Found Footage Friday: OMNI 84~! SPOILER~! GARVIN~! JAKE~! ROAD WARRIORS~! ROOP~! ROGERS~!

GCW Omni 4/22/84

Tommy Rogers vs. Bob Roop

MD: We come in JIP here and you get the ambiance immediately as people in the crowd are shouting "hit him!" and "break his arm!" These two matched up very well for an opening match. They had a nice rope running exchange where Rogers ducked a clothesline and hit a cross body and some really good hammerlock switches. Rogers had an interesting sunset flip in this stretch too, one where he had to really struggle to get over and it's so different from anything you'd see today. He controlled on the arm for a bit but Roop took over just by grinding his heel into Rogers's face after standing up out of an armbar. So simple, so nasty, so effective. He really kept things moving on offense, switching between jumping knees and neckbreakers to just holding the ropes to step on Rogers' throat and and using an abdominal stretch. Rogers just punched his way back but it was with a perfect bit of 'fed up' head shaking and the punches looked good, especially after Roop sent himself sailing off the ropes right into one. Then they went into Roop bumping around for him until Rogers lifted up on a corner charge and got a roll up out of the corner. Different sort of opener than usual given the contrast. I enjoyed it.

ER: Based on the 10 minute call, this is only JIP by 30 seconds or so and it's great. Rogers is small but has real power, Roop leans into Rogers' offense and bumps with real respect, and punishes Rogers when the match calls for it. Roop is a dense, tough guy, and Rogers hits him and uses leverage in a way that makes his long control compelling. Roop is great at selling Rogers' focused arm work, at one point gripping the rope to slowly stretch out his arm, using the ropes to provide restraint while he rolled his shoulder. Roop is Shooter Ned Beatty, strong at injecting realism into matches where you might not be looking. When Rogers holds onto a bodyslam and turns it into a quick nearfall, it's the only time I've seen that spot look like a shoot. Bob Roop can be so realistic in everything he does, that every part of my brain believed he was trying to bodyslam Rogers. I wasn't expecting Rogers to snare him and drag him over when Roop tossed him away from his body. 

Roop moves to control by standing up in an armbar, one of my favorite spots. I love when a guy holds the bar, legs straight to his opponent's body. As he's standing, trying to break, Roop pulls himself up straight by the ropes, ref Nick Patrick focusing on Rogers' shoulders. When Patrick makes Roop break, he does so while stepping down onto Rogers' nose and mouth. Roop is great in control. He does no unique offense, but he does it using movement that nobody else uses. His elbowdrop lands heavy and his legdrop looks clean. His backbreaker has great bounce, truly backbreaking. He throws a straight right punch that might be the single best punch on the show. Several of his punches are in consideration. He bumps for Tommy Rogers' comeback like Tommy has the best punches on the show, arms slapping the mat in big rolling back bumps, going up for a back body drop, toppling over for a knee to the gut. There's a great misdirection before Rogers gets the win, as he wriggles out of a bodyslam and throws a dropkick upon landing, but Roop coolly takes on step back to avoid the dropkick. Roop doesn't capitalize, but the last minute doubt in Rogers win made his sunset flip after ring more true. Georgia was great at that kind of finish, setting up the win with a near loss like a marathon runner briefly stumbling down the final straightaway. Fantastic back and forth, a real tough opener. 

Tim Horner/Sweet Brown Sugar vs. Les Thornton/Rocky Jones

MD: I think Rocky Jones was Mike Masters. Again, it's weird to have a tag as the second match of the card on these Omni shows (from what we've seen at least). This was a fun one though. Jones and Thornton were in matching blue. There was a long shine where they got clowned a ton, first by Sugar on his own and then with phantom tags in headlocks. The heels did something similar with headscissors but it was a phantom heat too as the babyfaces took over soon enough. Horner got greedy and attacked Thornton on the apron and got swarmed for his trouble. Lots more switches behind the ref's back by the heels and the crowd hated each and every one of them, making that same audible buzz that you'd get for punches back then, just the negative version of it. Some good hope spots and Horner getting dragged back before he got a maybe-too-easy tag to Sugar and the babyfaces romped the heels on the way to a Sugar missile dropkick and Horner roll up and victory. 

ER: I'm not going to pretend I know who Rocky Jones or Mike Masters are, but now I have 15 minutes of this man who is shaped like an approximation of Buzz Sawyer and The Gambler. I don't think he has a whole lot to offer the babyfaces while being controlled, clunky about getting into headlocks, but when the match - too late - moves into Thornton and Jones controlling and isolating Tim Horner he suddenly comes into his own. The match comes into it's own once they go full heel control. While I wasn't engaging with Sugar and Horner's babyface headlock control, the Omni crowd was. 

I perked up when Horner tried to cheap shot Thornton on the apron, a confident move that backfires instantly as it grazes Thornton and Thornton sells it like a graze, returning fire and bashing Horner's face into the turnbuckle. Rocky throws an elbow to Horner's eye as he's tagging out. I loved the heel control, Rocky picking Horner's leg really close to a tag out, the physical weight of them dragging Horner back to their half of the ring, the energy Thornton puts into kneeing Horner in the back from the apron, heels trading headlocks behind the ref's back. Sweet Brown Sugar's hot tag has some hot punches, and his butt wiggling dropkick off the middle buckle was fantastic, whipping his legs out in front of him in flight to catch Rocky over halfway across the ring. When Horner tags in for the O'Connor Roll, he rushes into his so enthusiastically that he runs face first into Rocky Jones as he's shoving his body into the ropes, and I liked his dumb guy babyface dedication to not half-assing it. 

Jake Roberts vs. Brad Armstrong

MD: Definitely a tale of two or three matches. Jake is fascinating to watch for the first five or six minutes of this. Go back, if you've already watched, and watch again and just focus on his feet. Usually that's not the sort of thing we tell you to do around here (it's not that sort of blog) but he has these lanky legs and the long pants and just the way he moves around the ring, a stutter start or a bound towards the corner, is really interesting. There are inputs that I don't know enough about the actual mechanics to pick up or judge and on the top of that list is footwork, but I can tell you that his here is fascinating. 

Likewise, he's so good at playing around in the corner, drawing Brad in, complaining to the ref, taking up time, frustrating everyone, getting heat. For the first few minutes of this, I barely remembered he was wrestling someone or that Brad was in there. I was just watching Jake do his thing. 

And his thing for most of the match was to sell his stomach. Anytime there's motion, either him flailing about or Brad cutting him off with a shot to the guts, it's great. Even when Brad lifts him up for a bearhug, it's really good. The problem is that there's probably six or seven minutes of this match where Brad is just laying on the ground with Jake in a bearhug. The issue isn't that he's laying on the ground with Jake in a bearhug. It's that neither of two things are at play: 1) it's not the heel doing it to the babyface and 2) there's nothing that I know of on the line here. Jake's not the champion. So while the fans do care about the outcome; that's clear from the finishing stretch, there's no major stakes that would benefit from Jake being super vulnerable and on the verge of losing (not having ball control) for a brunt of the match. And since it's the babyface doing it to the heel, while the fans are fine seeing Jake writhe and hurt, they can't get behind Brad from underneath in the same way.

When Jake does take over he focuses on the gut too and it's good stuff, especially how he conducts Ellering to interfere or distract the ref. The finish is good too as Brad comes back with some shots to the gut and a great dropkick and Jake is able to just slink his leg over to the ropes to survive the Russian Leg Sweep. Brad gets revenge on Ellering for jumping in the ring to point that out but then eats the DDT. Fans are definitely into it. But that middle section was rough, not because it was a hold, but because it was the wrong person doing the wrong hold in the wrong match.

ER: I am not a Brad Armstrong fan. I acknowledge that he is a Good Hand but his Good Handedness gets in the way of him being a Better Worker. He limits himself in ways that undercut his talent, positioning himself in an underdog position that defined him in ways that could have been avoided. I can't get invested in his work, I rarely get invested in his matches. The right thing has to happen for me to engage with Brad. 

One of the things that makes me engage with a Brad Armstrong match, apparently, is a tremendous 20 minute selling performance from Jake Roberts. I'm not sure if it mattered much what Brad did here, because I could not stop watching every single shiver, shake, and cringe that Jake did. Master class. Did Brad Armstrong have good offense? Maybe? For a guy with a great body who was never taken seriously against heavyweights, I don't think his offense was as good as Tommy Rogers'. But Jake's selling sure made me buy into Brad's offense for a startlingly long match. Does Brad have a really good headbutt to the stomach? I'm not sure, but I sure bought into it seeing the way Jake covered up and flinched after taking it. Jake sells Brad's whips into the turnbuckles like he's feeling them in individual vertebrae. The way he falls to his butt multiple times after taking an unexpected shot was the kind of selling we praised Kawada for on message boards 25 years ago. Every little movement of his, every recoil, is worth a note.  

But what you want here is the way Jake sells Brad's bearhug. It's beautiful, even if it seems ridiculous that this tall drink of water who looks like a drunken little league coach would ever be found in a bearhug. You don't enter into a Jake/Brad match expecting it to be this long, and you definitely don't expect Brad to be wearing Jake down with a bearhug for any number of reasons, but it happens and I loved it. You get to see all the ways Jake tries to escape, all the bargains he makes with God and the Devil to be released. Trying to break with a handful of Brad's tight perm, his hands shaking as he's brought to his knees and Brad meets him there. When Brad tightens the bearhug, Jake actually leaps up into his arms the way Scooby would leap in Shaggy's arms after being scared by the ghost of an old prospector. Jake slowly falls to his back and Brad follows with the hug, Jake trying to fend it off by pressing his forearms into Brad's face bones. I found all of it captivating. 

When Jake is in control, he does some things totally unique to him, the way he drills offense to take small advantages. He hits a pair of sliding punches/shoulderblocks into Brad's kidneys that reminded me of the sadism you see in Abdullah The Butcher matches, a targeted missile that had fast closing speed and real impact, and something I've never seen before. I love Jake's messy fighting, how he kicks and shoves Brad to the floor when they're both on the mat. You don't see enough guys kicking at each other from prone positions, it's all getting into position now. Jake kicks at Brad from his back in smart and opportunistic ways, not caring if it looks messy and dirty. Boots hit just as hard from your back and side as they do standing. 

Jake Roberts made me buy into everything Brad Armstrong did, which is no small feat. It was a given that eventually Brad would focus his attention on the wrong man, and it's hard for people to mentally overcome that inevitability while watching his matches. Jake made me take interest, and when Brad actually hit the Russian legsweep it felt like others believed as well. It might sound easy to fill nearly 25 minutes with a Good Hand, but there's a difference between filling time and actually making it interesting. Jake did both. 

 
Ron Garvin vs. The Spoiler

MD: Really interesting set up here. Garvin's title is on the line for just the first ten minutes and Spoiler comes in with a plan. That's to work a headlock for the first half of it or so to really wear down Garvin. Then when there's just a few minutes, he really hones in on the throat. He has this amazing move he does where he puts the neck against the throat and kicks at the rope causing Garving to spiral back. But he also hits a neckbreaker and drives Garvin's head into the mat and climbs the top to drop neck first on the top rope as he drops to the floor himself. And then the last minute or two is all about Garvin just surviving. He does, but keep in mind he's basically not got a single piece of offense in the whole match.

But the match goes on with the title no longer on the line. And that's really interesting, because then what's it going to be? Usually, it's the babyface who is chasing and then he's going to get the win on the heel after the time limit. Now it becomes Garvin going for revenge for what's been done for him and trying to survive a pissed off Spoiler who knows he can't get the belt. The match switches between those two themes. Garvin starts by wielding a chair to get back into it. 

Once into it, he tries to get his punches in or to work on Spoiler's leg, but Spoiler is too big and strong. At the same time, Spoiler goes for the claw at times but can't get it on, in part because he has to defend against the punches. He is able to work the leg however. Things build past a few comebacks and momentum shifts to a great ref bump where Spoiler redirects Garvin into him. That allows him to start with the claw. Garvin fires back but Ellering gets a chair in on him. There's an awesome comeback where Garvin has to punch his way back into the ring and a great finish where Spoiler comes off the top but Garvin catches him with a punch. This was a little aimless after the ten minutes were over, but that almost worked in the match's advantage because it was about both wrestlers trying to score points and make something out of the violent opportunity given to them now that the title was no longer on the line.

ER: I love this shit. The crowd didn't seem to want a 37 minute match where Spoiler works holds while weathering punches from Hands of Stone but I sure do. Spoiler has such a unique way of using the ring and using his opponent, and I'm not actually sure the crowd enjoys watching him do anything. That doesn't matter to me, because I am so enthralled with his style. He's great at selling for Garvin, he's greater at beating Garvin's ass, stretching his leg, strengthening his neck with choking. When a match starts with a collar and elbow tie up this good, I guess I'm locked in for 35 minutes or so. I love a tough lock up, the legitimacy of it, the struggle. Spoiler shoving off the bottom buckle to get the small advantage. Spoiler's wide base on his side headlock to bring weight down on Garvin. Spoiler's perfect chinlock that looked like the most violent thing in the match, perfect camera angle on it like we were observing a cell phone recorded crime. I lost it when he rolled to his back to wrench it in tighter. 

Spoiler utilizes the ropes in ways that nobody else has, facilitating chokes that seem like something we should have seen in French Catch. The fans get so annoyed when Spoiler does rope chokes, and he has enough different variations that I'm not sure I can ever tire of them. When he's lying on his back, bending Garvin's neck back over the bottom rope, pulling down and back on Garvin's chin, that's wrestling. Nobody else does wrestling that looks like Spoiler's and that always makes me gravitate towards wrestlers. It's more common that when they do something different, they do it well. Not as many are just allowed to keep doing things wrong if they aren't any good. Spoiler finds endless ways to be annoying, tough ways to work holds. When Garvin misses a kneedrop off the middle - a great magic trick, great form on the miss - he takes over with holds targeting Garvin's leg. 

There's an honest to god reaction from Depressed Ordinary People Donald Sutherland, a man who I can't make sense of. He and his wife are front row center at every Omni show, and neither has shown any kind of interest in professional wrestling. I don't know why they're there. The most logical assumption is that their teen son drown to death practicing for a swim meet and they've been left in his wake to attempt to maintain their routines and move forward while being stuck in a specific year. Like the territories in 1984, I guess. Maybe his wife loves pro wrestling and drags him there every single week and forces him to sit through tough matwork that is the least interesting thing in his world. He doesn't react to any wins or losses or dangerous spots or adept exchanges, but he laughs with the two hesher teens sitting next to him as Buns of Stone Ronnie Garvin has those tight cheeks aimed directly at them. Spoiler has a knuckle lock held from his back, thrusting his crotch upward, to meet Garvin's Stone Buns, the arc of his thrust aimed directly at Depressed Atlanta Donald Sutherland and two teens that aren't made like that anymore. He laughs and shows emotion for the first time I've seen on any Omni show, a man who hates wrestling to his core and just misses his dead son, but can still laugh at wrestling when it looks gay. 

Road Warriors vs. Masked Superstar/King Kong Bundy

MD: I really enjoy 84 Road Warriors. They were raw but had such energy and didn't calcify into what they would someday be. They could have been anything. Hawk just flew around, both on offense and bumping for people. He came off the top at Bundy with an atomic elbow smash and then went for another and took the punch to the gut flip bump. A lot of this was just wondering how they'd be able to contain Bundy which is a great feeling for a Roadies match. Eventually they did it with a missed elbow drop, working the arm (including Hawk going up to the top to do it) and double teaming. Superstar was wonderful here. I haven't seen him as a face with the gimmick much but it had all of 89 babyface Ax fighting the Twin Towers which is a personal favorite. And of course the fans OOOHed for every babyface punch, a magical time. Bundy came back (with Superstar's help; all it took was a little) and hit that interesting inside elbow drop to win it which led to...

King Kong Bundy vs. Paul Ellering (3-minutes)

MD: I like how Ellering almost worked this like a cage match, desperate to escape the ring. Bundy had a lot of fun with him, tossing him about. He hit one kneedrop in the middle which was the most crushing thing I've ever seen. Looked amazing but I get why a big guy wouldn't do it often. He squashed him with a power slam and then lifted him up before finally finishing him and demanding the 5 count as time was ticking down. They really gave the fans their money's worth on this stip.

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Coliseum Video Thanksgiving: Rampage '92

ER: In what has become somewhat of a Thanksgiving tradition, my friend Josh is over on a brisk Thanksgiving day, the heater in the house is turned up, and Josh brought a bag of Coliseum Videos with him (as well as TWO full pies. I'm looking at YOU Pear Cardamom). We randomly grabbed one, and the choice was the EXTREMELY great looking on paper Rampage '92. We pop it into the VCR, and it turns out Rampage '92 has an Old West theme! Sean Mooney is in a old west town like he's in Mad Dog McCree and he shoots a man! Some bronco buster talks trash to Mooney and Mooney just turns around and shoots him! Twice! This tape is going to be great.

Razor Ramon vs. The Undertaker

ER: The fans are weirdly not into this one, but it's really fun and low-key awesome. The slugfest spots all look good but get no reaction, and the two seem to noticeably ramp things up to win the crowd over. Taker takes a bunch of big bumps, missing a high leap elbow, dropping hard on his tailbone for a legdrop, takes a lariat to the floor, and in the coolest moment of the match gets absolutely launched off the top when going for the rope walk. Ramon evens breaks out a chair - stealing it from a security guard! - and bashes Undertaker in the kidneys! And that wasn't a DQ I guess! Gorilla really puts over Taker eating a chairshot to the kidneys, and this is SUPER important because it actually makes Razor Ramon's abdominal stretch make sense!! Ramon goes for a chokeslam which is some nice hubris, only to get reversed, then Taker goes to chokeslam him again and Ramon does a cool escape by using the ropes. And then he just says fuck it and walks out and gets counted out. He knew when to fold 'em, and I respect that.

Shawn Michaels vs. Bret Hart

ER: I can't get super excited for a match between these two. They've matched up a lot. BUT this is a very fun version of their touring match. When these two weren't such total cocks to each other and were generous in the ring with each other, they really did match up nice. Bret is insanely crisp in this match, every strike, every shoulderblock, every elbow, every clothesline, they all looked amazing. Shawn doesn't bump theatrically here, he bumps HARD. There are two different ridiculously fast and hard bumps, one off a simple shoulderblock, the other off a gorgeous diving lariat to the back of his head, and the two were just like chocolate and peanut butter, perfect complementary parts. Sherri is at ringside and an absolute treasure, cutting promos constantly, looking like a wrestling character in a John Waters movie. This was basically the best era of Michaels, before too much ego took over. He was a really fun heel and made for a fun act with Sherri. And I liked his big heavy bumps, liked his strikes thrown with dickhead aggression, does cool running knees, nice backslide, just a good pro wrestler. He was a like a tighter John Tatum, easily the best iteration of him. I thought this match-up was played out when it started, but they really were satisfying opponents, and this was one of the tighter matches I've seen from them.

40 Man Battle Royal

ER: This is just beautiful. And this is an entirely DIFFERENT battle royal than the infamous Berzerker 40 man. This is worth it just for the entrances, as everyone comes out single file and at LEAST 15 people in this are total pasty nobodies. Some of the nobodies (Rick Johnson? Dublin Destroyer?) actually have decent looks and builds but went absolutely nowhere to my knowledge. There are future names like Glen Ruth, and what's cool is that we don't get exclusively jobbers getting eliminated early. In the other 40 man the opening was so great, with Kerry Von Erich just hiptossing every single jobber to the floor immediately, while Berzerker stomped them all in the head. Well in this 40 man, a lot of the jobbers stay in really long! Guys like Jerry Sags and IRS get eliminated before half of the nobodies, and I thought that was pretty awesome. There are plenty of great moments, like Knobbs trying an honest to god shoot takedown of Bret, and Bret completely stuffing it and dropping a full force knee to Knobbs' chest. I swear to you. Glen Ruth and Duane Gill make the final 10, and they pair off in a way that says "Maybe nobody will notice us if we just punch each other". The final 4 is brilliant, as it's British Bulldog, Bret Hart, and THE BEVERLY BROTHERS! Obviously they don't win, but they both get to eliminate Bret! Bulldog smokes them, icing the cake by press slamming Beau into Blake, and it rules. The format of this battle royal was so good, such a unique look with 40 guys shoved into the ring at the same time

Rick Martel vs. Tatanka

ER: The match itself is simple, the chops looked good, it was somewhat dull, but it always amazes me how into Tatanka everyone was. There was some of the power of just WWF telling this guy is someone worth rooting for, but fans also really took to Tatanka. And yet he was never given any kind of title run. Fans were way into him though, and that's cool.

The Beverly Brothers/The Genius vs. Legion of Doom/Paul Ellering

ER: This is an honest shock to me, as I had NO idea that Paul Ellering worked any taped WWF matches, and no idea The Genius was still working taped matches in 1992. I'm blown away right now. Ellering looks in great shape and is just wearing black trunks and boots, but The Genius is wearing a FULL black body suit with neon yellow GENIUS written multiple times down the leg, and a gigantic superhero G on the front of the suit. He looks like he's wearing LA Park's gear, but with GENIUS instead of bones. I have NEVER seen this version of The Genius. I can barely even focus on the match because The Genius is just standing there in a dayglo bodysuit. But what I am able to see of the match, is obviously super fun. The Beverlys and LOD both get to throw big powerslams, and Mike Enos is a tremendous stooge the entire match. You'd think that with Genius on his team, that Genius would be handling stooge duty, but no! Here's Blake Beverly getting shot into the ropes by Hawk, Blake holding onto the rope to stop his momentum before posing to the fans, and then getting leveled by Hawk. At another point Hawk is chopping Beau in the corner, and Blake charges at Hawk from the apron to break it up, Hawk chops him, and Blake just takes a huge banana peel back bump from the apron to the floor. It looked incredible. Animal is our fun hot tag, sending Beau flying with a backdrop, tossing a nice dropkick at Blake, dropping them both with a DDT, big clothesline, another powerslam, and then LOD uses the Rocket Launcher as their finish!!! Genius gets the Doomsday Device post match, but they win with the Rocket Launcher!!

Tito Santana/Virgil vs. Money Inc.

ER: Dibiase comes out wearing the all white Million Dollar Man suit and he looks downright resplendent. His all white trunks/kneepads/boots look amazing. Tito and Virgil get separate entrances and I'm not sure why that is so funny to me. And Dibiase is a real star in this one. He avoids Virgil, so Virgil has to do a blind tag cheat to get in the ring at the same time as him, and when he is finally forced in with Virgil he works real tough, nice punch combos and a big boot to Virgil's stomach, but is also generous with bumps. He and IRS are great cheaters, cutting Tito off from Virgil, and it's just a great formula. Tito is obviously going to be a great FIP, and Money Inc. are giving leverage assists to each other from the apron, constantly keeping Tito from making the tag. The crowd is hot for Virgil's eventual hot tag but it's kind of flubbed (he throws a couple of off balance lariats and gets a little crossed on the ropes) but the crowd is still into it. The match does not end great but it easily had the strongest build of any match on the tape. I don't think I've seen as much end of career Dibiase and this was a real nice showing for him.

Repo Man vs. Randy Savage

ER: This one is pretty active, even if 90% of the action seems to be axe handles. These two kind of walk around ringside and in the ring exchanging axe handles, and it's not super interesting but it's not bad either. This was World Champ Savage, and babyface Savage always gave up a ton of offense in matches. So here we get Repo controlling things with chokes and a nice flying lariat, nice side suplex, a real look at the Repo Man's offensive game. You knew Macho Man was coming back right in the final 30 seconds, but the elbow he hits is gorgeous.

The Berzerker/Papa Shango vs. The Undertaker/Ultimate Warrior

ER: I really really liked this. It was pretty much just what you would want from this match. It was a fast 8 minutes, which meant that nobody got exposed (anybody know what is considered the best Shango/Kama/Godfather match? I can't recall ever seeing a match with him and thinking "now THAT'S a keeper", but they must exist, right?), and everybody could go go go, and they did. Berzerker/Warrior was a genuinely fun match up, and Warrior busted ass in this, as did Berzerker (I guess I had assumed that would happen though). Berzerker bumped all around for Warrior as if he was Savage or Flair, and Warrior ate a big boot really nicely. I mean Warrior looked pretty bad throughout, and he looked so much smaller than Berzerker that it looked weird that he was shoving Berzerker around. But his energy was there and that's important in a match like this. Shango and Taker were more background characters but the money was in the Warrior/Berzerker showdowns. Another match where you can say with no argument that Berzerker worked harder than anybody else in the ring, really a super generous opponent, took his requisite 3 bumps to the floor. Considering all four of these guys weren't considered "workrate legends" during this time, this match was a blast.


ER: This has easily become one of my more anticipated wrestling traditions, and it helps that we've randomly chosen good tapes. Happy Thanksgiving to all!

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New Footage Friday: Flair, Slaughter, Johnny Valentine, OG Kroffat, Roadies, Freebirds

Sgt. Slaughter vs. Ric Flair Pro Wrestling USA 8/16/85

MD: This is a hell of a thing. It's a 30+ minute Slaughter vs Flair match from 85. We had 4-6 minutes of footage before. I don't think this was on anyone's radar as a possibility to be released, but it's a very unique match up. Maybe there's Crockett stuff with them (I started to look through the 82 JCP results but stopped at seeing Flair vs Jerry Blackwell in St. Louis and gave up because I got too frustrated that we don't have that), and there's that one WWF match that made tape, but this ended up feeling really unique. It's not the best match ever but it had a lot to like.

We've all seen hundreds of Flair matches. Narratively, he's such a loose wrestler. He does what he feels is right in the moment and because of who he is and the presence he has, it's almost a feedback loop. What he does in the moment is right because of who he is. He defines what is right and ultimately, so much of it is about the idea of Ric Flair instead of the specific actions of him. I tend to look at wrestling in a very textual way and Flair is a creature of context, of symbolic ideals. You can't break his matches down move for move. Ultimately, he's about no more and no less than constant engagement of the crowd, filling the time in the most compelling way possible, even if it didn't create a greater whole, and for all I'm able to say definitively, I'm not sure I can definitively say that's not the right ideal to shoot for.

Slaughter was larger than life too. As a heel, he was good at grinding down, bumping and stooging. As a face, brawling and selling. You didn't get a lot of the brawling here but the match shined the most when Flair was working over the arm and Sarge was showing the toll. It was probably weakest, past the early headlock spots (the Slaughter armwork that followed was way more compelling), when Sarge was working over the leg. While Flair had a tendency to sell his leg way more than any other body part (and if I had to guess, that's because it's subconsciously what he liked to work over the most or maybe the broadest, most visual thing there was to sell), Slaughter seemed to be struggling with actually putting on the figure four and it made everything a little clunky. The opening feeling out segment was absolutely great, two over the top characters meeting and Slaughter having a lot of fun at Flair's expense. I don't always love Flair playing as vulnerable as he did here for a lot of this, but against an opponent so over the top like Slaughter, it worked. Flair had to use every dirty trick to get an advantage, but once he really dug in with it towards the end, he was vicious and effective and that made Slaughter's comebacks, especially the finish with the out of nowhere with the cobra clutch all the more exciting. The color was saved for the post match with Boris. There were a few creative decisions I didn't entirely agree with, but this was absolutely effective for what it was and it felt like a dredged up dream match, one of those champion vs champion affairs that are never quite as satisfying as they could be but that felt monumental and important.

ER: I think Matt really wrote all that anyone could have wanted on this match, love his thoughts on Flair's match construct, really fascinating analysis and attention to detail, there's not much I'll be able to provide on this match that Matt didn't already. BUT! I liked it. It was one of those big champ vs. champ matches that we all know isn't ending definitively, so you soak up and enjoy it for the charisma of two legends who rarely matched up (including a couple intriguing/unseen Slaughter/Savage vs. Flair/Mountie house show matches I'd love to surface), and dig how great these two look against each other despite seldom crossing paths. I thought they worked the pace really well considering they were going fairly long, and they spaced out a couple of great big bumps to make them feel like an even bigger deal: Slaughter took a big tumbling bump to the floor, and then Flair took two different ones, the second showing him landing on a ton of different objects before hitting the ground; hits the ringside table, falls onto men, hits a chair, thuds to the floor, it's like a great death scene where someone is pulling down curtains and sweeping some China off a table before hitting the floor. My favorite moment was Flair and Slaughter fighting in the corner, Slaughter selling Flair's chops as well as any man, Flair dialing in some of his greatest punches right to the chin, Slaughter recoiling and holding his face, the chops loud enough to literally change the sound pattern of the crowd din that went the whole match. This match was filled with great moments without ever necessarily building to anything extraordinary, and this is okay with me. For a 30+ minute match it certainly didn't feel like it, so it's not something I'm going to nitpick, this felt like it was structured specifically to be enjoyable to this crowd. There's no way someone watching this in the arena wouldn't have been losing their mind. Boris Zhukov runs in and I like the energy of his shots to Slaughter, and then he goes and dumps Slaughter right on his head with a tombstone. Jeeeeez (this set up a really fun singles match between them). So it's a 30+ minute match that ends with a bunch of hunks like Brad Rheingans, interrupting their Chippendale rehearsal to run out in just jeans and boots (seriously, they looked like a male stripper construction worker flash mob), saving their boy. Historically, this is real important, and made for a great Friday afternoon view.

PAS: Every once in a while the network really drops something special. These are two of the biggest stars of the 80s and we never had them matching up before. I didn't love this match, but loved that we got it. This was a Flair match, and while Slaughter delivered some cool stuff, it felt a little like he got shoehorned in a match formula. I really liked Slaughters work with the hammerlock and headlock, and thought it was pretty lame when he started work a figure four. He looked like Disco in that terrible Russo gimmick with print out. I loved Flair's punches to the face and knee drop, and when this turned into a brawl it got special, still I would have rather seen Flair work a Slaughter match then Slaughter working a Flair one.

Road Warriors/Paul Ellering vs. Fabulous Freebirds Pro Wrestling USA 8/16/85

MD: This felt larger than life, another top-of-the-card war. The Roadies were at the height of their power, with every big move shaking the Meadowlands. I'm not sure I've ever actually see them do anything cooler than Animal press slamming Gordy. No one in the crowd even blinked during the attempt. It took too much effort for the Birds to really get over on Ellering. If they combined the attempt at heat with the real thing and didn't give him a pseudo-comeback in the middle, this would have been stronger. The finish was BS but the best sort. Buddy elbowdropping the ref was visually striking. The Birds took the inevitable lost but immediately got their heat back with the huge double back body drop into a powerbomb (in 1985) on Ellering and then the Roadies cleared the ring to end it. New Jersey knew what it liked and it liked the Road Warriors.

PAS: I do love these big main event punch outs. Birds are really great bouncing off the Road Warriors and I loved Gordy as the big dog willing to growl. Ellering is a weird figure in the 80s, as a babyface manager he seemed to exist only to sell so the Roadies didn't have to. The beat down on Ellering was fun and the Warriors hot tag was really explosive, that Animal shoulder block looked like a missile. This kind of made me want to watch some more Warriors matches, sure they aren't going to sell but I appreciate heavyweight wrestling that looks like it hurts.

Kintaro Oki/Michiaki Yoshimura vs. Johnny Valentine/Dan Kroffat JWA 05/29/72

MD: Big thanks to Loss for finding this for us. Valentine is exceptional. He might be the best total package that we have the least amount of footage of. He makes everyone else look shoddy. The way he utilizes leverage and pressure on the simplest holds shows us just how much we take every aspect of pro wrestling for granted and how much more gripping it could be.

This was my first look at the original Kroffat and he reminded me a bit of Wiskowski, both visually and in his ability to marry really sound tag work with dynamic stooging. This was structured with just total control by Valentine/Kroffat for the first fall, long periods of varied grinding holds, quick tags, and drawing a pissed off Yoshimura in. The second fall was lightning quick, just a comeback, a hot tag, headbutts and a finish. Then the last one having a little bit of everything (including Oki pulling off a "Look to the sky/faked you out" spot), before it ended with Valentine pre-creating the Brock vs Orton spot with endless bloody elbowing which either led to a draw or a DQ or who even cares. It was great. I'm pretty sure we should just watch Johnny Valentine matches all the time from now on.

PAS: Johnny Valentine would be my favorite wrestler ever if we had more footage. This wasn't a world class match, but it was another world class performance. Kroffat and Valentine are a fun tag team, Kroffat is a lot more expressive, hitting every move and bump for the last row. Valentine would tag in and start grinding and pounding away. Oki and Yoshimura didn't do a ton to stand out although they were really solid. The finish was awesome though with Valentine pummeling Oki until he started leaking all over the ring, and Oki fired back with great looking gory headbuts. Every Valentine match is a treasure, and this was minor jewel, but a jewel nonetheless.

ER: I obviously agree with the Valentine love here. I love Greg Valentine (not a bold statement), and imagine just how much of a legendary badass Greg had to be just to not be considered a total joke by people who knew Johnny? Greg should be looked at as even more of a total legend just for the giant shoes that he admirably filled. Johnny is so cool and is a rare tough as hell guy who can be beat. He doesn't just gobble up opponents from what we've seen, and his clear toughness always makes it look like his opponent really went through hell to earn a victory. While I don't think the whole of the match made this legendary, the moment he starts raining down on Oki with elbows SHOULD be legendary. That is one of the more unexpected turns into total outright violence that I've ever seen in a match, things going along just fine with headlocks and grounding your opponent until suddenly you are draining your opponent of blood like it was 1850 and Valentine was curing Oki of an infection. Kroffat (or KING KROW as he goes by for some reason) looks like the toughest version of Peter Tork. He was an odd pairing with Valentine, but I liked his sometimes comically expressive bumps and mannerisms. Overall I thought this went too long, felt more like a 50s match than an early 70s match, but I also liked the slow burn due to that insanely rewarding culmination, that moment you really see Oki's head faucet just getting opened up.

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Last Battle of Atlanta! Wildfire Tommy Rich v. Buzz Sawyer

PAS: Of the last couple of years there has been an explosion of awesome historic footage showing up, from Dataintcash uploading early 80s Sangre Chicana handhelds, to the NWA Classics motherload, now WWE network shows the fuck up and uploads maybe the holiest of all holy grails. As a match I think it is pretty great but a step below the absolute stone cold bloodbath classics of the 80's. I loved the opening, with Buzz smashing his hand on the cage and Rich nuking his arm a moment later trying for an elbow. Buzz takes over and smashes Rich's head into the cage. Tommy Rich is the greatest bleeder in wrestling history, a true Beethoven of blood, and he goes from nothing to horror movie almost immediately. From that point on we get a toe to toe brawl, with Sawyer and Rich throwing really great punches and spraying blood on each other. Finish was a little flat though, with both guys passing out and Rich throwing his arm over Sawyer. Didn't feel like it built to a crescendo, it just kind of stopped. I also felt we needed a more aggressive Buzz Sawyer. Rich was awesome in this, but Buzz seemed a bit subdued for Buzz. I think if we had gotten the intense unstoppable Buzz of the Hacksaw feud we would have had an all timer.  We did get a bonus match with Ole Anderson and Paul Ellering have another neat bloody brawl, Ole is really great as a babyface and is great at laying out a beating and taking one, took such a beating that he got weird rips in his pants. Loved the finish here with an awesome Frye v. Takayama exchange between the two. While this was an A rather then an A+ it was still such a treat to see it show up.

ER: Unexpected footage dumps are always exciting. Phil didn't even mention the All Japan uploads that arrived one day from a devoted Japanese Terry Funk fan, gifting us with a few new Funk/Hansen match-ups, several unseen Funk singles matches, some new Crusher Blackwell, weird mid-tourney RWTL matches, just a trove of fun stuff. And with the WWE Network now having existed for over 2 years, it was beginning to look like they had no interest in digging into their assuredly deep tape vault to give subscribers some deep dig treasure. And then came an out of the blue announcement that wasn't related to any anniversary, just a decision to drop a small collection of little seen footage on everybody. And after years or tape trading hoaxes and WWE vault speculation, all of us dorks finally got to see the Last Battle of Atlanta. And? I ended up enjoying the Ole vs. Ellering segment more. But really the whole segment is wonderful. Rich and Buzz are great brawlers, obviously, and both know how to bleed (especially Rich, as Phil perfectly noted), and Buzz might be my favorite guy when it comes to flying into the side of a cage. The match had a weird...professionalism? Understanding? Something about it didn't feel like a feud ender. It felt a little more like a couple of worn out guys giving it one last go. I did love the moments of reckless aggression that lead to the tides turning, big missed moves that left an opening for either guy: Rich missing that big awesome fistdrop of the top, Buzz going whole hog on an elbowdrop that sees Tommy sitting out of the way at juuuust the right time. The cage bumps are fast and violent, both men fight on their knees in one of the all time great moments for that spot, just throwing everything they had at each other from close range, and Rich uses a piledriver in a really great way, almost an opportunistic, unexpected piledriver. It's all really good stuff.
Ellering gets let out of his cage, checks on Sawyer, and then Ole steps into the ring dressed like every angry guy with something to say at the union hall. And this one feels like a real feud ender. It's messy and not totally even, but it's awesome. This is one of my favorite Ole performances. I don't think I've ever actually seen babyface Ole and it totally suits him, at least in this specific instance. He takes some spills into the cage, his jeans rip a bunch as he rolls around and stomps Ellering, and suddenly he looks like everybody's dad, if everybody's dad got in a crazy fight at the town harvest festival parade. Babyface Ole really fought like a man of the people, and it was great. After the match Jake Roberts comes in all lean and menacing and wearing what might be a tight Pro Wrestling Illustrated t-shirt. He whips Ole with several mean belt shots, and whenever the poor ref would intervene then that guy would get whipped even worse. At one point the ref got whipped right in the face. The whole thing was quite the spectacle, the cleanness of the video footage was spectacular, and we can now as a group cross another one off the list.

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Saturday Night's Alright for SLL's All-Request

Domingo Robles vs. Jay Youngblood (WWC, early 80's)
Requested by Tim Evans

This was a fun four-minute aside. Domingo Robles' gimmick is that he's what every clueless dope who read the WKO 100 without actually knowing what they were talking about thinks Black Terry is. He's this aged, broken down, clumsy, ambiguously drunken rudo who feebly attempts to brawl with Youngblood, but inevitably ends up getting knocked on his ass and begging off. And it rules. Robles' shtick is great. He has a million different ways to comically oversell Jay's offense. I think my favorite was when Youngblood hit him so hard that he got "stuck". This is compounded by Rip Rogers' solo commentary, as he is in awe at Robles' ludicrousness, and is actively cracking up at several points. "If at first you don't succeed...give up, Domingo."

Chris Jericho vs. Mike Enos (WCW, 9/23/1996)
Requested by DylanWaco

Enos' theme music epicness-to-push ratio is one of the mostly weirdly disproportionate I've ever seen. Dylan said this was his favorite Nitro match ever, and it's not hard to see the appeal. They do a really fun big man vs. little man match, and communicate the idea really well considering the size difference isn't that big and Enos has a lot of athletic offense for a biggish guy. Enos also comes across as a real challenge for Jericho despite the fact that I don't remember him getting one meaningful win in this entire run with the company and I'm watching from an age where Jericho is a multiple-time world champion (though he had only actually been in WCW a month at this point). Again, not hard to see why. Having not watched his stuff for a while, I had forgotten what a brute Enos could be. He opens this match by slapping Jericho hard across the mouth - seemingly because Jericho had an insufficiently firm handshake - and then cracks him with a headbutt. Jericho fires back with a nice spinwheel kick, but Enos hangs tight and catches Jericho with a slingshot shoulderblock and pins him down with the topes de Jalisco of all things. He spends the next little while beating Jericho up and powering him around. There's a particularly cool run outside the ring where Enos hits an apron dive clothesline and then turns the ringsteps on their side and suplexes Jericho onto them. After that, he turns his focus to Jericho's back. At one point, he breaks out a Boston crab that Larry Zbyszko completely shits on on commentary. Admittedly, it's not a very good Boston crab, but that's not the kind of thing you draw attention to in the booth. God, I hated Larry's commentary. Jericho escapes an Argentine backbreaker and hits a Michaels-style superkick followed by an Adams-style superkick to make a comeback, but it gets cut short in spectacular fashion when Enos turns a top-rope hurricanrana into a superbomb for a nearfall. When that doesn't work, he makes one last run at putting Jericho away, but Jericho over-rotates him on a powerslam attempt and lands on top for the pin. Offhand, I don't know what my favorite Nitro match ever is (Eddy/Malenko from the Saturday Nitro? I haven't watched it in a while. Hmmmm....). It's probably not this, but this was definitely one of the good ones, and a fine example of what used to make that show fun.

Kengo Mashimo & Madoka vs. Daisuke Sekimoto & Yoshihito Sasaki (Z-1, 3/2/2008)
Requested by Brandon-E

BJW guys vs. K-Dojo guys in Zero-One? OK. It's not like Zero-One has an identity of it's own anymore. These are three guys who I currently like, plus Madoka, who I don't really have anything against, back in a time when I either didn't like them or didn't care about them. Actually, weren't those fun MEN's Club multi-mans happening around this time? I probably liked Madoka the most when this happened. Either way, a lot has changed since then, but I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same, because these guys' performances in this match ranks roughly the same as how much I like them currently: Mashimo gives the best showing, then Sasaki, then Sekimoto, then Madoka. And that's not good, because Sekimoto vs. Madoka seems to be the main focus of much of the match, and Mashimo doesn't really even show up until the half-way point. The result is that we have the tale of two matches. The first half, dominated by Sekimoto/Madoka exchanges, is really listless and sloppy. At one point, in rapid succession, Sekimoto backdrops Madoka over the top rope onto the apron (which is blown completely), Madoka Rocker Drops him when he tries a shoulderblock through the ropes (which Sekimoto didn't even seem to be trying to connect), and then takes him out on the outside with an Asai moonsault (which takes too long to set up and leaves Sekimoto standing there like a dope waiting to catch it). It's not good, but at least it was bad in an active way. Most of the rest of their stuff was dull and generic in the way you kind of expect a match like this to be dull and generic. Please, bring on the suck. At least that's interesting. But all of a sudden, Mashimo finally gets in the match, and he gets paired up with Sasaki, and it's like night and day. Structurally, they're not mixing it up too much, but there's just so much more life behind their exchanges. Mashimo looks especially dynamic, having a lot of really crisp offense, and shows some hints of things to come. FUTEN was definitely good for this guy, but honestly, he looked like he was already most of the way there in this match. Their enthusiasm seems to rub off on the others, too, and overall, the second half of the match is a lot more fun than the first, including Sekimoto pulling Madoka off the apron and over the top rope for one of the best German suplexes of his very German suplex-heavy career. The finish is also really great, with Mashimo grabbing a crucifix on Sasaki and rolling it over into the Rings of Saturn, cranking Sasaki's arm over his shoulder to make him tap. The bad first really drags down the good second half of this, but it did make me want to see a Mashimo/Sasaki singles match, so that probably counts for something.

Toshiaki Kawada vs. Minoru Suzuki (NJPW, 8/11/2005)
Requested by Curt McGirt

I have mixed feelings about this. Overall, if I had to call it one way or the other, I'd say this was a good match. Both guys brought enough fire to the proceedings to keep my interest throughout, and that's pretty much the minimum of what I could ask for from a match. They hit each other hard and Suzuki made his funny faces and it was generally structured well. That said, I wanted to like this way more than I did, and while I did like it, I'm not really that enthusiastic about it. Kawada was all over the map here. He was pretty deep into his HUSTLE "not giving a shit" phase, and while there were glimmers of his past greatness (he will still chop and kick the shit out of you, if nothing else), he honestly looked bored a lot of the time. At one point, Suzuki locks him in the sleeper, and I could've sworn I saw Kawada roll his eyes. I mean, we are talking Samoa Joe in TNA "great wrestler just not caring at all anymore" levels of boredom here. OK, maybe that's excessive, but there are some low moments here. Meanwhile, we've got Suzuki. He's kind of a divisive figure in wrestling fandom: either you think he's a really fun superdick heel, or you think he's an irritating Villain Sue. I understand both views, but personally, I've always leaned towards the former. I think the main tipping point is that his no-selling tendencies have always struck me as a bit like Kevin Von Erich's no-selling tendencies. When a guy wails on them, I don't believe either guy isn't in pain (usually), I just get the sense that they respond to pain differently than most wrestlers. He's not the Ultimate Warrior is what I'm saying. But I'm not dumb. I do recognize he's a guy with limitations. He works better in tags than in singles, he works better against lower-ranked opponents than equal or higher-ranked ones, and he works better in short sprints than longer, slower-paced matches. This is a singles match where he's wrestling a higher-ranked opponent, and it goes 17 minutes, which isn't an epic or anything, but is about 7 minutes longer than a Suzuki singles match should go. It's not a sprint, which really hurts the matches main appeal: watching two tough bomb-throwing bastards lay waste to each other. I mean, I guess you can do that for 17 minutes, but they really don't. When they're throwing bombs, it's great, and they throw enough of them to keep the match fun overall, but the match as a whole is still worked at a surprisingly and frustratingly deliberate pace. I don't know. Maybe I just set the bar too high for this one.

The Road Warriors & Paul Ellering vs. The Varsity Club (NWA, 2/11/1989)
Requested by Victator

By contrast, I didn't know what to expect from this. The Varsity Club has been revisited a bit lately, and people with opinions I take seriously are saying that they were a really fun act around this time. Watching this match definitely bore that out. This is worked as a brawlers vs. technicians style clash, and the Varsity Club hold up their end of the bargain, with really aggressive looking amateur takedowns early on, and some great work over Animal's arm later. But the real surprise was the Roadies. I never thought much of them in the ring, but they hold nothing back in this match, clobbering the hell out of the Varisty Club every chance they get. Hawk looks extra vicious, laying in his shots really hard, but Animal really proves his worth as the face in peril. Yes, this is a match where the Warriors are actually fighting from underneath, and they look really comfortable doing it. I mean, I think I vaguely remember Animal and Heidenreich being shockingly good working that style, but couldn't think of the Roadies at the peak of their popularity ever doing it. Well, here they are, and it's fantastic. Hell, even Ellering looks good the brief time he's in, hitting a nice dropkick, and Sullivan doesn't hold this back at all. The finish does, unfortunately. After completely dominating the body of the match, Hawk gets chucked over the top rope after only the slightest of comebacks for the DQ. He takes a nice bump there, but I was hoping for an actual third act to this, so I'm let down. Still, what's there was great fun while it lasted.

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