Found Footage Friday: BABA~! LADD~! LAWLER~! NJPW BATTLE ROYAL~!

Giant Baba vs. Ernie Ladd AJPW 8/7/80

MD: This is slightly more Found than New. It was probably part of the big 1980 season set drop from 2019, but it was hard to figure out exactly what was new and what wasn't from that. Now that someone posted it to YouTube though, it's nice and easily accessible for everyone. This is more or less a spring between two brilliant, giant, lanky wrestlers. I think this was building to a bigger match later in the month at Korakuen. It hits all the marks you'd want for an eight minute match between these two. There aren't a ton of bumps, but when they come, they're giant and awkward. Given the size involved, Ladd makes taking a mare look like a car crash and obviously him eating a back body drop is all that and more. Likewise, the holds. Baba locking in a side headlock is like King Kong doing it to Godzilla. Ladd mostly stays in this with shots to the throat but Baba's quick to fire back and they brawl on the floor a couple of times, once with Ladd ending up tied up in chairs. The finish was pretty amazing as Ladd can take things from Baba that others can't, in this case, an actual Thesz press where Baba somehow landed on him like he was Earthquake. Of course, Ladd got his heat back after to set up the next match. Fun battle of the titans here.

Battle Royal NJPW 11/19/81

MD: This followed the opening ceremony to the tour and cagematch has it with a few extra guys that aren't actually there for the battle royal. Normally not a big deal but when those guys are Andre, Murdoch, and Hansen, it's a bit of let down. It means that the most interesting guys in the ring end up being Killer Khan and Pat Patterson, often paired up with one another. That's not too bad in and of itself, at least until Pat gets eliminated. It more or less settles down to some of the Japanese (maybe Sakaguchi, Choshu, Kimura, Yatsu, Fujinami?) on one side and a Samoan, Khan, and Tiger Toguchi (Kim Duk) on the other. Not bad but still not Andre, Hansen, and Murdoch. Even then, it was weird lopsided as the Japanese side (who had the numbers advantage to begin with) worked together and the other side didn't (Patterson did more for the other side from the outside than they did for one another). And then when Sakaguchi was put into positions to make saves, he had to force himself to be a few seconds slow and it was all very labored. Anyway, this wasn't nearly as fun as the Battle Royal we covered a few months ago from the middle of the decade.

Jerry Lawler vs. Big Bully Douglas USA Championship Wrestling 4/13/02

MD: Lots of new stuff from Bryan Turner's channel. I was going to write up a Tracy Smothers vs. Kory Williams brawl, but the merrily accepted "string him up" chants by the 1997 Cooksville audience made it a bit much to cover, so it's back to the paragon of virtue that is Jerry Lawler instead. And this was a pretty perfect bullshit 2002 babyface Lawler match. Douglas was a bald bruiser sort, a lifer in these Nashville indies. With Ernest T at ringside, he could play a proper foil for Lawler, having just enough credible power offense and able to stooge and feed enough to make it all work with Lawler doing the heavy lifting with his selling, strikes, and overall timing.

The opening of this was wonderful gaga, as Ernest kept slipping Douglas an object (horseshoe, knucks, chain) and Lawler dodged the corner shot, stole the weapon, distracted the ref by blaming Ernest, nailing Douglas, and then after the fact showing the ref the object that Ernest had slipped in. It got funnier each time he pulled it off and as Ernest and Dougls were getting more apoplectic. Eventually, he missed the fistdrop, though, and ate that power offense (suplex, side slam, etc) with a bit of help from Ernest on the outside and with Douglas pulling him up a couple of times at 2. The comeback was preceeded by Stacy slapping Ernest. The strap went down, the punches rained down, a stunner that we all want to forget about occurred, and Lawler lifted Douglas up after one pile driver to tease a second when Rapada ran in for the DQ. That opening sequence was pure distilled Memphis and the rest went down smooth.

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WWF Raw 5/18/98: Would You Look at These Great On-Paper Matches!!

Scorpio vs. Val Venis

ER: What a fucking wild match. First, it's an incredible rib to have two months of vignettes building up your big dick porn star wrestler, and then debut him against the Legendarily Dicked Too Cold Scorpio. And the match is such a colossal failure as a Val Venis debut that it's crazy to me that this match isn't more renowned. Everyone remembers how bad Jericho was made to look in his debut, but here's Venis working his in-ring debut after two months of vignettes, getting my ass completely handed to me by Too Cold Scorpio's most dominant performance of 1998. Jim Ross points out on commentary that Scorpio has been looking a whole lot tougher and more confident since teaming with Terry Funk, and from there we get this unexpected resurgent babyface performance from Scorpio that completely overshadows Val's debut. 

They work a fast paced, tidy All Japan juniors style match that really plays to the strengths of both, but Venis is too good at bumping and Scorpio is too good at delivering stiff offense. I really liked Venis's 1998 offense, especially his corner work. He had several different great strikes that he could play with his opponent in a corner - tough to do - with a big chop, great submarine uppercut, nice overhand right. And he really plays chicken a couple of times with shoulderblocks that neither backed down from. But this was Scorpio's story, and if your debut turns into somebody else's story, well then I can not think of many worse circumstances to debut under. Scorpio just keeps hitting cooler and cooler offense that keeps sounding louder and louder, and the more spin kicks he does the more the Nashville crowd starts getting behind him. Scorpio lays Venis out with hard back elbows and clotheslines, and yes three different spin kicks. So Venis kept bumping for Scorpio and Scorpio just kept getting flashier, hitting a gorgeous sunset flip out of an electric chair and an incredible worked Wrestling II knee lift. 

But the truly greatest moment of the match comes when Scorpio nails his twisting splash off the top, and Venis kicks out as late as possible, and the crowd was disappointed that Venis kicked out! If it hadn't been clear at that point, it was now crystal clear that this crowd was now fully behind Scorpio bucking the lifelong trend that has been ingrained into us that the debuting gimmick always wins. I still think I have a personal Mandela effect with Bastion Booger losing his debut against Virgil, then winning a rematch the next week. Did that happen? It felt so weird seeing a guy with a gimmick, whatever the gimmick was, lose in his debut. When they had a rematch the next week I was sure it was because there had been a mistake and that Booger was clearly supposed to have won. Scorpio starts visibly playing to the fans, really leans into taking that debut away from Venis. I swear Val got no offense in the last 4 minutes of this match, just took a real noble beating in the match that was supposed to highlight his cool new moveset to a crowd who had never seen him. Scorpio misses a big moonsault (to the disappointed groans of the Nashville Arena) and then Venis wins with an okay big splash (he hit many more better). Scorpio even kind of showed him up on his own finisher, as he got into position for the Money Shot into an active way. He was on his stomach after missing his moonsault, then made a bit of a show out of struggling up to his hands and knees before falling over and winding up on his back in the center of the ring. 

Two weeks later they had Val Venis squash Papi Chulo, or, the very obvious guy you have on the roster to debut against a new heavily promoted babyface. I don't think Scorpio got to shine brighter than this over the rest of his WWF run. 

Terry Funk vs. Marc Mero

ER: Great Terry Funk performance, really putting on a show for a Nashville crowd that I bet he assumed would be more into a classic stumbling babyface performance, instead of chanting and leering at Sable as if they were heckling to get under Rob Dibble's thin skin. And so, Funk staggers, doing a fun bit on the apron where he gets punched by Mero, swinging Funk around for the fans to see as he barely holds onto the top rope, and does that a few times before walking and falling right off the apron. Mero is almost exclusively punches and cheater elbows here, but Funk is a guy who will lean in to your cool elbow strike and then throw back a few lefts of his own. Funk has an awesome western lariat and gets to hit a bitchin piledriver, but Sable's presence at ringside means the fans will not care at all about what Funk or Mero do. Sable does get involved, screeching loudly, Mero hits a low blow, and Funk somehow kicks out at 2? Funk might be the only guy in 1998 to have balls durable enough to not get immediately pinned after getting uppercutted in them. Funk even gets to no sell Mero's TKO finisher, as Sable gets on the apron a bit too early to call attention to the low blow, meaning Mero has to get in her face earlier, meaning Funk gets to stand right up after the TKO to spike Mero with a DDT for the win. 

LOD 2000 (Animal/Hawk) vs. D.O.A. (Chainz/Skull)

ER: This felt like it should have been better, but still kicked enough ass to deliver. I like when we get Chainz into the DOA mix instead of the twins, and I thought Hawk and Animal looked like they were trying hard even while being clearly a step off. Hawk looks a little messy but has the best punch exchange of the match when he fires at Skull's ribs in the corner. Animal hits a big powerslam and hits a really high leaping elbow, and I always get into Chainz' methhead crank biker energy. A longhair biker hitting a big boot and dropping a bunch of frantic elbowdrops feels like the offense of a crazed NoDoz and mescaline fueled biker. Hawk hits a big size powerbomb on Skull, we get a switcheroo with 8-Ball, and you know what I think this did fully kick ass. 

Dude Love vs. Dustin Runnels

ER: Dustin/Foley is always a cool match up, no matter the gimmick or era. Dustin during the Runnels era was an impressively raw babyface in hindsight. It isn't a well thought out progression, and they don't capitalize on things they could have, but matches from Runnels era really show Dustin's barest bones babyface skills. I've seen Dustin work with several different sized house show crowds, and he's always been one of those guys who knew how to do little things to connect to a crowd. This part of 1998 felt visually painful when I watched it at the time, his storyline a sad struggling man rather than a walking tall babyface. I thought his promos came off a little pathetic at the time, clearly a man between stages of his career, yet still somehow under 30 years old. But his in-ring still connected with crowds, and they connected to him here as a babyface fighting for his career (there was a "Dustin Must Win or Not Be Paid for 30 Days" stip added to this match, but barely promoted before, during, or after the match), and the whole match is basically Dustin kicking Foley's ass for 2 minutes before getting distracted and losing by way of mandible claw. The 2 minutes of fired up Dustin were really cool, with Runnels pulling Dude's sports jacket over his head and hitting him with hockey punches, really just 2 whole minutes of Dustin throwing punches before losing immediately. Neither guy looked in their best shape, both were moving a little slow, but the beating looked great. 

The Head Bangers vs. Dick Togo/MEN's Teioh

ER: A total mess of a match that nobody knows how to react to. Kaientai only took one week to move from their MPro gear into their street gang clothes, but Togo was really the only member who actually looked cool in street clothes. Teioh looks like a debatably tough junior high school student, wearing baggy jeans and basketball shoes, and is completely dwarfed by both Head Bangers. The Bangers easily handle the much smaller Kaientai, doing some nice double teams like a crossbody vertical suplex and a middle rope clothesline from Thrasher. Funaki and Yamaguchi cheat from the floor, but it never seems very effective. Kaientai really doesn't do much of anything until Togo gets in and gets a nice corkscrew senton off the top, a springboard axe handle, and a nice cannonball. Eventually all of Kaientai are in the ring blatantly interfering, Taka and Bradshaw run out, and nobody knows exactly what to do or where to go. Neither Bradshaw or Taka run in and actually hit anyone, so you have all four members of Kaientai, both Head Bangers, and now two new people all kind of standing around, and somehow when Taka finally does make a move at someone he runs squarely into referee Tim White. WWF's severe lack of any other "small" wrestlers really made Kaientai look like Lilliputians during the formative debut time where they were supposed to look cool. 

New Age Outlaws vs. The Rock/Owen Hart

ER: Owen Hart in the Nation still comes off like one of his weirder periods in WWF, honestly feels like he was going through the same gimmick crisis as Dustin was going through, he just happened to wind up around a hotter act instead of lost in the shuffle. This starts as a big DX/Nation skirmish (X-Pac/Henry is a fun underrated pairing btw) and settles down into a pretty nice tag match. The Rock and Road Dogg were really complementary opponents, both good at taking the exaggerated strikes of the other, Road Dogg taking super fast back bumps off Rock punches, clotheslines, and a back elbow. Owen comes in with a couple of nice atomic drops, and somehow Road Dogg's ear gets cut open. Owen improvises and goes all the way in on Road Dogg's ear blood, biting at the ear and getting Road Dogg's blood all over his mouth and nose. I don't think Jim Ross really knew how to react to how psychotic Owen looked while biting Road Dogg's ear, so he just kind of fumbles around and moves on quickly. This is certainly the era of really blatant interference, and this just ends when Faarooq runs in and hits the Dominator on Rock while the ref somehow had his back turned the entire time. 

Steve Austin vs. Gerald Brisco/Pat Patterson

ER: I did not give a single goddamn about Patterson and Brisco wrestling in matches during 1998, literally wanted to see anybody else on the roster get ring time than these two. Watching it back over two decades later and it's pretty fun seeing what kind of stupid bumps and finishers two men in their mid to late 50s are willing to take. I still would much rather see the dark match from after this episode of Raw (which was Vader/Terry Funk/Undertaker vs. Rock/Dude Love/Kane), but it's clear neither of them were dogging it. Austin threw a bunch of hard fists at the side of their heads, and Patterson takes an insane bump into the turnbuckles, suddenly channeling his inner Psicosis. Patterson winds up hanging from the top rope/turnbuckle by his knee, like he took the upside down corner Flair bump and just hung there after. It looked like an old man trying his damndest to tear his ACL. All of them eat Stunners (including guest ref Sgt. Slaughter), Vince comes out of the crowd dressed as Austin wearing a mask, Foley comes out and eats a lariat, and it's another Raw that ends with Austin scrapping against five guys while refs hold him back, the exact Raw ending that would make me and my friends flip out and love pro wrestling as teenagers. 

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New Footage Friday: PATTERSON! VALENTINE! FUJINAMI! SAKAGUCHI! SCORPIO! MERCURY! BLACK MAGIC! VAMPIRO!

Seiji Sakaguchi/Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Pat Patterson/Greg Valentine 1/1/79

MD: Obviously, one element of what we do here on Fridays as we delve into rare and lost footage is see wrestlers that not a lot of footage exists of. It's hard not to compare them against their reps. Sometimes they live up to the rep, sometimes they fall far short, and sometimes they far exceed it. Patterson's rep is amazingly high and he always lives up to it. He was great in the early eighties when he was obviously past his prime. He's fantastic in what bits of him we have in the 70s. You can only imagine were we to stretch back farther. I wouldn't say that's the case with the Ray Stevens footage we have, actually. You can see vague glimpses of the sort of heat he might have gotten once, before his body broke down from his in-ring style and his out-of-ring lifestyle. But with Patterson, there's just so much he brought to the table that everything you add on to the capabilities we see in his post-prime footage is just that, an addition to the greatness.

We come in at the 3 minute mark here. First half of the match is Valentine and Patterson getting advantages on Fujinami with Sakaguchi coming in to clean house. Second half, they take out Sakaguchi's leg and demolish it until the DQ finish and the continued demolishing post-match where they alternate bombs aways and elbow drops onto the leg. Valentine and Patterson make a really solid unit, both laser focused. Patterson is able to go from stooging and bumping to absolutely beating the crap out of someone on a dime. He was legitimate and tough while also being entertaining (lots of jawing with the ref or his opponent) and creative. Sakaguchi really used his size well here. Just huge presence which made it mean all the more when he played vulnerable towards the end.

PAS: The more I watch of him, the more Greg Valentine moves up my list of all time favorite wrestlers, what a vicious grinding killing machine he is at his best. Patterson and Valentine make a great team, giving when they need to give and taking all that they can take. Patterson could bring the violence as well, and had a more theatrical bumping style. The finish run where they destroy Sakaguchi's leg was some truly brutalizing stuff, it really looked like the kind of thing which would send Seiji out of the territory for six months. I am not sure how much Patterson and Valentine teamed, but man were they badasses, I could really see them running roughshod on a territory for a year laying out all comers. 

ER: This really gave us the look at an all time team that never actually was. Valentine/Patterson wasn't a team I've ever thought about before, but seeing them together here (and they didn't really team or face each other that many times other than this New Japan tour) and they are a really natural, vicious team. Patterson is just as savage as Valentine, which I wasn't totally expecting. I've seen plenty of Patterson, but he seemed especially mean here, coming off like a bigger bumping Valentine. When the match started I thought it would be Valentine throwing leather while Patterson took the bumps, instead we basically got two Valentines. Patterson did bump big, taking Fujinami's armdrags faster and harder than any junior heavyweight, and hitting back way harder. Patterson was really great at taking offense, loved how he worked under Sakaguchi (like running neck first into a strong chokehold), and I was really into the hell Patterson and Valentine unleashed on Sakaguchi's leg. Patterson's top rope kneedrop looked incredible, and I was really impressed by the go go go pace they all kept up. This felt like more of a modern indy tag structure worked by tough dudes, kind of anachronistic but impressive to see such a fast pace from some bruisers. We get 15+ minutes of tag team wrestling, but the tags from both sides come so quickly that it felt like we got twice as much action as we actually did. Patterson and Valentine also added Dusty to their team a couple of times on this same tour, and the thought of those three killer blonds on the same team makes my head spin. What a great find. 

Vampiro Casanova vs. Black Magic 10/93

MD: A rarity here, a lucha cage match where you can actually tell what's going on. There are basically two things going on here. One, young ladies love Vampiro. Two, Black Magic fills his time fairly well by beating him around the ring and slamming him into the cage. Look, Vampiro garnered a lot of support without a ton of talent. I think he's fairly good at writhing about in his selling here and he bleeds when he's supposed to, but his bumping is stilted and his offense more so. Smiley is a guy who disappoints me as much as not in 90s lucha matches, but overall, this worked. And full credit to Smiley, because he did the heavy lifting. He kept things vicious and compelling. He gave Vampiro hope spots that worked in the cage and then cut them off. The girls were going to pop for literally anything Vampiro managed to do, so that helped matters along. For the most part, they avoided big spots and kept it to Smiley laying things in (which looked really good half the time and less so the other half) and making use of the cage. When they went big, like Vampiro's bump off the top, it didn't go nearly as well. Vampiro should have built to using the cage more in his comeback too. That would have maybe made the finish - which was a little too opportunistic and banana peel for a cage match - probably work a little better. It's lucha, so the end goals could be different. If this was like a supre libre match on the road to a hair match, that'd be one thing, but I don't see any results along those lines. Still, as a stand alone experience, I'd put this in the "almost worked" category, mostly for Smiley. But don't short change the girls in the crowd.

PAS: I thought this was legitimately awesome, huge disconnect between Matt and me on this match. Vampiro isn't any great shakes as a wrestler, but he had a monster superstar presence and wasn't afraid to take a big beating and bleed a bunch, and what more do you need in a cage match. Smiley was really vicious pounding him with hard punches and kicks and grinding Vampiro's face into the cage. When it came time for Vamp to make his comeback, Smiley really flew around the ring bumping for him, he eats an awesome looking released vertical suplex (which may have just been Vampiro losing him on the move but it looked great), and we have a big triumphant Vampiro climb over the top of the cage. This was like the best version of a Bruno WWWF cage match, and it is wild to see Vampiro at his rock star peak. Might be my favorite lucha cage match ever, which is not a giant bar to clear but still says something. 

ER: I'm definitely closer to Phil than Matt on this one, I thought this was great. Lucha cage matches are some of the worst matches in wrestling, and this may be the only one I've seen that is actually better than its on paper potential. Often, lucha cage matches nearly eliminate the most interesting aspects of any luchador involved, but this match enhances both men. Black Magic's strengths are his strikes, Vampiro's strength is getting girls to cheer for him. It's a format that plays to their strengths and that's all you need for a strong match. Smiley is a known tough guy (basically anyone who worked UWF is clearly a tough guy) but you don't usually get to see him in ass kicker mode. Here he really kicks Vampiro's ass around the ring, push kicking his head a couple dozen times and throwing great right hands to bust Vampiro open. Smiley really kicks him around for 10 minutes, with my favorite being a sliding kick from his back right into Vampiro's jaw, looked like something cool Inoki would do. Smiley sells big for Vampiro's comeback, right after scraping Vamp's face across the cage (I might be reading too much into it, as Vamp had already been bleeding at that point, but his comeback had a fun "not the face!" energy to it). This really did feel like Pedro Morales working an MSG cagematch against Blassie, which was not a comparison I was expecting to make going in. The girls screamed as Vampiro tossed Smiley around (loved how Smiley took a teeter totter, flinging himself across the ring), and I don't recall a lucha cage match having a beginning/middle/end as satisfying as this one. 


2 Cold Scorpio vs. Joey Mercury PWU 9/15/07

PAS: The actual parts of this match that were wrestling, were pretty cool. They started off with some grappling, including an awesome spot where Scorp breaks a side headlock, by throwing an uppercut right to Mercury's knee. They also did some fun leverage stuff around a knuckle lock. Dan Severn is seconding Mercury for some reason, and the really lay in the interference thick in the middle of the match. Leading to a ref bump and run ins by DDP, Devon Moore and Sandman. These two have another match and I imagine with less mishigas it might be a lot better.

MD: A lot to enjoy here. Mercury just seemed very sure in his skin here. A lot of confidence, a lot of antics. I'm not sure I'd say he came off like a star, but he absolutely came off like a pro wrestler who really understood the power of his actions. Who wouldn't want to have Dan Severn out there as his hired gun/coach? He made the most of it, stalling to get advice, having him choke on the outside, utilizing some submission stuff he might not do otherwise, etc. Scorpio, like always, had the fairly unique ability to make offense that shouldn't work on paper look really good and make complete sense. Living in the late 90s/00s, it was really easy to get sick of finishes like this, but when you don't have to deal with them multiple times a month, you can appreciate them for their merits. It would have been even better if this set up a six man tag the next month.

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New Footage Friday: PATTERSON! CHOSHU! THESZ! SILVERSTEIN!! CYCLONE!!

Lou Thesz vs. Cyclone Anaya Chicago 3/31/50

MD: I thought this was excellent. It may not have the same overt character as the Silverstein match because Thesz wrestled clean but they really went at it. A lot of it was just headlocks, but they worked and worked and worked them. Breaks were clean, but they were never easy, never given. When they worked out of the holds, the entire point was to work into the next one. That was the escalation as opposed to spots. Thesz was explosive, able to grab a double leg of nowhere, able to catch his opponent with a toehold take down off the ropes (and then to twist him into a cool figure four toehold that we never see now), and of course able to fly up with the Thesz Press which is as good a finish and probably did as much for him (especially in an environment where every match needed three finishes instead of one) as a Diamond Cutter did for Page. Anaya held his own here. I loved the end of the second fall where he goaded Thesz into back and forth mares in order to open him up for his deep cobra twist. The finish of the last fall was perfect, with Anaya going for the twist again and then hurting his leg as they both went over the top. The way Thesz targeted the leg again and again only to set him up for a dropkick was, like the end of the second fall, game of human chess stuff. Great showing all around.

PAS: This was really great, Anaya isn't a guy I had heard of before, but he made me a fan. Matt mentioned Thesz's explosiveness, which isn't something I really think of him for, but he felt like a Steiner Brother during parts of this match. He really tore into takedowns, and got huge ups on his Thesz press. I loved the psychology of the match with Anaya being outgunned by a master, but having the Cyclone twist as a killshot. He finishes the second fall with it and goes for it again right at the beginning of the third fall. It eventually backfires on him as he tries it too close to the ropes and gets bieled to the floor, with both guys taking a big bump and Anaya dinging up his leg. Thesz wasn't really working heel here, but he had a nasty streak to him, including absolutely obliterating Anaya with an upkick. I also thought there was a real fuck you aspect to the final single crab, like he was tired of this kid and was going to stretch him out and end it.


Lou Thesz vs. Ruffy Silverstein Chicago 3/17/50

MD: This had been up for a while when they did the big release back in 2014 but it was down until some copyright issues were cleared up. It's great to have it back. This is a really good look at Thesz as a travelling heel champion. It's not really how I picture him in my head. What's really interesting here is how the announcer doesn't really decry Thesz' tactics but instead insists that this is him taking Silverstein seriously. When the Chicago Film Archives dropped so many matches, it was hard to really organize and categorize them. That's, in part, why we're focused on chronologically going through the French footage two-three a week nice and steady. That, then, more than Chicago, is our point of comparison. I think this was just as competitive as a lot of the 50s French footage we've seen recently, though maybe not quite as complex or advanced. You had the sense that Thesz was making Silverstein work for every hold or advantage, through his positoning and how quick he was to grab on, let alone the cheapshots and the use of the ropes. I really, really love Thesz' elbow shot that he'd do in the midst of a break. The end of the first fall, that escalation into rope running and a dropkick out of nowhere, was right out of Jacky Corn's playbook (or possibly vice versa). When Silverstein had a moment, he used it well, with good looking shots and some quick moves into holds (like how he took advantage of an ugly missed dropkick to get a quick roll over to end the second fall), but he didn't have too many of those moments. Again, big credit to the announcer for making him seem all the stronger for the fact that Thesz had to cheat against him in the first place though. Silverstein did put on more pressure in the final fall but you never really got the sense Thesz was in trouble. While still very good, I think this might have been better if Silverstein took a bit more earlier and really made Thesz need to resort to those tactics. As it was, it was a situation where we were told instead of shown.

ER: Big fan of this nice long look at Thesz, and the way he can work as default heel against a respected local guy, showing dominance early without being blatantly cocky, and then revealing he still had a couple gears to shift into when he got frustrated. The announcer was smart about pointing out Thesz' less than sportsmanlike strikes, by acknowledging without hand wringing that there was nothing actually wrong with them, it's just not the type of thing that every one does. Thesz has this little back elbow he utilizes on a break that really feels like something that gets pulled in the NBA, bracing the back of his left elbow and weight against Silverstein and upon breaking, shoving his left palm with his right fist. So he's not hitting a sharp back elbow to the temple or anything, but it's more of an emphatic heavy shoulder shrug directly into the neck and jaw. They work a couple of exclamatory headscissors sequences and the best part was that Silverstein looked like a guy who wasn't quite sure how to get out of a Thesz headscissors. He tried to bridge out of the first one and I swear I thought he was going to get snapped in half; later when he tries to escape from another headscissors, Thesz basically twists his knees and sends Silverstein face first into the mat. Silverstein was competitive without ever fully seeming into it, but I liked how he won the 2nd fall by ducking under a Thesz dropkick, with Thesz sliding over Silverstein's back like Bo Duke sliding over the General Lee. Thesz is clearly not happy with dropping a fall, and after a minute or so into the 3rd fall he decides to put this thing to bed and just starts wrecking Ruffy with shots. I love Thesz's short glancing right elbows, and he just leans full weight into Ruffy from go and even the announcer throws up his hands with a "dumb voice" as if he's sick of sticking up for the technical legality of Thesz and his strikes. "Oh Thesz will break alright, he'll break your lower mandible." Thesz treated this 3rd fall like a big brother who was letting his little brother be competitive, but then the little bro accidentally busted big bro's lip, and you just can't do that.

PAS: I loved how this escalated, obviously Thesz was the bigger, badder star, but I thought Silverstein really had his moments. I loved how he rocked Thesz with big football tackles and cracked him with a forearm so hard Thesz had to take a standing 8. Thesz does this really cool selling where he almost takes a timeout, he can't stand, or has to lean into the ropes. He really feels rocked, like he might have gotten his bell rung legit. After Silverstein putting him on queer street a couple of times, I got why he got nasty in the third fall, and that third fall was a grimy little fist fight from both guys. Thesz has this technician reputation, but he could go gutter with the best of them. The legend was that there was some bad feelings between the two, and that is why this felt out of hand. It looked like hard hitting wrestling to me, but it could have easily been a quasi-shoot too.

Riki Choshu vs. Pat Patterson NJPW 10/26/79

ER: This was a match-up I'd never thought too much about, and yet now seeing it in front of me it suddenly seems really obvious just how similar these two are. Outside of their nationalities their looks and styles feel like mirror images: same build, same movement, same headlocks, same exact movement on kneedrops. Patterson takes a lot of this match, and I like the way he holds Choshu down. He really leans his weight over Choshu's body on a cool smothering chinlock, not resting but clearly weighing Choshu down. He kept beating Choshu to different attacks, cutting him off abruptly and not allowing him any space. I loved the different ways Patterson used knee strikes, with a nasty quick knee to the gut and a later short knee right between the eyes when Choshu was trying to get to his feet. I laughed at Patterson rolling to the floor for a breather the second Choshu was actually able to make space, a guy who needed to regroup the second things shifted the other way. Choshu landed super heavy on a big dropkick, and really looked like he deadlifted Patterson up for a great certical suplex. I loved how late Patterson moved on Choshu's kneedrop, really suckering him in before scooting a shoulder out of the way and then immediately going back to work. Choshu really brought a ton to the finish, some of the best "occupying time" work I've seen. Patterson goes up top and drops off with a knee, then immediately goes back up for another one. The second Patterson went up for another Choshu started struggling to get up, grabbing for the ropes to try and lift himself up, so that when Patterson nailed him with the second and final knee it met Choshu's chest a few feet off the ground. So many other wrestlers would have just stayed on the mat, waiting to take that second knee, but Choshu added a whole different layer to what they were doing, looking not just like a guy who was going to fight until he could no longer move, but using his time to sell struggle in a way that made the finishing knee mean more and look more devastating. If I was unfamiliar with Choshu and that was the lone thing he brought to the match (it wasn't), I would already want to see a ton more of him, because it's those kind of touches that show how deeply someone understands big match atmosphere and presentation.

MD: Pretty certain this one's never been in circulation in our usual circles (or if it has been, it's very rare). Ultimately, this is to set up a bigger match with Sakaguchi which has been out there. I'm not sure I've ever seen it though and I ought to because this sets it up really well. They really go at it here, with Patterson inclined to take every advantage imaginable. It almost feels like a schoolyard fight, but with Patterson channeling the rep Blassie used to have, just goozling and launching inside shots and lightning quick to grab the hair whenever Choshu gets even a hint of an advantage. And when Choshu really does? Well, that's when he hits the floor and stalls. He's just a great presence here, mean and nasty, while making it absolutely clear that he needs to cheat to get out of everything while Choshu manages to escape very similar moves with strength and skill and courage. For example, he'll reach around with a hair pull to escape a Scorpion Deathlock only to immediately put on a crab and have Choshu power out. That sort of thing. That means something and that matters. The big stuff in the match was really big too, with Choshu powering Patterson into a huge, offset airplane spin into a proto-AA, and Patterson hitting a brutal bombs away as Choshu was getting up after dropping him face first onto the exposed turnbuckle. Every new Patterson performance feels like buried treasure and this is no exception.

PAS: I had always though of Patterson as more of prototype big bumping heel, but he was a nasty fucker here, more Johnny Valentine then Dolph Ziggler. He really ground away at Choshu and when Choshu fired back it really meant something. Loved the finish (no surprise there with Patterson being a legendary finish guy) with Choshu trying for a sneak top rope kneedrop, only to miss and weaken a wheel for Patterson to work over, before hitting the two bombs away. Eric mentioned how great Choshu trying to get up after the first one, only to be driven into the mat with the second was, and man was it great. Made the whole finish look super violent and brutal, and made Choshu look like a tough motherfucker in the loss.

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Pat Patterson vs Bob Orton (MSG - 08/30/82)

Pat Patterson vs Bob Orton
MSG 08/30/82

39:40 in

Richard Land is a downright treasure of the community. He goes off and finds WWF rarities from foreign TV or obscure things that didn't heavily make the circles (or at least haven't been posted online). I can't be the only one out there who wants to watch "Ian Mooney" host D-Show Wrestling Spotlight with Sensational Queen Sherri (Or Vince host it with Elizabeth, just as surreal in the opposite direction). And yes, sometimes you just want to see the dark match from the first episode of Raw that only aired on Italian TV (It was Bob Backlund vs Damien Demento). He's also been posting longform shows from MSG and elsewhere. That's where I came across this.

It's a ten minute match that precedes Tiger Mask vs Dynamite Kid on a card with Buddy Rose vs Bob Backlund. Moreover, Orton's a guy who tends to be underrated and overlooked, though he does get great word of mouth from his peers and tends to come across well in every situation we have him in. Due to blackballing and just where he happened to be, we tend to have less of him in key situations than we'd like. We certainly don't have much complete footage of his team with Slater in Mid-Atlantic, which was supposed to be great. Patterson is someone I've learned to go out of my way for. No, we don't have much of him in the 60s, but what I've found is that post prime Patterson holds up far better than post-prime Ray Stevens, for instance. There's still a lot to appreciate and remark upon in his matches. So ten minutes of these two buried on a 1982 MSG card seemed like something worth watching.

Fiery forty year old babyface Patterson in New York always felt like an odd fit (maybe it shouldn't have) but he made it work through sheer effort and smarts. Here he took a huge chunk of the match, so much so that it probably shouldn't have worked. Orton was going over (albeit with a dirty but definitive countout), so given the relatively short timeframe they had to work with, it did make sense for Patterson to dominate. The challenge was for Orton to keep his heat throughout. He did, and in doing so, you can see hints and traces of just how good he was.

It goes back to selling, in the broader sense, to reacting. It wasn't enough that Patterson would block a punch and hit Orton. Orton sold it, and the meaning behind it, by winding up huge, letting the block linger, and then, once he was hit, stumbling across the ring to the outside and then falling back in over the top rope while swinging wildly. He ran into a bodyslam and bounced three times, waving his arms dramatically, and begging back into the corner. When he hit a shoulder block off the ropes, it was with his arms flailing in celebration. When he was rolled up off the ropes on a second attempt, he kicked out and flew under the bottom rope to stomp around in frustration. When he ate a sunset flip, for two, after some criss-cross running, he scooted back out and sat on the apron between the second and third rope in frustration. All of this massed until he had enough and rushed in instead of darting away, only to get outpunched by Patterson. When he finally took over, by using the ref as a distraction, it felt like the only thing he could do, but it still made him look good and crafty without hurting Patterson a bit. The finish, a crotching over the top rope that looked maybe a fifth accidental, did the same.

Both guys came out looking better than they came in. Orton only clowned for five or six minutes, but every second of that time was inflated in meaning due to how committed he was to his reactions (Patterson just as committed on offense). He only had control for a minute or two before the comeback, but they made the most of that as well. This isn't a lost classic, but it was a textbook example of how being committed to selling the importance of everything in the ring can make even a relatively short, relatively one-sided match richer and more vivid.

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