New Footage Friday: CRYBABY BOB!! SANTO! SUPER PARKA! ! DUSTY! PEDRO! FUJINAMI! INOKI!

Crybaby Bob Corby vs. Sheik Lawrence of Arabia NWA-Los Angeles 2/19/51

MD: Eight minutes of pure entertainment. Corby's definitely my kind of heel: always on, totally committed, and able to be both dangerous and credible with his offense and a complete coward when he loses advantage. He was lightning quick when taking offense, like how he was ready for Lawrence's initial somersault, but then he was just as quick to try to dive behind the ref when the tide turned. And the fans responded accordingly. A group of female fans in the front row throwing jelly beans at a heel because he tried to pull the tights to get a pin is the most 1950s Americana thing possible and a fun counterpoint to all the French Catch we've been seeing lately.

PAS: This was a blast. Corby was a really fun over the top bad guy. I could almost see him as an oafish bank robber in a Keystone Cops short. The fact that he enraged the mothers in the crowd so much that they were chucking jelly beans at him, just incredible stuff. He controlled much of the match with his antics and hard shots, but I liked the little glimpses of Sheik Lawrence we got as well. He seemed really agile, and his Argentinian Backbreaker into a airplane spin into a backslide was a nifty bit of business, someone should jack that finisher.

ER: Loved this look at the LA wrestling scene from a time where my grandpa would have been watching. Crybaby Bob Corby is getting reactions from women in the crowd from the second his name is announced, and it's cool to see a Sheik gimmick as a handsome soft cheeked babyface (as if the next 70 years of wrestling weren't about to happen). This of course is the infamous TE Lawrence, whose pro wrestling career would be made into a real crowd pleaser of a film just a decade later. Lawrence had this fun spinny pirouette bumps off of Crybaby Bob's cheapshot punches, spinning into the mat like he was in a Looney Tunes short. Bob threw several rabbit punches into the back of the Sheik's head, then would run crying and cowering to the ref any time Sheik mounted any kind of comeback. Crybaby had several early variations on Eddie Guerrero's running on his knees to hug his partner at the waist, always trying to get the ref in between he and Lawrence. The ref was a former boxer from the 30s, Cecil Payne. He was billed as 5'5" in his boxing days but he towers over these two like Sterling Hayden, so either those numbers are wrong or Bob and Sheik are 5'2 with good posture. The women of all ages kept getting more loud and upset at Bob's cowardice, and I absolutely adore stuff like that in old pro wrestling. Phil accurately described the awesomeness of Sheik's finish run; some small but strong guy like Lorcan or Gulak could pull that off convincingly and make it work in a match.


Antonio Inoki/Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Dusty Rhodes/Pedro Morales NJPW 10/26/79

PAS: Fun opportunity to see two of the most iconic babyfaces in wrestling history work cheap shot heel, and they are pretty great at it. Dusty has such an iconic vibe, and it is cool that we get to see him apply that vibe to evil rather than to good. Match moves along at a nice pace and then really kicks into gear near the end, with Fujinami hitting an awesome bullet tope which sent Pedro flying into chairs. I wonder how many topes Morales took during his career? It can't be a ton, but he took it like a seasoned luchador.

MD: This was a lot of fun. There are only so many heel Dusty matches in existence and while it's a little different when he's a foreigner, he was so good in the role. I don't know if many other heel Pedro matches exist (do any?), and while the first couple of minutes of him being on the wrong end of Fujinami's headlock (which was a strange place for him to be considering he was the one working the shine for most of his career) wasn't exactly dynamic, he seemed to enjoy himself once they started to heel it up. Dusty was great at playing chickenshit and then seizing upon weakness when he saw it. When they did take over, it was by cutting off the ring, making quick tags, frequent double teams, illegal and legal, and goozling there opponent. Once Fujinami made the first hot tag to Inoki, they were just relentless, with the ref admonishing one while the other cheated away and then vice versa. The fans were hugely into this, just a constant buzz, and every time it went to the floor, the beatdown became electric. It had an almost lucha feel with the momentum shifts mattering more than the tags (even rolling hot ones) and with Dusty fouling Inoki from behind once it was obvious he'd taken control to end the first fall. For every cool thing, like Pedro's double stomp or Dusty working over Inoki's stomach through the ropes from the floor, there were certain things that looked iffy like Pedro not making it on a whip or Dusty's hilarious pile driver on the floor, but some of that was counterbalanced by the fact Dusty was doing a pile driver on the floor to get heat, you know? Good look at some legends and a rare look at two of them playing roles that they sparsely played by 79.

ER: I've seen very little heel Dusty, and I'm sure I've never seen any heel Pedro, and I'm pretty sure I'm in love. With the crowd rapturously behind Inoki and an impossibly fired up babyface performance from Fujinami, it was a perfect canvas for two super charismatic babyfaces to show off their heel side. Heel Pedro is a real revelation for me. I've seen enough hot comeback dropkick Pedro, but I've never seen "kick someone directly in the ear" Pedro. Morales was such a thug in this match, it was nuts! He was landing shots on Inoki like Inoki was some young lion, and Dusty was this super cocky opportunist sneaking shots where he could. I loved the spot where Pedro was holding Inoki in a full nelson and trying to let Dusty get in close for a cheap shot, but Inoki keeps kicking his legs out at Dusty, fighting every piece of dirty work. Everything on the floor was really electric, and the Fujinami tope is a real all timer. You can see him building up that head of steam and just letting loose, looked like he flew 12 feet. Matt is right about the outside brawling having a real lucha feel, and that tope just rubber stamped it. I'd love to see how rabid an Arena Mexico crowd would get for a match like this.


El Hijo Del Santo/Dr. Wagner Jr. vs. Blue Demon Jr./Super Parka Lucha Libre Reynosa 2/2/08

MD: This was quite the spectacle. A couple of clips but nothing too worrisome. Lots of posturing post match after Wagner turns on Santo, but if you're going to have posturing peppered with post match brawling (and even a dive) these are two good guys to do it. Some overachieving here (Super Parka looked really spry for 2008) and the underachieving you'd expect (Blue Demon's offense looked really good; his bumping and selling less so). The star power carried this though. By 2008, Wagner was a victim of his own charisma and he'd ham it up to an extreme extent but that's what the crowd wanted. The crowd brawling when the rudos took over in the segunda looked good but we were missing a chunk of it due to the camera angles. It devolved first to mask pulling and then to lots of miscommunication between partners, including Santo hitting the somersault senton (pre-dive) on Wagner by accident. That led into the finish and the post-match posturing. Worth watching but something like this is just too weighed down by the sheer mass of its combatants to settle on being great.

PAS: There is no wrestler in history that enjoy watching go through his formula as much as I enjoy watching Santo. He pretty much just breaks out his greatest hits during the wrestling portion of this. match, and man do I love those hits, three great dives, his spinning headscissors, just awesome to watch. Pretty bizarre that Wagner and Demon would go on to have the MOTY 11 years after this match, as their exchanges weren't much here. Super Parka brought some brawling and bumping to the table, and the post match was cool. I didn't really buy the turn, they really should have had Santo hitting Wagner lead to the finish or something, because he just shrugs it off and does some two count exchanges before deciding he was pissed off and attacking Santo. I would be excited to see the singles match this sets up, hopefully that is sitting around somewhere too.

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New Footage Friday: Moondogs, Aoyagi, Mr. Fuji, State Patrol, Can Ams, Matsunaga

Moondogs/Mr. Fuji vs. Pedro Morales/Ivan Putski/Tony Garea WWF Kuwait 1983

ER: I loved this! I loved it so much I wound up watching it twice, back to back. That is the first time that has ever happened with any match involving Garea, Putski, Fuji, etc. But here it is and it's totally great. These Kuwait shows seem like an absolute blast from the wrestlers' perspective, as every old gag gets a gigantic reaction. The crowd responds huge to every single thing they're supposed to respond to, so we get a simple match with a ton of heat and rabid excitement for the simplest exchanges. Fuji is fantastic in this playing a great stooge. He gets his salt knocked out of his hands by Putski, pinballs around so he can get punched by all the faces a couple times, does some funny misdirection, scrambles on his knees to tag out, all the exact things this crowd wants to see. The faces don't need to do much, the fans are reacting to Fuji and the Moondogs (if that doesn't sound like a cool as hell Hanna-Barbera crime solving show I don't know what does) reacting to the faces. Putski has a lot of energy and the crowd rightfully reacts huge to all of his headlock punches, and I cannot imagine what they even thought of the round hairy Moondogs. Garea comes in and does a lot that one headlock that you've seen Garea do, but soon you got Rex holding him in a long as hell bearhug, building to that tag, and Kuwait warms my heart by getting so damn into this bearhug. It's beautiful. We get the Moondogs cutting off the ring and it's satisfying as hell, because you know the roof blows off the place when Garea finally tags in Putski. It wraps pretty quickly after this (all of the Kuwait matches we have end very suddenly on things that weren't typical finishers), but honestly they could have kept this up for 30 minutes. This was simple, insanely effective wrestling, and instantly became my favorite match I've seen of several of these guys.

PAS: Pretty fun to watch the crowd go absolutely bananas for really simple wrestling. Every time Putski throws hands they totally lose there shit. Moondogs and Fuji are fine as foils, and everything was executed well (outside of the finish which looked botched) This exact same match wouldn't work well in the Boston Garden, but in front of a crowd that hadn't seen all the shortcuts before it was a total blast.


Ryuma Go/Masahiko Takasugi vs. Masashi Aoyagi/Mitsuhiro Matsunaga Pioneer Senshi 1990

PAS: This is exactly what you want it to be. Go throws the prematch flowers at Aoyagi and gets met with a big spin kick and we are off. It feels ragged and unprofessional like the best Karate Gi matches do. Go bleeds early and Aoyagi bleeds in the middle of the match, and blood all over a Gi is still one of the coolest visuals in wrestling. The Go/Takasugi team is perfectly willing to deliver dangerous looking stomps to the back of the head. Really fun to watch young lion Matsunaga working as a Aoyagi dojo boy, what a weird career he had.

ER: I dug this, as I am going to do with a loosely constructed karate gi guys vs. trad pro wrestlers match. It took a little while to really get percolating, overcame some stumbliness from Matsunaga, and blossomed into a great mix of blood and shoot throws and unprofessional kicks. Go and Takasugi were the owners and headliners of Pioneer, and I love when a couple of karate goons kick the tar out of authority. I didn't really see how Aoyagi got busted open, but it's a real gusher, sending rivers down his chest and covering his face, and around this time Aoyagi and Matsunaga start really taking things out on Go. I really liked the Aoyagi/Matsunaga dynamic, with Matsunaga throwing off balance kicks and kind of getting in over his head, occasionally getting his leg worked over or picked up and slammed hard, with Aoyagi always coming in to save him by kicking Go or Takasugi in the head, and Go especially takes the messy end of these kicks. I love those moments in Aoyagi matches where he violently kicks someone to the floor, always landing one of his hardest kicks in the match and then shoving someone unceremoniously to the ground with both feet.


State Patrol vs. The Can Am Express AJPW 6/4/91

ER: This was a good match, but not as great as the match I had built up in my head. This didn't quite have the cohesion or build that the greatest AJ tag discoveries have, and doesn't seem to ramp up as much as it should. It's a 18 minute match that feels more like they were pacing out 27 minutes, so we somehow get a ton of action while also feeling that we got things cut short. We don't have a lot of State Patrol in All Japan even though they did several tours. They were a team I always loved in WCW and feel like part of a whole wave of WCW guys who got overshadowed at the time by people who liked Benoit, Regal, and Malenko, even though undercard guys like Buddy Lee Parker or Gambler or even Vincent were working similar, or complementary styles at the same time to much less acclaim. So here's the State Patrol against one of the thee tape trading teams of the 90s. Kroffat/Furnas were an incredible on paper team who didn't always deliver their on paper potential, but always had a high floor due to the unique athletics of both men.

Tom Magee is a guy getting talked about a lot now, which is funny for several reasons, one of which (that I haven't seen discussed) is that Tom Magee's ceiling was Doug Furnas. We have 10-15 years of Furnas footage out there that was hot at the time but nobody cares about now, where you can see every positive Magee trait executed by a guy who was as good as he was gonna get. Furnas got effortless height on leapfrogs and could snap off a few press slams like it was nothing. Tom Magee was never going to be Hogan and it's foolish if anybody ever actually said that. It's unfair and stupid when current baseball prospects get compared to Mike Trout. There is zero chance of that happening. But Doug Furnas was cool and he's the best possible Magee. State Patrol are two guys who can work stiff and dish back, and so are the Can Ams, so at minimum you knew you were gonna get a couple hard forearm shots, a couple tough suplexes, and a couple nice double teams. We got it all and it was good.

James Earl Wright is a fun guy who got even less exposure than Buddy Lee Parker, as he never had that "Power Plant Trainer" fame like Buddy Lee. But Wright was damn good and threw himself into offense really well (always taking high backdrops and fast suplex bumps) but also committing to his own offense. He throws low fast clotheslines and I love the State Patrol's forearm/German suplex spot. Both guys do nice elbow drops which is a favorite move of mine that has been slowly phased out without anybody noticing the past decade. Kroffat throws a mean sidekick and fastest possible snap suplex, Furnas hits hard pivot belly to bellys, we get a cool misdirection into the finish with State Patrol hitting a top rope shoulderblock to each other when Kroffat flips out of a suplex, and the crowd did keep getting louder. But I think these teams have even better in them, so I'm left merely smiling that I got to see them fight at all.

PAS: I actually think Eric is underrating this, which is surprising because this is the sort of thing I would expect him to overrate. This was just a tightly worked powerhouse tag match, the kind of thing you might expect from a great Stieners match. State Patrol landed everything with a thud, especially great work from James Earl Wright, who was throwing heat, great looking lefty lariats, big elbow drops, nice forearms. That forearm/German suplex double team was completely awesome and should be stolen by a half a dozen indy wrestling teams right now. Loved watch Furnas stretch out and show off, and his Frankenstiener finish looked about as good as that move has ever looked.

MD: This is from a stacked show, stacked enough that I thought about pressing us to review the whole thing. Instead, we'll fill in gaps with the five, or so, key matches over the next year. The context matters. On the one hand, yes, this is part of the AJPW handhelds, and part of a great show in specific. On the other hand, this is the State Patrol. I don't think it could ever live up to what was in Eric's head, unfortunately.

This is a really cool Worldwide main event about five years before its time and with twice the room to breathe. All the little things worked well. Kroffat and Wright had an especially good bit of matwork. The State Patrol moved in and out of the ring really well, just somehow always in the right place at the right time against two opponents they probably hadn't faced off against too often. They cut off the ring well, allowing for a very effective face-in-peril run for Furnas.

We knew a lot of that already though. What the match has as well are some crazy State Patrol double teams (that German/forearm looked great), rapid fire elbow drops, Buddy Lee Parker rope-walking successfully, and some fairly complex bits of positioning on tandem spots. Where I'm with Eric is that I was left wanting more.

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New Footage Friday: Rito Romero, Super Calo, Pedro Morales, Blackjack Mulligan, Rey Mysterio

We had a fun bunch of stuff in the queue for this week, but the network totally overdelivered, with two previously unseen old school matches and a Rey dark match from Nitro


Rito Romero vs. Danny Savich Dallas Wrestling 9/26/52

PAS: Really enjoyable bit of classic wrestling shtick. This was an underhanded cheapshot artist taking liberties with a local hero. We have multiple old ladies expressing their disgust with Savich as he threw punches and stuck his foot under the ropes on a submission hold. Meanwhile Romero would fire back with punches and even a couple of nice dropkicks. Really liked Savich's neck twist and he had a nice grumpy jerkiness, he felt like a soda shop owner who would yell at kids for just reading the comics instead of buying them. Romero is a guy with a legendary rep, and there were moments where you could see it, he took some big bumps to the floor, and had great timing. Really bummed that Savich wasn't going up for the Romero special, I was ready to mark out. The third fall was a nice look at what 1952 out of control brawls looked like, Romero kept knocking Savich to the floor, and when Savich offers his hand to keep it clean, he Fuerza's Romero and starts hurling him to the floor. The both tie up their opponent in the ropes, ending with Savich getting DQed for tying Romero's throat in the ropes and choking him, Savich even punches the ref and the seconds trying to free Romero. Felt like this would build to whatever the 50s equivalent of a big stips match was. Fun discovery

MD: I had three paragraphs written on why the stunt granny who drew Savich onto the apron at the end of the first fall was symbolically equivilent to a dive train that sets up the final bit of rope running in a lucha caida, but it felt like overkill.

Instead, I'll just point out the obvious: these guys were pretty great. Romero's legendary, of course. Savich I was less familiar with, but he was exactly the sort of gritty, underhanded stooge you'd want him to be. This worked a smart pace with a ton of build and callbacks throughout the falls. Romero was emotive and sympathetic and fiery, with punches meant for the last row; everything he did felt dynamic. Savich was mean, grabbing a goozle at a moment's notice to lock in a hold, and the diamond drill (neck) twist was an awesome little gimmick move.

There's a moment where Romero almost locked in the Romero special and it felt electric, the sort of move that we may have seen a million times, but that would have been so special for that crowd to see in that moment on that night.

Pedro Morales vs. Blackjack Mulligan WWWF 3/15/71

MD: This was pretty fascinating. It was probably more down my alley than my fellows but it was deep down mine. Minimalist, full of meaning and crowd interaction and control. Sometimes I threaten to review a bunch of John Studd matches, as I think he's one of the most misunderstood wrestlers in history. He's absolutely no great shakes from a workrate perspective but I love how he worked as a stooging heel, utilizing the dissonance between his size and his behavior in order to aggravate fans through stalling and complaining when they knew in their heart that he actually had an advantage without all of the underhandedness. It's just that we all came up in an environment where workrate was the primary metric to judge a wrestler's skill.

Mulligan works much the same way here, making this feel almost like Memphis in New York. He's got a massive size advantage, but he spends the first five or six minutes delaying lock-ups, missing charges, and constantly going for an object in his tights to load his glove. The fans pop each and every time he tries for it. Meanwhile, Pedro gets two lock-ups out of him and skillfully ducks an arm under to get a hip toss each time. When Mulligan is finally able to load the glove and get a cheapshot out of a headlock, it's established that despite his size, Pedro's the superior wrestler and that Mulligan's loathsome, whining about cheating that's not happening to him and trying to cheat himself (despite the fact he's so much bigger), but there's also the sense that if he does catch Pedro with this, the champ's in big trouble. I love all of this. It's doing so much with so little to such great effect and the crowd is completely on board, to the point that even though Mulligan's only on top for a minute or so, they become unglued when Pedro fights his way back.

This repeats, with Mulligan taking over with a cheapshot and the crowd getting incensed again. The best part of that was Mulligan breaking a hand-claw (yes a hand claw), due to getting hit with a soda (I think) to the head. It was a dangerous precedent to sell that so much but the fans loved it. Honestly? I think at that point, Pedro locked in a long headlock and chinlock (that they still worked and worked in and out of), just to cool the crowd down a bit. Whatever happened, it was pretty fascinating to watch. They went back to the heat/object one last time, but everything seemed on fast forward at this point so that they could go home. Pedro played a trick to make Mulligan think he was thw winner, hit a great super-heated dropkick, followed it with a dive off the top and the quick win and big celebration. Mulligan lost but got to escape with his life intact. I get that sometimes I may read too much into a match but I'm pretty sure I'm spot on there and this wasn't the match they thought they'd be working that night (there would have been a lot more Mulligan control with the claw). Really interesting stuff with an amazing crowd.

PAS: Minimalist is the perfect way to describe this match, up until the finish the biggest move was probably a hip toss, but man did they have the crowd lathered up and ready to go to war. This is super early footage for both guys, we mostly have post prime on both guys, and you can see why both guys were such big stars. Mulligan selling the soda to the head was a great bit of wrestling improv, although I could see being pissed if I was sharing a locker room with him "Now these fuckers are going to chuck things at us every show." Really liked Pedros fake out at the end too, when he tapped Mulligan on the back to make him think he won only to get dropkicked and bombs awayed for the win, totally a spot I could see Eddie Guerrero stealing thirty years later.

Rey Mysterio vs. Super Calo WCW 9/23/96

MD: This was a hell of a nitro-style lucha spotfest actually. If you're going to watch a match like this without a lot of flash and little substance, this is as good a choice as any. Calo was a little over-exuberant on offense (which cost him in the end) but otherwise based really well. Rey was Rey. They did everything imaginable in about six minutes until Calo wrecked his arm or his ribs or something on a stupid top rope turning legdrop. He was an immobile target after that and Rey adapted somewhat (I doubt the finish was a second split legged moonsault) but they still tried a 'rana which really didn't go well. This match was the sweetest candy and it ended with Calo on the mat ridden with cavities.

PAS: Calo was working most of this match as a straight rudo, which is something I hadn't seen from him before. When talking about Super Calo, the first thing that comes to mind isn't his great Buzz Sawyer powerslam or his spinebuster, but he hit both of them. 1996 Rey was crazy, he is in a dark match and still taking a sunset powerbomb on the floor and hitting a great quebrada. Calo is the guy who crashes and burns, and he misses a flipping dive of some sort, and clearly breaks his arm (you can see the bone cracked) it goes off the rails obviously after that, broken armed Calo can't catch a springboard rana. Up until the disaster, this was good stuff though, and I hope we get more dark matches or house show stuff from that era of WCW.

ER: I also thought it was interesting Calo was working actual rudo, instead of a tecnico/tecnico. He and Rey were pretty frequent partners in AAA, so I like WCW instantly making Calo a Rey opponent upon bringing him in. Rey was fairly new to WCW himself, but had the benefit of several showcase PPV and Nitro matches in his first couple months, so was already getting a big reaction from fans in Alabama. Fully agree with how nuts Rey was, there's just no need to be taking a sunset flip powerbomb to the floor in a dark match. It was 1996. I don't think this was something I would have even seen at that point, and here's this crazy small guy getting torched with one in a match that wasn't even going to be seen for another 20+ years? Bless him. Rey really had the feeling of being a guy about to do something that you hadn't seen, and Calo was there with him taking big falls. Calo gets to break out a bunch of tricks, including his nice somersault headscissors off the top, and I didn't actually notice the moment where he got hurt. I saw the weird twisting legdrop (that I still thought hit pretty well, looking more like one of Waltman's low quick slashing legdrops, only off the top rope), so I had no clue what was going on when Calo rolled over selling and Rey was the one dragging him to his feet. The rana was unfortunate, but again I was still confused as to what happened, and I'm happy those fans didn't crap all over the weird finish. It's awesome how immediately the luchadors were accepted by WCW fans. I guess it helps when you have someone like Rey leading the way, but it's cool to watch smaller guys get big reactions while they try to break their necks in dark matches.

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