up looking like complete shit to pop their weird Tampa friends and children of those friends, fucked up a young innocent boy with no Arab strap and embarrassed the business in the process. The Nasty Boys have brought shame to professional wrestling. For three days now I've been picturing how the fucked up, fat, somehow same age as me now, unprofessional Nasty Boys were going to mess this kid up like a PG version of Ian Rotten vs. Peter B. Beautiful and when I finally watch it...

It's a totally professional kind of impressive match that's far better and more interesting than at least 75% of the dark tryout matches we've ever seen. Dark tryout matches have a ceiling of quality. They are 3-6 minutes. Sometimes you reach nirvana and get Vic Grimes vs. Erin O'Grady. I saw a 2003 Psychosis tryout match against Jamie Noble and it was fine. My friends and I weren't expecting to start our night with a Psychosis match and we were all excited at the surprise and it was fine. He did the rope flip bump on the back of his head, and I still remember it 20 years later so that means It Worked. That's the ceiling for a dark trout match tryout, and this Nasty Boys tag was a good one.  

It was also a totally normal match and not a single thing looked out of sorts or unprofessional to my eyes, and honestly I came away thinking the Nasty Boys would have been worth a shot as a team working house show undercards in 2007. This was a roster that had Jim Duggan and had just had Tatanka and Road Warrior Animal. I really liked each one of those runs and thought nostalgia Legends Contracts acts would be far more interesting if used in an All Japan Old Man style division instead of [camera pans to Faarooq saying Damn]. A Legends Division (which shouldn't be titled and should just exist as a thing but they wouldn't be able to resist calling it a Legends Division) that would allow one of them to occasionally break out of the old man trios matches into a short feud with a younger wrestler would be a thing that would make me watch WWE television again. 

The Nasty Boys hadn't appeared on any kind of wrestling television in over 10 years before this match and came out with a theme song I have never heard anywhere else before that sounded like a cut up Steinski break of their original theme, and the fans in Tampa reacted. That's important. It's good to have acts on your show that get reactions, who then work for the next 5 minutes to sustain those reactions. I was made to believe that the Nasty Boys were goof off/jerk offs and instead they just got a crowd invested in a match the way Brett and Brian Major or John Morrison or The Miz 100% did not do 20 minutes later. I said I saw no moments of unprofessionalism or even sloppiness, and I mean that. Knobbs looked as fat as I've ever seen him and was wearing a XXXL Nasty Boys blouse but had several moments where I thought he was going to punish Drew and instead just worked like a good heavyweight. There was one moment where Drew was selling a shoulderblock too long and was sitting up instead of lying down for the elbowdrop Knobbs was waiting to hit, and when Knobbs shoved him back to the mat I thought for sure McIntyre was toast. Knobbs hit a big heavy elbowdrop, but it was not an unprofessional amount of weight. Have any of you actually watched the 1991-1993 Superstars and Wrestling Challenge matches? They fucked job guys up every single week. Everybody did. Toughen up, boyo. 

The toughest thing about this match was Sags lighting Drew up with chops that should have been enough to get Sags signed and put into a Mad Max team with Road Warrior Animal, because tell me a 2007 Animal/Sags team doesn't actually sound cool. Jerome Saganowich would have looked and worked so much better in a revamped Road Warriors team than Droz or Heidenreich ever did. Nasty Warriors. God that would have been great. Based on his chops and his pump handle slam I see no real differences between 2007 Jerry Sags and 1993 Kensuke Sasaki. 

Dave Taylor is the person who didn't do enough in this match. I liked the way the Nastys kept him out of the match down the stretch with punches and elbows to knock him off the apron, otherwise he just peaced out of strike exchanges that could have actually taken this match to Dark Tryout Match Nirvana. Brian Knobbs threw three unanswered punches to the side of Taylor's head and it was the perfect opportunity to show Knobbs what the locker room thought of him with a pair of uppercuts, but Taylor just took a hiptoss and stood on the apron the rest of the time. Drew showed good timing in feeding for a returning nostalgia act in what was actually the longest stretch of time he was in the ring in any of his WWF matches to that point. Drew was trusted to stay in the ring for an extra minute or two with two guys making a 10 year return, and he did great. His visual reaction to a hot tag is one of the little things he did that you could tell he was going to keep getting better. 

The finish was botched but was a split second from being a direct hit Beverly Brothers Wrestling Challenge intro exclamation point. Drew would have suffered a head injury and been given a role as the slow third member of The Highlanders. The Nasty Boys should have been signed. In 2007 would you have rather seen the Nasty Boys every few weeks, or Deuce & Domino? You know the answer. Have Cherry manage the obese Nasty Boys and give her a Lisa Langois Class of 1984 punk look instead. This was better than both Morishima dark matches and it wasn't close. 

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Found Footage Friday: FUJIWARA~! ANDRE~! SAYAMA~! MAEDA~! KIDO~! HOSHINO~! KURISU~!

Tiger Mask/Osamu Kido vs. Kantaro Hoshino/Masanobu Kurisu NJPW 12/19/82

MD: I always get a little surprised when a new NJPW Tiger Mask HH comes up because I just assume they had a pro shot of it that they released on a twenty disc DVD set at some point. This does seem new though, and it's a great collection of talent. Overall, it's a little formless and exhbition-y, except for a stretch where Kido and Tiger Mask were working over Kurisu in the corner. That was my favorite part, by the way, as Tiger Mask was working like a flittering chickenshit heel to some degree, sneaking in shots that didn't do damage to distract him so Kido could hit more substantial cutoffs. Then when Kurisu rolled over to Hoshino finally, Tiger Mask got right out of the ring and tagged Kido back in. I think he was just having fun on an untelevised show for a bit though, hard to say.

In general, every exchange looked good and while they could change speeds and switch from strikes to holds to rope running, each pairing felt a little different. You could see it even in just how they moved. Kurisu found the path of least reistance with his takedowns, just a percussive series of thuds as he worked in tight or dropped a couple of knees. Tiger Mask was loose and fast to the point where sometimes he wasn't even hanging on to anything as he was spinning and you just had to sort of go with it. He came off like a movie fencer whipping the sword around wildly while Kurisu was an Olympic fencer, precise and with the smallest motion necessary. Kido and Hoshino were somewhere in the middle; Hoshino especially had to base for Tiger Mask and make it all somehow work. Sometimes things didn't feel resonant enough as they moved on to the next move. There was a pile driver from one side and a tombstone from the other in short order and I don't remember who took either. Tiger Mask pulled out his fairly rare slingshot 450 (that I only really remember Scorpio also using) for the win. It wasn't the sort of match that was ever going to come together but you can't really fault the action.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Osamu Kido vs. Super Tiger/Akira Maeda UWF 11/15/84 - EPIC

PAS: I can't believe we are still getting brand new incredible HH matches from 40 years ago. God bless the guy sneaking in a video camera. This is as great as it looks on paper, four all timers in their prime, having a hideously violent proto-shootstyle match. Kido is a bit dry, but a tremendous technician, kind of the Tim Duncan of the UWF, Maeda is one of the most charismatic offensive dynamos in wrestling history, although he played a bit of a supporting role here. The focus of this match is Fujiwara vs. Super Tiger, which is truly one of the all time great matchups ever. It is the incubatory version of Ishikawa vs. Ikeda, a brilliant tactician looking for every opening to take advantage of, against a hellacious violence dynamo trying to knock his opponents brains out of their ears. The Sayama kneedrop on Fujiwara is one of the most violent signature spots ever, I don't understand the magic, he lands so hard right on the temple, Fujiwara looks like he should have his skull flattened like when Christopher Lloyd got run over by the tractor in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Meanwhile Fujiwara is dishing out shots of his own, working Tiger's body in the corner like a heavy bag, drilling him with headbutts, yanking and pulling at his limbs. Every moment of it was special and we got a lot of them. The finish run is a bit clipped sadly (I imagine the HH guy was running out of film.) So we don't see every moment of Fujiwara maneuvering into submissions (which is a shame because he is the greatest small movement wrestler ever), but what we got was such a mitzvah.  

MD: Phil likens Super Tiger vs Fujiwara to Ishikawa and Ikeda and man, I don't know. It felt more like Buddy Rose vs Matt Borne during those few months where Buddy Rose was allegedly engaging in frequent acts of domestic violence against Borne's sister and they were trying to draw money off of it. Does Sayama have a sister? Because that's the level of violence he was rising to in the way he was beating on Fujiwara. In the NJPW tag below, Sayama wins with a crazy slingshot 450 that you don't see almost anyone do ever. The moment where Fujiwara starts to come back out of the corner and hit his headbutts and Sayama just clocks him in the jaw to cut him off just blows that out of the water when it comes to pro wrestling being amazing. Maeda and Kido do their part here too. I know Kido's dry, but he's dry like the desert. You can't get one over on him. He stretches for as far as the eye can see and you have to walk a thousand miles to endure all of his takedown attempts. Each of the pairings here were different and when he was in there against Super Tiger, he even tried to match him in stand up striking (he failed) which is not what you usually see out of Kido. Meanwhile, Maeda and Fujiwara contrasted with the dangerous explosiveness of the Sayama/Fujiwara pairing. It was all about positioning and little bits of leverage, constant hand motion, Maeda using his reach to press his hand upon Fujiwara's head and Fujiwara trying to slip around and lock something on. And yeah, when Fujiwara finally did get the chance to get revenge (which had previously been cut off with that Sayama punch) it's grisly, gripping stuff. The clipping's unfortunate but I figure the camcorder just couldn't handle much more of what it was seeing. It switches from wrestling found footage to a found footage snuff film, where we blink and Fujiwara's trying another attempt at the chicken wing, blink again and he's turning it into a headscissors. After all we just saw, it almost even worked in its own startling way.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Andre the Giant NJPW 5/27/86 - EPIC

MD: When you watch mid-80s New Japan, that month of the IWGP league when you get a bunch of weird singles matches alongside the usual tags is a treat. Granted, we didn't get to see most of these on the TV but that's the miracle of HHs still sneaking their way through (you get the same thing with the CC in AJPW where you'll suddenly get Misawa vs Cactus Jack or something, just like how with the tag league you'll get all the possible pairings if you're lucky). Therefore, seen minutes of Fujiwara vs Andre. It's only seven minutes, really only five given the entrances. You wish it was fourteen, but the taste that we do get is pretty much as iconic as you'd hope that it'd be.

Andre contains Fujiwara in the corner, tries to treat him like any other opponent he might manhandle, as if he was in there against 86 Kengo Kimura. Fujiwara constantly works his way to a neutral point causing Andre to shift holds repeatedly. He has the advantage, is able to shut Fujiwara down when he tries to headbutt, but is also forced to use escalating offense, including a mean shot to the gut off the ropes you rarely see Andre do. There a sense that if Andre lets up for one second Fujiwara is going to come back and cut him down to size. While Andre is unquestionably dominant and winning by points, Fujiwara through presence and motion, makes it seem closer than it ought to be. That leads Andre to take a risk, one that backfires, setting things up for Fujiwara's comeback headbutts. Andre's just too big though and is able to pull them both out and once out, Wakamatsu gets involved forcing the countout. You watch this and almost can imagine what a WrestleMania 3 match between these two might have looked like.

PAS: These two are 15 best wrestlers of all time (10 best? Maybe 5 best?) and while the version of this in my head is an all time great main event collision, this 6 minute undercard match is still pretty great. We get Fujiwara, an all time great pro-wrestling problem solver, tasked with lumbering Andre, an all time great wrestling problem. He prods and pokes looking for openings, and even makes the mistake of trying to hit Andre with a headbutt, which goes as well as one would expect. The match goes to a count out before Fujiwara finds a solution, which is a bit of buzzkill, I can imagine how amazing a UWF main event between these two would have been two years earlier or three years later, but it is amazing we got it at all.

ER: I actually think we're all being a bit too calm about this match. This is the literal only Andre the Giant/Yoshiaki Fujiwara match that ever happened. Andre the Giant and Yoshiaki Fujiwara, two guys who are even more than Top 5 Guys, they are two guys with a legitimate claim to #1. Andre the Giant is my #1 wrestler, and if not now I believe Fujiwara was Phil's #1 at some point. For me, expectations were out the window. The literal only singles match between two giants of my wrestling fandom, a match nobody could have reasonably expected would have ever shown up on tape after nearly 40 years, is suddenly in our hands and it looks, plays, and feels like Yoshiaki Fujiwara forcing Andre the Giant to wrestle shootstyle. 

Yes, I repeat, Yoshiaki Fujiwara prods Andre into wrestling shootstyle, and it is incredible. You want to watch the most fearless knee ripper in wrestling history force Andre to standing grapple for almost an entire match? I sure as hell did. I should have been shocked that Fujiwara walked straight up to Andre and tried to put him in a headlock. Did you see how huge Andre looked in this match? How was Andre the Giant even possible? You know supposedly the Big Show was physically larger than Andre? It makes no sense. Andre looks like a forest ogre forced into working double underhooks with a shooter, Big Show looks like a really big guy stocking shelves at Costco. Andre is shaped like the perfect Giant, the thick legs and comic book distended torso, a Popeye Goon fleshed out into a God. Have we ever seen anyone try to grapple with him as long as Fujiwara did here? 

That's at the core of why I think this match should be so celebrated. To me, this felt like one of the greatest examples of someone Lasting With Andre while taking the game directly to Andre. Fujiwara is perhaps the greatest worker of all time at biding his time for a winning shot, a thing he does against men his own size all the damn time, and here he is against the opponent who makes the literal most sense to avoid while remaining as coiled and prepared at all times to strike one cobra shot. Andre presents Fujiwara with the most logical opponent ever to work a classic Fujiwara lay in wait, and this All Time Motherfucker goes at Andre from go and works for fucking single legs against a Fujiwara size leg of a man. Fujiwara forces Andre to work shootstyle and grapple and be a Force against him for what feels like longer than I've seen anyone do in any other match. Looking at this match as a potential all timer cut short into a 6 minute taste, is not seeing how rare it was to get a six minute stretch in any Andre match where someone takes it to him the way Fujiwara pushed him here. 

Do you know how quick I scooted forward in my chair when Fujiwara looked like he was going to topple Andre onto his butt with that single leg? Can you imagine headbutting the Stay Puft marshmallow man in the stomach? Did you see Andre drop to a fucking knee to clothesline Fujiwara in the stomach? Have you ever seen something so cool? How does every single year of Andre have him doing things that nobody has ever been able to do as well as Andre the Giant? That drop to one knee clothesline I've never seen before leading to one of the all time greatest missed headbutt spots is one of thousands of Andre moments that illustrate his creative brilliance. Nobody has worked with their aging body more creatively than Andre, giving more than any other wrestler has ever physically given and finding new vaudeville acts when he no longer had the reflexes to juggle. He lugged that trunk to all parts of the globe. 

Imagine Andre the Giant navigating Japan during the worst most painful physical year of his life! Andre turned 40 years old as a man knowing he wasn't seeing 50, and a week later was forced to be the largest shootstyle wrestler we've ever gotten to see in a match we didn't know existed until now. This is two Number Ones strengthening their status as Number Ones in a way we haven't seen. The greatest wrestler of all time against the greatest wrestler of all time and every second felt like they understood each other's importance to pro wrestling. 

 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE YOSHIAKI FUJIWARA

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE ANDRE THE GIANT

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Found Footage Friday: 1986 NJPW BATTLE ROYAL~! SID~! EATON~! GOLGA~! SEVERN~!

Battle Royal NJPW 6/20/86

MD: I've been spending a lot of time with 1986 NJPW in a DVDVR thread with quick reviews that aren't quite SC worthy. While there is a ton of NJPW vs. UWF that you've seen and heard and would expect, there was other stuff going on. Most of that involved KY Wakamatsu doing his best megaphone Jimmy Hart impression managing the foreigners of the tour, which ranged from von Erichs to Samu to yes, Andre. On the same card as the 5/1 gauntlet tag is Andre/Wakamatsu vs. Inoki/Ueda (with Ueda's face turn being one of the real angles of the first half of the year). That said, past the image of Andre hitting guys with a bullwhip, there isn't a lot of actual comedy that's made tape, either TV or handhelds, in the year. That's why this lone battle royal, buried on a handheld disc that contains most of the Sagawa Express Cup one-night tournament, was so surprising. Sagawa Express was a company that Inoki got to invest in New Japan and the tournament has a nice Kimura vs. Maeda double DQ sprint and some good selling by Inoki against guys like Eadie and Murdoch. It also had some short, unsatisfying CMLL type tournament matches. 

And it had this battle royal, with some guys easier to recognize than others, given the video quality: Kido, Fujiwara, Hoshino, Ueda, Cuban Assassin, for instance. It's Japan style so everyone can dogpile one wrestler, and that happens almost immediately to Klaus Wallas, who we have only a few Japanese matches of plus some German stuff I really need to C+A because he was awesome here, killing everyone before the pool had enough of it. They then take out his partner on the tour, Cuban Assassin, just for the hell of it. From there, they do comedy spots putting shine on the ref with him getting boots up in the corner and Hoshino raising his hand, and even him causing Ueda's elimination by back body dropping him, keeping in mind that Ueda was an upper mid-carder at worst here. They do an alley oop spot with everyone tossing one wrestler in the air by grabbing a limb each. They do a goofy 2000s indy multiple headlocks at once spot in 1986! Fujiwara does an airplane spin! I get how they convinced Kido to be in this (a trophy; can't get enough of those), but it's obvious Fujiwara's overjoyed to participate just to mess with everyone, even after he gets eliminated. It's about ten minutes and even living and breathing this stuff for the last few months, I couldn't identify all of the undercard guys who never made TV or tape. But this is a strange burst of fun in the midst of a fairly serious, dour time in the company.

Sid Vicious vs. Bobby Eaton SCW 5/14/05

MD: The back half of this one had the sound ten seconds off. I don't think it was an issue for the first half but I had to stop it and start it at one point. Point being, that feels exactly how one should watch Sid matches. The impact isn't going to be there on any of his strikes, so best to imagine what you're hearing and average out the two. In a lot of ways, it doesn't matter. No one imposes his reality into a match quite like Sid. This was one of his first matches back after the leg injury, with the premise being: Eaton was his friend and he had claimed to give him a chance to walk away and then attacked him from behind on the way out of the ring. It was all Sid, and I'd argue that the focus on the back was effective as an overall whole, even if you wouldn't want to isolate and gif any of the individual strikes. Eaton treated everything like it was devastating. The announcers were selling it like an all time mauling. There was the visual spectacle of the size difference and of Sid with his jeans with knee braces over them. Bobby's hope spots (and he got two) were a blocked punch, some shots fired back, and attempts at slams where the back gave away, but he almost got him the second time. Wrestling is about getting people to suspend disbelief and when you have a giant imposing emperor that believes completely in his own lumbering strikes and a guy like Bobby Eaton working with him from underneath, it doesn't matter if he's naked or not; we're all going to agree with one another that he's got some of the finest clothes we've ever seen.

ER: The people that want to hate Sid (and I don't think I associate with any of them) never want to give credit to Sid for the intangibles. Sid was someone who always had terrible strikes, but bad stomach kicks and arm strikes that don't even attempt to approximate punches don't really matter when you can connect with people the way Sid could. Sid is someone who had It, and had the confidence to get across his persona without ever needing to refine his skillset. Growing up, my next door neighbors two houses down were the Nordstrom Family, and the Nordstrom children were my best friends. Mr. Nordstrom had curly hair exactly like Sid (styled the same, only brown), he was an electrician, and he had served in 'Nam. He was the kind of man who was so physically intimidating that I didn't realize until well into my adult years that he was only an average sized man. He was not a mean man, but when we were causing ruckus and he raised his voice, there was no parent in the neighborhood you listened to quicker than Mr. Nordstrom. Years later, at a party nowhere near my home, some guy found out I was neighbors with them and it turned into a half dozen different people all telling stories about how scared they were of Mr. Nordstrom when they were kids/teens. And I think that's the same kind of way that Sid worked. I never saw Mr. Nordstrom get physically violent in any way with anyone, and yet everyone knew this man was the toughest dude around. 

Now, I suppose that having Bobby Eaton selling every kneelift and clubbing shot could make anyone appear like a monster. Eaton's selling is divine. As Matt illustrated, he has basically no offense in this match, but for 10 minutes you get to smile while he sells ribs and his back and every single Sid strike. I loved how he fell back into the corner after a Sid kneelift, or how the pain twisted across his face when Sid ran at him with a boot to the ribs. Bobby Eaton is one of the most gifted salesmen in wrestling, and you combine that with one of the most physically charismatic wrestling in history, and you can work a fun match with basically zero offense. 

Dan Severn vs. Golga WPW 9/1/99 

MD: The match itself was just a couple of minutes, but they left me wanting more. Severn, for a guy so legitimate, absolutely embraced bullshit pro wrestling villainy here. He had a pre-match gym coach style promo where he said he'd win and then destroy the Cartman doll. He appealed to the fans after they popped for Golga's hands in the air waving. He celebrated after hitting moves that didn't deserve celebration. Just real shitheel stuff. You never know with Golga matches if it's really Tenta, but there's no one in the world that could miss an elbow drop quite like him. It's still crazy how much weight he had lost. You lament that we never got that Austin vs. Tenta run when they wanted to bring back Earthquake, but you also get how that wouldn't work. It doesn't mean he couldn't have figured something else out, because even smaller Tenta was great at knowing when to give and when to take, at making stuff look credible. Just having the strength to snatch a guy like Severn out of mid-air, and then you had the bonus that he'd go up for hip tosses as he did here. The match paid off the promo work as the second Severn actually was able to slam Golga, he took a powder and that was the match. It was a bizarre match-up on paper but they worked pretty well together. 

ER: I'm the guy who hates that we didn't get Yokozuna/Austin in 1999 so I'm definitely someone who would have loved Austin/Tenta regardless of Tenta's weight. Tenta still had size no matter how thin he got, and you could see him use some real strength here against Severn that would have lead to some great Steve Austin bumps. I need to go back and find all the 2002/2003 All Japan Tenta that I can get my hands on. I miss that guy and the way he leans into ring ropes. I love how Severn works this match like a small town indy Iron Mike Sharpe. Bet you never thought about how similarly Sharpe and Severn move in a ring, and I bet you never thought about how they're dressed identically. You're now putting it together that Severn is actually an Iron Mike Sharpe acolyte at heart and that's why he always seemed so uncomfortable and rigid during his WWF run. There isn't a single actual Dan Severn WWF classic, and yet every Dan Severn indy match we have footage of over a 25 year span is great. His speech impediment makes him an even better sneering heel, and I want more of Severn as the bratty kid whose dad owns several car dealerships. 

When they made contact and mixed it up, the match was great fun. All of Tenta's contact looked good: nice shoulder thrusts in the corner, high avalanche, big legdrop, walking all around the ring holding Severn up before finishing the rotation of a powerslam. He also clearly still knows how to build to a couple of big bumps. His missed elbow was a great miss, great crash, and there was an awesome Severn hiptoss that Tenta bumped really heavy for. Severn put his whole body into it and they made a hiptoss look like a violent Red Bull Army throw, like a guy throwing a tree stump on a World's Strongest Man competition. The ending is one of the more frustrating pro wrestling finisher I've witnessed, a way to leave all of the fans confused and annoyed. After that Severn hiptoss, he hits an impressively quick bodyslam...and then Golga just rolls out of the ring, grabs his large size Eric Cartman doll, and runs to the back, out of sight, and does not return. The literal only explanation is that Golga shit his pants and had to get the hell out of there. If you shit your pants in a match against Dan The Beast Severn, you don't stick around to be put in a rear naked choke. Nobody would voluntarily do this finish. Mine is the only explanation that makes sense. 

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Found Footage Friday: TIGER~! MAEDA~! FUJIWARA~! KIDO~! TENRYU~! KABUKI~! MOCHIZUKI~! FUKUDA~!

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Osamu Kido vs Super Tiger/Akira Maeda UWF 10/5/84-GREAT

MD: You could more or less sum this one up as two of the most dynamic offensive wrestlers of all time against two of the greatest defensive ones, though that would be understating Kido and Fujiwara, both in general and in this match. It's undeniable that Tiger and Maeda were the aggressors here for the most part though, constantly driving forward, constantly throwing kicks and suplexes and leaps from the top, all with varying levels of complexity. Meanwhile, Kido and Fujiwara would get battered, would endure, would capitalize on a mistake or create an opening and would fire back, Kido with forearms or Fujiwara with his headbutts, only to get cut off once again. The magic of this style and the magic of the Fujiwara/Kido team is that you know that no matter how thoroughly Maeda and Tiger might run up the score all it would take one moment, one mistake, one opportunity for Kido to escape or Fujiwara to win the day. So while you watched the cumulative damage rack up, the tension always increased. Unfortunately, the finish was almost perfectly clipped to make it look like Fujiwara was pure magic, but you can connect the dots in your head to figure out how they got there. Still, a little frustrating after almost thirty minutes, but you can hardly fault the journey for a technical blip upon arriving at the destination.

PAS: New Fujiwara is basically Christmas for me, and especially this period where he was smack dab in the middle of his prime, lots of tiny little moments of genius from him, along with some great stuff from Kido who is kind of the Dick Slater to Fujiwara's Terry Funk. The highlight of this match for me was Super Tiger, I have no time at all for NJPW Sayama, but UWF Sayama, a Sayama where he just embraced his inner crowbar was perfection. He is just killing Kido and Fujiwara with sick unpulled kicks to the head and stomach and some uncalled for jumping knees, at one point he splits Fujiwara with a knee, and we get see our guy Yoshiaki work his way through the blood in his eyes. So amazing that there is still new HH from 1984 which just show up on the internet on a random Tuesday

Genichiro Tenryu vs. Great Kabuki WAR 11/9/93

MD: As a general rule, I prefer Kabuki in tag matches over singles. He's great at coming in and disrupting things, with two of the great sudden strikes in wrestling history between his uppercut and the cut off kick to the face, but sometimes he has a tendency to take a relatively short singles match and eat up too much time with holds when you'd rather see him scrapping. I wasn't too worried about that here since he was up against Tenryu so you know that one, the holds will all be full of struggle and two, eventually, Tenryu will get him up and to the ropes and will throw some killer chops. Then, you know, Kabuki will come back with the uppercut and things will be off to the races. That's what happened here after a methodological start. It bled into mid match heat where Tenryu got roughed up on the outside and a great comeback where he blocked the uppercut and drove forward with the sumo palm strikes across the ring. Finishing stretch was Tenryu overwhelming Kabuki and Kabuki just getting points for surviving as long as he did. Nothing overly surprising here, but you don't watch something like this for a surprise. You watch it to see Kabuki and Tenryu hit each other repeatedly.

SR: These two could have just punched and kicked each other and done some staredowns and it would‘ve been a quite good match, but we got something more neat here. Tenryus resume of great houseshow matches is for sure impressive. We get a fun opening with Kabuki trying to stand up to Tenryu with his great uppercuts, and Tenryu just chops and lariats him in the throat with Kabuki sells passionately. Tenryu seems to have this in the bag easily but then Kabuki catches him with a surprise thrust kick and Tenryu tumbles outside. Immediately a bunch of Heisei Ishingun goons start swarming Tenryu and brawling with his seconds. Tenryu eats chair shots while Kabuki cuts a promo. Back in the ring Tenryu is bleeding and Kabuki takes him apart punching and kicking the cut. Tenryu is able to snap a Fujiwara armbar but has to let go of the hold because his blood is blinding him in a really neat moment. Tenryus facial expressions and body language are outstanding even on a blurry handheld. His exhausted surprise abisegiris were really cool, also. Great little match due to structure and grit.

Masaaki Mochizuki vs. Masakazu Fukuda Yume Factory 8/4/98

MD:  This went a little over 11 minutes but I wouldn't necessarily call it a sprint. There was just a bit too much substance to it for that. Mainly, it was Mochizuki's kicks against Fukuda's throws (and general sense of resilience because Mochizuki struck first and frequently), but what I loved the most about it was how well it implemented pro wrestling tropes or spots to make them feel organic and natural. Mochizuki would cycle his brutal kicks right into a ten punch in the corner. The match turned on him missing a clothesline into the post but it wasn't telegraphed or set up or winking. Nothing about it felt like a spot, but instead a thing that just happened to occur during this fight. Tack on to that a really strong finishing stretch with a few near-falls that got me and you get a great hidden gem.

SR: This thing getting uploaded by the cameraman almost 25 years later has to be a near miracle, but then we‘ve seen a lot of miracles by now when it comes to highly improbable things ending up on the internet. This was a great striker vs. grappler matchup. Seeing Mochizuki here makes one sour that he retired to Dragon Gate, as he was throwing kicks and hands in a totally unpredictable and non-choreographed way here that was really cool, coupled with some swank agility. Fukuda's style is really unique, he is this lanky tall guy who just glues himself to opponents when he grabs them and drags them into his throws and submissions. He also absolutely rattled Mochizukis shit with a nasty dropkick and some stiff strikes, but Mochizuki kept firing back. The match had a few Hondaish moments, at one point Mochizuki went for a punch to Fukuda and Fukuda attached himself to Mochis arm and dragged him into another hold. When Mochizuki went to recuperate Fukuda just dragged him over the ropes and threw him, with Mochizuki landing hard on all his throws. This was to the point and absolutely no nonsense with both guys giving each other little space a nd all the offense looking like it required zero cooperation, I get WYF was a niche indy back then, but this kind of indy match is a real breath of fresh air these days.

PAS: This was really cool, Fukuda has kind of a tragic story, but he was on his way to being one of the coolest Japanese wrestlers of the 90s. I just love how he would clasp and throw Mochizuki. Always finding cool ways to cut off Mochi's flurries of offense. Mochizuki is pretty great here, as he is just a kicking machine and not a spot guy. His big kicks meshed really nicely with Fukuda's grappling, and you never got a sense of who was going over and the finishing slam by Fukuda was a great coup de grace on a very exciting finish run. Really makes me want to see more WYF stuff. 

 

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New Footage Friday: KIDO! IVAN GOMES! VILLANOS! LOS DESTRUCTORES! DEVILS REJECTS! NWA ELITE

 Ivan Gomes vs. Osamu Kido NJPW 8/14/76

PAS: Gomes is a legendary Vale Tudo fighter who both fought and trained with Carlson Gracie. Very little footage of him exists and this is a Different Style Fight with Kido. This was a worked shoot, and more of an interesting bit of historic footage then a great match, with Kido eating a lot of head kicks and eventually getting choked out with a guillotine. I would love to see Gomes in some actual Vale Tudo fights and I have to keep an eye on this youtube page.

MD: I don't have much to say about the specifics of the match. It's more that it exists at all, and of course, the general sense that if something like this does exist in the 70s, what else happened that we haven't seen along these lines and that might exist on tape? It's a whole style of wrestling that we barely have any of until years later. Some of the shots that do land were pretty great, at least. Hopefully we get more along these lines.

Villanos (III/IV/V) vs. Los Destructores (Tony Arce/Vulcano/Rocco Valente) AAA 3/5/95

PAS: These are a pair of great lucha rudo trios and on paper you would expect a brawl, but this was a title match and was worked mostly scientifically. We get some cool matwork exchanges and rope running in the first couple of falls, Villanos are super skilled and it is fun to watch Los Destructores try to match them hold for hold. At the end of the segunda Villano IV hits this fast northern lights suplex and damages his neck. The third fall has the Destructores working him over angering his brothers and heating up the third fall. It never really breaks down into a total brawl, and I really hate the double pin ending in lucha, however this was a cool chance to see great luchadores do something a bit unexpected.

MD: Just about everything you could want out of a trios titles match. Just understand that it's a title match and it's worked like a title match. Therefore, it's not even close to everything you'd want from a Villanos vs Destructores match. The primera was technical and sound, very smooth, with that sort of escalation from pairing to pairing you like to see. Everyone got time. While nothing was breathtaking, everything worked. It ended cleverly with the bottom dropping out and Villanos pinballing into one another, allowing for a triple team. For such a logical sort of spot, it felt pretty fresh to me. The segunda kept that escalation going and was full of motion, with things never wearing out their welcome. It ended with the Villanos working like a well-oiled machine only for disaster to strike as Villano IV crushed his own head on a Northern Lights suplex, which is again, not a specific spot that I can think of seeing too many times, but carried the narrative for most of the rest of the match. He fought on but had to start the tercera and just got crushed by the Destructores, a great selling job as the fans more and more desperately wanted him to get out of the ring. Eventually it happened and they rolled into a big comeback until he was recovered enough (though still sluggish and selling) to move into a lot of finishing stretch near-falls, a few dives, and a final pairing with a really good visual on a double pin (which feels like a consolation prize, but what are you going to do?). It was a title match so it never became an over the top brawl (though the Villanos were pretty heated in their final comeback, for good reason), but it was loose enough that the Destructores really got to rudo it up in the back half. Otherwise, like I said, it was pretty much everything you could want from a title match that played it mostly straight, clever in multiple places and overall well-executed.

Devil's Rejects (Iceberg/Shaun Tempers/Azrael/Tank) vs. NWA Elite (Kory Chavis/Jeff Lewis/Phil Shatter/Abomination) NWA Anarchy 6/23/07

PAS: I wrote a long review of this match in my book Way of the Blade (buy it now on Amazon),  and have recorded an upcoming podcast on this match for my Way of the Blade podcast with both of the evil stewards of these teams Rev. Dan Wilson and Jeff G. Bailey. So I have said my piece. It was super hard to track down, and Rev. Dan has placed it on Youtube for all to see. NWA Anarchy is a real footage blind spot, it is clear that there are plenty of classics to be excavated. This is a heel versus heel War Games, with two psychos leading their respective crew of lunatics into battle, it has blood, huge uncalled for bumps by enormous men, a showdown between two untrained monsters, Phil Shatter looking like prime Scott Steiner and much more. It is a goddamn delight and everyone should watch it, buy my book to read me praise it more, and keep your ears peeled for the podcast. 

MD: This is one I've heard about and read about but never actually had the chance to see. It's just a perfectly balanced War Games, the mix of story and moments and spots and blood and violence and spectacle. More than anything, it creates a sense of mood, which is what you want from every match you see, but something you absolutely need in a match beyond. Multiple times in this thing, you get a sense of inevitability or dread or awe. Case in point, the first five minutes with Chavis holding an advantage over Tempers. It's unquestionable, but you know it's fleeting, on borrowed time. Likewise, later on when Lewis is kept out of the ring for long seconds; when he flies in around the barbed wire off the top of the cage, it's a great moment since it's full of daring and surprise, but you can feel the encroaching futility because the numbers game was about to be restored. The match succeeds at so many things: Tank's return, an absolute Shatter showcase, Abomination destroying everyone in the center of the ring, the escalation of weapons (fork, weapon of destruction, sword of screams) and blood, and of course, Wilson and Bailey getting involved, which is visceral and satisfying (the whole world seem to shift on that missed dropkick), but also doesn't distract from the wrestlers when it came to the finish, which is honestly some of the most restraint ever shown in a match like this.

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New Footage Friday: RUDGE~! KIDO! ANDRE! FELINO! CASAS! DANDY! FIERA! TEEN EXCITEMENT! WOLFIE! RIP JOCEPHUS!

Andre The Giant/Terry Rudge vs. Osamu Kido/Seiji Sakaguchi NJPW 10/2/76 - GREAT

MD: Unearthed gem where we get all but the first eight minutes, giving us around twenty as a whole. There's almost too much to cover here, and you should just watch it, but the two biggest elements to me were Andre's dynamism and the way Rudge grounded things and kept them along standard tag lines. That is, it'd be bad enough to have to face a heel Andre that would deadlift you from the mat, pick you up off the top and toss you of, or that made every chinlock look downright terrifying (especially when he'd lift you off the ground with it and just hang you there), but you were also dealing with Rudge who, working with Andre, would cut off the ring and draw Sakaguchi in to distract the ref. Basically, things just didn't get better even when Andre got out; I mean, they did, obviously, but not nearly enough. When it was time for Andre and Rudge to clown and stooge, it was Andre with huge, incredibly visual, incredibly engaged bumping. They even did an alley oop spot with Andre caught in the ropes. It's obvious how much we lost with Andre being a babyface distraction until the point where he was virtually immobile. He's so into everything he does here, so dangerous, so alert and active, and the perfect balance of terrifying (even to Rudge after he loses the last fall) and giving. Just great stuff.

PAS: Killer Andre performance, with the three other guys playing their roles. 70s heel Andre is about as cool as it gets. He is like a Grizzly Bear, tossing his opponents around the ring, and any second now looking like he is going to swipe down and disembowel everyone in the ring. His finish run in the second fall was awe inspiring, grabbing Kido by the wasteband, flinging him to the top rope like a porter with a suitcase, flinging him off the top rope and enveloping him in a splash. He had an easier time manhandling Kido then I do with my 4 year old son. He also was great at showing moments of vulnerability, the sport where Sakaguchi can't get him over with the headscissors, only to have Kido flying knee Andre in the back flinging him over, was one of the cooler tag team double teams I have seen from this time period. Rudge was a fun irritant, although he didn't pop in this match like he has in other stuff. 

El Felino/Negro Casas/Black Panther vs. La Fiera/Silver King/El Dandy CMLL 12/23/95

MD:A little bit short, but super talent all around, with a lot of the high spots and moments of personality you'd expect. The central narrative early was keeping Dandy away from Casas. Whenever he'd get him into a hold, one of Casas' partners would rush in to break it up. I argue, often, too often, that you see some new variation in almost every Casas match and here I liked how he rushed in on Fiera with a dropkick to the thigh during a test of strength engagement, keeping his hand up as a feint all the way into the dropkick. That ended poorly for him as Fiera ended up hitting this really cool bicycle kick style enziguri to basically end the fall. This cut off earlier than you'd like with a foul, but obviously it was building on to the next one.

PAS: This never got the big finish to push this into next level territory, but the work we got in the match was very good. I liked all three of the original match ups, Silver King versus Black Panther (Black Warrior) isn't a match up I have ever thought about before, but it was pretty great, and I wish they had a singles match up around this time. Casas and Dandy are of course excellent, and even minor works of theres are worth watching. Two great dives too, Panther's bullet tope, and Fiera's awesome over the top rope dive, which he did as good as anyone. So happy Roy Lucier is filling in the gaps of the 90s lucha we are missing.

Jocephus/Damien Payne vs. Wolfie D/Drew Haskins USWO 8/24/12

MD: This was an enjoyable Southern indy main event and a pretty good look at what Jocephus was up to in that era. Brian Lee wasn't there for some reason so Haskins, who worked earlier in the night, came out to tag with Wolfie. He took a lot of the match as a super dynamic, big bumping FIP, especially good for just propelling himself into the ropes off his opponents' offense. They protected Jocephus quite well here, I thought (Wolfie too, really), as he'd get staggered on blows but not go down easily. A lot of the babyface offense ended up on Payne. Wolfie worked the apron and the mic well and looked good the couple of times he was in there. Everyone came out of this looking better than they came in.

PAS: I remember really enjoying Haskins as a smirking big bumping pretty boy heel and he does a nice job converting those skills into a babyface in peril. He really flies around for Jocephus's offense flipping head over heels into the ropes with a punch. Wolfie and Drew had some nice chemistry for a make shift team, their vegomatic looked great. Payne and Jocephus were a nice slugging heel team which set up the hot tag nicely, and Jocephus's neckbreaker with a chain was an appropriately nasty finish. Hit all of the points you want from a hot Nashville main event tag.

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New Footage Friday/Fujiwara Family UWF 4/23/85

PAS: A whole new UWF 1 handheld got unearthed, lots of British guys worked the early tours, but not much of the footage is available. Finlay and Rudge in UWF is still the holy grail, but it's cool to see guys like Singh and Martin as well.

Ray Steele vs. Osamu Kido

MD: I'm fairly high on Steele generally but I like him most in matches with contrast, him vs a scoundrel. Here, despite doing a fairly solid visual John Saxon impression, the actual work was sort of lacking that. It came off dry and exhibition like, with fair struggle but no real fire. When they built to something, like the Scorpion Deathlock, it ended up really not mattering. The finish of Steele grabbing a late headlock and getting suplexed felt pretty lazy for the setting too, even if they twisted it slightly with the submission after the suplex.

Caswell Martin vs. Nobuhiko Takada

MD: I had seen the Steele vs Kido match before this one and I was sort of wondering if it'd just been a while since I'd seen UWF undercard footage and things were just more laconic than I was remembering. No, no they were not. This was top notch. Right from the get go, it had a different sort of aggression, even with Martin's first press into the ropes. Martin really stood out here. There was the sense that Takada had him on holds, on strikes, maybe even on leverage and trickiness, but Martin came off like a true powerhouse with a ton of throws, including this great spin out deadlift gutwrench. My favorite Takada moment here was him slapping Martin in the face on a reset and then drawing him in to stand up striking through it which wasn't at all to Martin's advantage. Just a dynamic match all around. This felt like a real find.

PAS: This was really excellent, Martin fit this style perfectly and I am not a Takada guy, but he was great too. Martin had some killer throws, just popped his hips deadlifted and threw. I also thought he had some fun nifty tricks from the bottom, including grabbing and turning the arm. I liked Takada targeting Martin's gut with spin kicks and whip kicks which really looked like they sucked. He had some nice throws as well, and had his moments on the mat, and never really sat in kneebar which can be the downfall of Takada, in fact his one kneebar attempt had Martin working hard to twist out and counter and was a highpoint of the match. Real gem of a match.

Super Tiger vs. Masami Soronaka

MD: In my head, this was about Sayama being incredibly dangerous and explosive and Soronaka mainly trying to contain him as Sayama worked from underneath. The work mostly bore that out. Sayama just came at you in so many differnet ways. He had the kicks, the lethal headlock suplex, a nasty headlock takeover that took Soronaka's face off, a lightning cross arm breaker, and the northern lights style throw that set up the finish. From underneath, he struggled a bit but could still all but flip out of things. Soronaka put up a pretty solid effort and might have come out close to even on points, but it was just a matter of time before Sayama took him down.

PAS: This was structurally very similar to the all timer Tiger vs. Fujiwara series, with the wily mat wrestler attempting to subdue and ground the explosive striker. Soronaka is very much not Yoshiaki Fujiwara, and I mostly ended up resenting him stifling Sayama and all that he can do.When Sayama gets him in the corner and finally unloads it was very cool, and Soronaka had a trick or two, but I needed a bit more pop.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Akira Maeda vs. Omar Atlas/Tiger Dalibar Singh - FUN

MD: Interesting dynamics here. There was a solid Atlas/Maeda exchange to start, smooth but competitive. Singh was clunkier but his stuff had impact. Fujiwara seemed fairly content to feed for him. On the other hand, he leaned on Atlas a little more. For instance, when Atlas didn't quite hit him hard enough in the corner, he turned it around and smacked him on the face. This faded off towards the finish with Fujiwara and Maeda firmly in charge, with crabs and countless great Fujiwara headbutts, which is as good a final image as any if you're going to have a tape abruptly end.

PAS: Definitely a bummer that this gets cut off, because I would have liked to see where it was heading. I as usual am going to focus on Fujiwara and what he brought to the match. I really loved his section with Atlas, he really dominated the standing grappling, locking in the double underhooks and not really letting him go anywhere, shifting and countering any attempts to escape. When Singh gets the hot tag he really puts over those uppercuts and the big suplex, something which meant more considering how tough Fujiwara looked before. It did feel like it was building to something, which we didn't get, but what we got was pretty neat.

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A Viking, a Deadman, & A Low Ranked Noncommissioned Officer Walk Into Japan...

Nord the Barbarian/Punisher Dice Morgan/Mike Kirschner vs. Masa Saito/Kengo Kimura/Osamu Kido NJPW 3/5/90

ER: Look at that gaijin lineup! It was recently brought to my attention that we have footage of Berzerker teaming with Undertaker, years before their near-fatal feud that began with an attempted sword impaling. This was before that, the prequel that we now know would lead to attempted murder just a couple years later. Also, the next night NJ ran Nord/Dice/Bigelow vs. Hashimoto/Saito/Choshu, and that match doesn't exist on tape because life is cruel. But we get this, and it hits all the right spots.  For a JIP 7 minute match we get a lot of gold.

Nord is fired up throughout, and at this point it's a real mystery why he wasn't thought of higher at the time. He had great energy, unique presence, and cool offense. We start with Saito jumping all over Nord's leg, and the home fed heroes trying to bully Nord into the corner, Lilliputians trying to wrangle a wild outsider, and it was a cool visual to see the three of them swinging into Nord while he swings his way out. I'm not sure why Mean Mark was working as Punisher Dice Morgan on this New Japan tour, but this is one of the few Punisher Dice Morgan matches we have, and while he's not in it a ton he shows a lot. He comes into the match with a great headbutt, and his brawling style and the way he moves looks a lot more like Steve Austin, if Austin had gained 50 lb. and half a foot in height. Morgan works a genuinely funny spot where he tries to get Saito in a test of strength but Saito is too short. I've seen that spot a zillion times, but I don't think I've ever seen it done to a certified badass like Saito. Their body language is great - Saito was this awesome fired up babyface throughout, a change from his more stoic tone - and Morgan keeps yelling at the crowd that he's on the level. I love Morgan working the Okinawa fans as if he was working a Memphis high school, and everybody plays along. The bulk of the match is our Americans beating down Kengo Kimura, and it's good. Kirschner comes in and throws nasty punches to Kimura's kidneys, and Kirschner is not a wrestler I think about a ton (though I really need to go through FMW at some point, I bet there's a lot of cool stuff I haven't seen) but he looked damn good here; his strikes to Kimura were all good, and he ran great distraction when Nord and Morgan dragged Kimura to the floor, he hits a nice kneedrop, and his apron work was great (mocking Saito's height is something I certainly wouldn't have the courage to do).

Nord is an absolute monster to Kimura, throwing him forcibly into and over the guardrail, and it looked like Kimura was not necessarily wanting to be thrown into the crowd. Sadly, when Nord is the man doing it you won't have much say in the matter. He really bullies Kimura around ringside, and then starts battering him with Necro Butcher level chairshots, and when Morgan gets involved you realize what a fun team Berzerker and Undertaker would have been. Nord drops his huge legdrop back in the ring, but they get too cocky and try to send Kirschner off the top with an ill advised Rocket Launcher, and it does not work. Saito is incredibly fun as a hot tag babyface, and I honestly don't know if I've ever seen Saito run into the ring on a hot tag and do a little dance before taking out every one of the heels with punches and chops. He was the worlds most dangerous Robert Gibson, and while I wish we got twice as much, the Saito suplex is a fitting finish.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE BERZERKER

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New Footage Friday: Rudge, Kido, Fujiwara, Choshu, Mutoh

Terry Rudge vs. Osamu Kido NJPW 5/20/77

ER: A cool snack, with Kido really impressing me with his speed and toughness against a noted tough guy like Rudge. The first 75% of the match really could have been worked the exact same if both men were tethered by a 2' rope. A lot of action is started just from establishing wrist control and we get a lot of cool minimalism, like Rudge on his back looking for the right time to kick out Kido's ankle, or Rudge trying to bridge out of a chinlock before eating a hard hammerfist blow to his stomach. Kido really gets to show off his speed when things get off the mat, and I absolutely loved him whipping Rudge into the ropes only to completely halt his momentum with a big headbutt to the stomach. Rudge sold it like me running into a bollard stomach first (it was at the park and I didn't see it). This match didn't aim for epic status, but who needs epic status?

MD: This worked out really well. These two went at it with absolutely nothing given for free but a whole lot ultimately earned, though never for long. Rudge worked this like he was in England, making sure to chain together knockdowns with holds (which is a necessity there because if you try to put something on too late after you take your opponent down, the ref will break it and call for a reset). In this environment, it made everything seem all the more visceral and unrelenting. Kido, on the other hand, was a master of just not letting go, no matter what Rudge might try to do. My favorite bit of that was probably a nasty hammer blow to the mid-section as Rudge was trying to bridge up out of a chinlock, but there was a long, dynamic wristlock spot early on too. Oh yeah, they beat the heck out of each other with forearms and European uppercuts too, really just at every opportunity. This kept a good pace, never wore out its welcome, used whips liberally to bridge things. I really dug how Kido both entered and exited the match with the backbreaker too. I'm not sure what that said narratively, but it was novel and interesting yet still totally believable.

PAS: I loved this, Rudge is one of my favorite Euro guys, definitely in the same phylum as guys like Regal and Finlay, and he worked this in his tough man style, Yanking and twisting at limbs. Kido can be a bit passive sometimes, but Rudge forced him into his style of match, and they really laced each other with tight looking elbows and uppercuts. No wasted moments, no flab, just a tight corners punch out.


Riki Choshu/Osamu Kido vs Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Kengo Kimura NJPW 10/22/77

MD: One thing that stood out immediately was how little 28 year old Fujiwara stood out visually. That was true to a degree with Choshu as well, especially considering his later look, but Fujiwara always seemed to have a look that matched his style be it the mustache or what. We've seen him so old for so long that it's a bit offputting to see him young. He was still himself, however, able to manipulate limbs and space and grind down on everything he did. The strikes were great and varied in this one, with Kimura especially having great jabs. Choshu got to sell a little (and better than Kido who was more than happy shrugging off legwork) but spent most of his time just tossing people around with these dynamic, over-the-top slams. Honestly, that last bit, along with the repetition of some spots (like a knee drop on the way in after a tag) made some of this felt weirdly experimental. It was a fun snapshot.

PAS: This was an undercard tag and thus not really shooting for anything too big, but it was a chance to see two all time greats in Choshu and Fujiwara in their relative youth (also two pretty cool dudes in Kido and Kimura.) Fujiwara has a perm which is truly bizzare, he still is Fujiwara though, he throws some really great looping body shots to the kidneys, and does some nifty arm and leg work. I also really liked Kimura throwing hands too. Choshu did seem a bit washed out, he is such a great minimalist wrestler but back then he hadn't yet figure out how to project his personality into his work.

Keiji Mutoh/Michiyoshi Ohara vs Shiro Koshinaka/Akitoshi Saito NJPW 7/18/93

MD:In digging through this footage, you never know what's going to jump out. Yeah, something like Diamond vs Liger is going to get flagged immediately just for the oddball nature of the pairing, but a third or fourth from the top match like this tag, you can't really know one way or the other with unless you watch.

I ended up really liking this. It was straightforward but still dynamic, maybe more down my alley than Phil or Eric's. It had three or four distinct bits of heat, with Koshinaka and Saito playing the part well (Koshinaka is particularly punchable) and ultimately getting a satisfying but never-for-certain comeuppance. I loved the initial tease of Koshinaka getting in, only to drive the action right to his corner and get his butt shot in to start off the first bit of heat. Mutoh was pure charisma. Ohara was the world's best Taz, with all sort of great suplexes and throws, both in reversals out of nowhere and coming in after a big tag. Everyone was more than happy to lay their shots and kicks in. The finishing stretch had just enough wrinkles to put things in question without ever stretching credulity. This was just good wrestling.

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New Footage Friday: Boatload of Brazos, Fujiwara, Maeda, Exoticos

MD: When WWE gives you Kane vs. Leviathan, you go forth and find other things. In this case, that would be unearthed Brazos, unearthed exoticos, and unearthed Fujiwara. I think we've done pretty well for ourselves.

PAS: Boy talk about the importance of lowered expectations, we went from "wow the networks is dropping 20 awesome matches a week including multiple unseen 70s and 80s house show matches!!" To "well they are going to only drop one a week, but it is still completely unseen and legendary!" To "suck on a Kane match which has already been on YouTube for a decade." Well fuck them, if you give us lemons we will make Fujiwara and Brazo flavored lemonade.

ER: Fujiwara and Brazo flavored lemonade would just taste like drinking frosting and lard out of an ashtray.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Osamu Kido vs. Akira Maeda/Nobuhiko Takada NJPW 3/7/86


MD: Despite Phil's best efforts, I still have some blind spots that I shouldn't have for someone who writes here. While I've seen my share of Fujiwara, I haven't seen as much Maeda and Takada as you'd think. My biggest takeaway here, other than it's great that this was unearthed, was the electricity in the air whenever Fujiwara was in. While Maeda and Takada working with Kido was fine, with them smartly moving from one hold to the next, there was a certain spryness and even manic energy when Fujiwara was in there. Everything felt more visceral. Maeda might toss a kick at Kido, but Fujiwara was going to catch that kick and smack his face off. There's a difference between working a half crab spot and pummeling someone with high/low combos in the corner. Both are fine but I'm going remember the latter more than the former tomorrow. Then you have the angles that Fujiwara comes at you. He had this great double leg takedown with his own legs, for instance, or the precision leg stab that set up the finish. I thought he looked brilliant here.

PAS: After reviewing so much awesome Fujiwara over the years, I am so happy there is still more out there to watch. Fujiwara is pure pleasure in this match, the only guy in this who wasn't content to work a house show match. He works over Maeda he strafes him with body shots in the corner , it really reminded me of Piper in the Valentine match which opened this project up, then he catches his kick and drops with with a huge overhand slap, we are fighting motherfucker. The finish is an all timer Fujiwara finish too, with a brutal quick knee kick dropping Takada and then slapping on a brutal knee bar for the tap. That low kick was such a great fast KO move, totally unexpected and brutal. There was a bit of meandering from the other three which kept this being from a true epic match, but still getting more classic Fujiwara at his peak is such a gift.

Sergio el Hermoso/El Bello Greco vs. Naoki Sano/Hirokazu Hata NJPW 2/8/89

MD: I'm so glad this showed up. I'm pretty certain the only time I've ever seen Sergio and Bello Greco before was in that amazing Ola Lila vs Space Cadets match from 84. Their act was so good and we've got so little of them online. This is a great handheld match because you get such a sense of the ambient noise of the crowd. They're laughing at every spot and they're right to do so. Bello Greco is a bruiser exotico base, there for everything Sano and Hata do (and they do some fairly complex rope running and armdrag sequences). He's there to stooge, bump, catch, and clobber and he does it all very well, underpinned by the exotico character. Sergio, on the other hand, is 110% over the top and he's brilliant and dynamic in the role. He has a reaction for everything and it hit every single time. He gets more out of leaping over a dropped down opponent than anyone I've ever seen. Someone could loop a gif of him going back and forth with dropdowns and it'd be its own blend of wrestling perfection. The crowd cracked up every time he pranced over even after they'd seen it six or seven times. Just watching what he does with his hands on routine spots is fascinating. Sano shined here, working as fluidly as possible with the exoticos, and Hata was fine. This had some heat towards the middle and then ended hot enough, though I get the sense this was placed fairly low on the card and they held back a bit on spots and dives. They didn't need them. The crowd was more than happy to cheer for Sergio and Bello Greco as they were recovering post-match and you can't blame them in the least.

PAS: This was a blast, what a perfect match to have low on a card. The exoticos are total pro performers, with the Brazos match this was a great week for classic lucha comedy. I imagine Sergio and Bello were performing their greatest hits, but this is the one of the few times we have seen them do Freebird and it is pretty spectacular. Sergio looks like a superstar, he feels right on the level of Cassandro, Pimpinela and Adrian Street, comes off like a guy who will leap right off a Pride float and whoop a homophobes ass and go right back to dancing to Nikki Minaj. I was also super impressed with Sano, what an all time adjustable wrestler, he is just as comfortable working exotico comedy spots and fast rope running as he was ripping Liger's mask and working hard shootstyle with Ken Shamrock, is their nothing that guy couldn't do, I would have loved to see him work as Sumo Sam in Memphis throwing salt with Tojo Yamamoto.

Brazo De Oro/Brazo De Plata/El Brazo vs. Robin Hood/Brazo De Platino/Kendo UWF 3/8/94

MD: The Brazos act is timeless. How do I know? Because their antics here with Kendo at the start of the match, stalling, playing with the crowd who loved to chant the tecnicos' names, pretending to leave, crashing into each other, falling off the apron? They did all of that stuff back in 1990 in a match that we have against Kendo/Asai/Hamada. It was still entertaining here. The crowd still loved it here. The only difference was that the super soakers they came out with probably didn't exist back in 90. My favorite moment in all of this was the lucha ring announcer announcing that five minutes had passed despite the fact that they hadn't even locked up yet given all of the comedy posturing, and the crowd popping for the announcement. Obviously they're all used to working with each other and obviously they've done this hundreds of times, but it's still striking how wild and adaptive the physical movements are. That's the joy of the Brazos. It's like they're riding this wave of comedic wrestling, their sheer girth carrying them along with unstoppable inertia. If the crowd reacts in a way that they couldn't possibly expect (though so often it's the crowd reacting to their expert priming), they just get swept along with it, some how twisting the physical comedy to make it work like the most natural thing in the world. Robin Hood and Platino were, unsurprisingly, fitting cogs in the machine and Kendo was just a blur of color and motion and charisma. His connection with this specific crowd over a span of a few years is way too under the radar.

PAS: Kendo crashes an Alvarado family BBQ and we get a nifty trios title match in Japan. Rob Bihari has been on an absolute uploading tear lately, and I am not sure what counts as an unearthed gem, but he told me he "found this on a random disc" and handheld UWF Hamada Rob found on a random disc seems gemmy enough for me. This is a trios match which really ticks all of pleasure centers. We get some classic Brazos shtick at the beginning, including a great spot where Super Porky accidentally bumps his head on the ring post and starts crying, we get some great rope running exchanges (which is something Kendo excels at), a cool dive train, a Star and a pretty great finishing run. Platino is the ultimate little brother at the end of the match, he actually kicks out of the Porky top rope splash, which feels almost blasphemous in a a way an irritating little brother wouldn't follow the rules in a game of tag, Porky then hits him with a standing senton for another two count and then absolutely flattens him with a top rope Togo senton where he landed flush, just powdering Platino's ribs. It is exactly the kind of unnecessary escalation you might do to a little brother who keeps kicking out of your Hogan legdrops when you are play wrestling on your parents bed.

ER: A bunch of Brazos and a chubby veteran Kendo (trying to get into Brazo shape) match up in Japan, and everyone in the crowd somehow understands the jokes better than I do. Bullshit is the universal wrestling language. We now have a great sample of Rip Rogers getting a Japanese crowd eating from his hand before his matches even start, and here we get a bunch of chubby guys shooting Super Soakers, leading to other chubby guys shooting water gun bows and arrows (did they bring those on the flight, or did they find them while in Japan and think "we need to work in some pre-match water gun spots"), and a bunch of clapping and chanting and pratfalls. Watch the Rip Rogers, clapping and pratfalls work. We get some good pratfalls during the match too, my favorite being Oro (or Brazo? It's tough to tell sometimes in this) slingshotting into the ring but just doing a back bump, not rolling through. That's a good gag. 

This is a great era of Porky, as the thick muscular athletic young man from a few years prior is gone, that metabolism took off and didn't even leave a note, but he's still only 30 so still has athleticism. By 1994 he would reach the size he'd basically be for the rest of his career, but hadn't lost much of the agility. Porky has some great moments here, I giggled at him selling Robin enziguiris as if he had lost a contact (I also assume that he didn't bother selling kicks to the back of his head because under that sick as hell mullet he's rocking some equally impressive hot dog neck, so attacking the back of Porky's neck is akin to headbutting a Samoan), and I really liked Platino in this. He's the baby of the group and he acted like a total pro, and I can't even begin to describe what happened between he and Porky as well as Phil did. But we get an awesome dive train (none as wild as Robin Hood's nutty dive earlier that sent him rolling into the crowd), with a great rolling dive off the apron from Oro (or Brazo?) and a killer hands free lawn dart from Kendo, and of course we build to a mammoth Porky dive as our payoff. 

Imagine how steel nerved Porky was. He was always the most athletic of the group, and the fatter he got the more of an attraction he became to their trios team. So before, he was the muscular stocky guy who took big bumps and did big dives, but as he got fatter the desire from the crowd to see him continue diving just kept increasing the fatter he got. So every single match he's placed into the clean-up role, the guy who always has to deliver the coup de grace, always has to do his dive after the crowd has already seen several dives, knows that if he fucks up his dive then the most eyes will be on him. BUT, that's the beauty of the clutch performance of Porky, in that he knows he can deliver the gorgeous fat guy dive, but everybody in the matches also knows that he has the best comic chops to salvage the moment if he does somehow fuck up his dive. 

The finish is fantastic, with Platino deciding to show Japan just how ironclad his sternum is, starting by attempting a sunset flip on Porky that ends with a fat butt sit, then eats a big splash, a senton, and a freaking high hang time top rope senton that made me cover my eyes. My eyes were expecting to see Platino's intestines shoot out his ass, and we are all winners because they did not. Phil completely nailed what Platino was doing here, made me think back to poor David Lochmann in high school, who always sandbagged everyone when we were acting like wrestlers during P.E. Dave refused to roll with a Texas Cloverleaf I was trying to apply, just staying on his back as I tried to turn him. So, Dave ate a few kicks to the back and then got treated to a Cloverleaf way more painful than the one I would have applied had he followed the script. Platino knew what this was.

Leviathan vs. Kane OVW Christmas Chaos 1/31/01

ER: The match that I have been waiting nearly half my lifetime to see! This hidden gems project has been a total flop thus far, but now that they are filling up that ring with 640 pounds of primo steroid era grade A prime things are starting to look up. Could I have seen this match before this moment? Well, sure, if I wanted to sit through a 5 second Dailymotion ad and watch it in slightly worse quality. I'm not going to dig out and watch my VHS copy of 2001: A Space Odyssey that I taped off PBS in the 90s, I'm watching my blu ray. Thus, I'm not watching one match between two guys I don't really like from a Christmas show that was being held 5 weeks after Christmas. Imagine how devastated you would be if Christmas came and went, and you had to wait another 5 weeks to get your presents? Well, WWE knew that fans had been waiting near 18 years to see this Battle of the Titans on their Network screens, and they unleashed this Secret Santa Surprise with a fireplace warmed holiday grin on their faces. Two larger than life pro wrestling and film mega stars at their most gassed, with film quality that looks somehow worse than the batch of early 80s handhelds we just got. This match is going to be like the sound that a giant side of beef makes falling out of a truck. Cornette calls these two "Mastodons of the Mat" who "move like junior heavyweights" which is like an over the top positive lie you tell a friend who you just witnessed shitting the bed at an open mic.

And if your friend had this match you would definitely tell them some over the top positive lie right after you witnessed it. Leviathan was newish, Kane was bad, but this was a decent poor man's Van Hammer vs. Chase Tatum. If this were on the Pro with at least one mullet and no belly button tattoos, I'd probably call it a win. I appreciated that they took a lot of risks on their punches. Both were throwing big hooking right handed haymakers, which are tough to land consistently, and when they miss they look like fake grade school punches. But when they hit, they look good, and Leviathan threw a few to Kane's cheek and one to the head that I thought looked real good, and Kane threw two rights to Leviathan's jaw that looked good, and looked better than Kane's easier to land short uppercuts. Leviathan took nice bumps on chokeslams, hit a nice and sudden spear and a big hang time spinebuster. Both men threw some horrendous clotheslines. Leviathan had one knocking Kane to the floor that was so so gentle, and Kane's "flying" clothesline is one of the worst signature spots in wrestling history. Kane's flying clotheslines always look bad, but the two in this match are some of his very worst. One is so gentle that Leviathan doesn't really know just when to bump it, and both men kind of tumble softly to the mat like two roughhousing friends falling in the backyard. I bet one of them was making "brassssshhhhhhhhh" sound effects while landing. I really hope we get Van Hammer vs. Chase Tatum next Thursday.

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Better is the Sight of Yoshiaki Fujiwara than the Wandering of the Appetite

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Osamu Kido vs. John Quinn/Otto Wanz NJPW 6/14/84 - SKIPPABLE

I have liked previous Wanz, but he was pretty much just working like a less mobile Northeast Indy mailing it in for a check Bundy. I'm not sure who John Quinn was but he wasn't much better. Fujiwara isn't going to be able to do much in this context, so it was all shtick. Quinn hurts his hand punching Fujiwara on his head, Fujiwara keeps hold of a headlock by pulling Quinn's beard. Add that to a desultory ending and this can be missed.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FUJIWARA

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Now The Earth Was Corrupt in the Sight of Yoshiaki Fujiwara

Pete over at PWO unearthed a bunch of previously unseen New Japan HH which includes some previously unseen early Fujiwara jams. Because there is all of this Fujiwara handheld stuff, plus a couple more new PWFG shows, I am going to intro a Fujiwara advent calendar. New Fujiwara review every day until Christmas!


Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Riki Choshu vs. Roland Bock/Micha Nador NJPW 8/6/81 - GREAT

Neat chance to look at baby Choshu, young Fujiwara (who still looked 45) and a couple of Euro dudes with very little footage. This was an undercard tag, so it didn't have a lot of big dramatic moments, but it had a bunch of nifty smaller ones. Loved the opening Nador v. Fujiwara sections with Fujiwara doing a bunch of spots holding on to a hammerlock. There was also a cool fast reversal section between Nador and Fujiwara later in the match. Bock was fun as a steamroller, he looks like David Crosby but he portrays a powerhouse well, he comes in with some big shoulder blocks and finishes the match with a couple of violent Irish whips into the corner and a nice butterfly suplex.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Kengo Kimura/Osamu Kido vs. Animal Hamaguchi/Isamu Teranishi/Ryuma Go NJPW 8/29/82 - GREAT

This was sort of a Choshu's army style six-man before the Choshu's army was a thing. The IWE boys really brought the pace, Go especially was a workrate machine for 1982, he must have really had some demons for his career to end up where it did. Fujiwara isn't a guy you think about as a workrate sprint guy, but he was unsurprisingly awesome in this, throwing cool looking snap suplexes, hitting these cool open hand chops to the head, and isolating Hamaguchi and blasting him with headbutts. Finish was cool with Animal hitting a nifty airplane spin into fallaway slam on Fujiwara for the pin. I also liked how they kept brawling after the bell. I imagine they ran a variation of this trios every show and I imagine it was always great.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FUJIWARA

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1986 Match of the Year

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Osamu Kido/Nobuhiko Takada/Kazuo Yamazaki/Akira Maeda v. Antonio Inoki/Tatsumi Fujinami/Kengo Kimura/Umanosuke Ueda/Kantaro Hoshino NJPW 3/26/86

PAS: One of the most famous matches in Japanese history this is the first major collision in the New Japan v. UWF feud. It is an elimination tag with to the floor eliminations allowed. Tremendous match, great performances by everyone involved. Our man Fujiwara was great, his section vs. Fujinami was yet another cocktease for the 80’s singles match which never happened, and I loved how he and Hoshino would pot shot each other. Inoki is so over, and comes off like a huge star, any time he tags in the crowd goes bananas, same with Maeda, sort of criminal we never got a big singles between those two as well. Most of the eliminations were really great, including Fujiwara and Fujinami just tearing it up until they both going tumbling over the top. We then get one of my favorite spots in wrestling history as Ueda (who is an ex-garbage guy who barely wrestles at this point) tags in to square off with Maeda, Ueda hadn’t been in the match much at all, and was playing the role of the outclassed older legend. He locks up with Maeda, eats a kick or two, realizes he is out of his league and tackles Maeda to the floor eliminating them both. Just such a cool moment, with Ueda sacrificing himself for New Japan. I could totally see Eddie Marlin in the same role in a big Memphis v. Knoxville 10 man. Finish is the only down part, as Inoki is left with Kido and Takada and I don't really buy him in any trouble, even down 2 to 1.


ER: This was my #2 match on the NJPW 80s ballot, with only Hansen/Andre edging it out. Pretty sure my #3 match will be our 1987 MOTY, and I believe what will be our 1984 MOTY landed in my top 10 of the set. So, you heard it here first, there was some pretty high end stuff in 1980s Japanese pro wrestling. Inter-promotional matches always have a much higher floor than most matches, and this was huge. Imagine if WCW invaded WWF in their prime and how hot the crowds would be as these disrespectful punks invaded (wait, actually don't think about that). If any invasion angle leads to a match half as hot as this, you did something right. Just the before bell drama alone is worth it, with Maeda lobbing air kicks at the NJ guys while trash talking. And their ring work backs up the trash talking.


This isn't like those UFC hype shows where they build up a violent fight and then work a points fight, this is a loudmouth contingent being loudmouths, and then fighting like asskickers. Every tag in brought new excitement as everyone had goals and the fans were hot for the new match-ups. Maeda and Inoki had an absurd amount of charisma, and Fujiwara looked downright giddy to be a part of it. He always knows how to stand out in these kind of matches and his chuckling thug vibe brought an outlaw quality to the UWF invaders. Every segment hit the right note, with unexpected standouts like Kimura/Yamazaki working a compelling short story that ended with a flash desperation pin from Kimura, followed by him crawling back to the corner and essentially being done for the match. The Ueda moment was amazing, and incredible wrestling moment and one of the all time great moments of psychology (arguably my second favorite piece of wrestling psychology ever, right behind Rude getting DQ'd for coming off the top rope against Steamboat, but immediately getting the pinfall back due to the damage he caused). Ueda was the clear, unspoken weak link on Team NJ, and over the first 30 minutes of the match all he had done was tag in, then tag right back out. It's like the team wanted to thin UWF's herd before they let Ueda in there. The admiration and respect from fans when he walked through the ropes was huge, and it would be hard to not feel sympathy for him as Maeda kicks the hell out of him, with Ueda clearly trying to catch kicks but his reactions being too slow. Him essentially smothering and falling on Maeda is the ultimate desperation tactic, the ultimate example of taking advantage of a weird match stip (and Phil is so right, feels like some weird stip they would have in Memphis), and just the best. My favorite guy in the match was Hoshino. He was a real revelation for me when watching 80s New Japan, and he's possibly my favorite fired up underdog babyface in wrestling. Here he's so good on the apron, a team man until the end, and in the ring he doesn't ever seem to notice that's he's the smallest guy in the match. He's spirited, wild, dangerous, and sympathetic. You get the sense that he's no match for the UWF guys, but HE doesn't get that sense. The ending IS a little anticlimactic, as aside from one good nearfall Inoki didn't seem in much trouble, and no matter how good he looked here I'm not sure there was one person watching who believed Osamu Kido would be the lone survivor. You can roll around different endings, have Maeda survive to end the match with an Inoki showdown, but that would deprive us of the Ueda moment, and it's easier to just appreciate the match for the all time great pro wrestling that it already is.


ALL TIME MOTY MASTER LIST

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