Found Footage Friday: QUEBECERS EXPLODE~! CESARO~! GUNTHER~! LOS COWBOYS IN GUATEMALA~!

Los Cowboys (El Texano/Silver King) vs. Astro de Oro/Skeletor Guatemala 9/15/91

MD: There's a certain genre of match that I find fascinating. There's no good name for it but it's best described by the rudos/heels being visibly, noticeably concerned about the amount of heat they might get in front of a specific crowd and adapting their wrestling accordingly. I don't know what preceded this but there was nothing to make Texano and Silver King come off as particularly rudo in the early going here. They came out, they were nice to fans, they posed well with the belts and the anthems. They wrestled clean early. Texano worked really hard to get a handshake. And the trash was still coming and they seemed kind of alarmed and put off by it. For the anthem, there were a ton of kids singing which was always a good sign. Skeletor came out with a robe with Guatemala on the back. Astro de Oro was obviously beloved. 

So there wasn't any mask ripping here. Their win in the segunda was real quick. While they controlled in the tercera there was never really that sense of danger for the tecnicos. You always got the sense that even amidst the double teams Skeletor could PROBABLY make the tag if he really really wanted to. It was, shall we say, a ginger rudo performance. 

Instead, they flew all over the place. They missed leaps off the top rope and dives. There was plenty of heel miscommunication. Silver King was happy to fly out of the ring on a kick out. Skeletor was charismatic and hammed it up a bit with Texano. Silver King and Astro de Oro were really moving at times and mostly everything looked very good. There was a point in the tercera where Texano and Silver King did Tiger Feints instead of diving and one guy right in the center of the crowd shot let out a popper/firework thinking the dive was coming and that's a little bit of really interesting cultural information. It made me sad for him that they didn't get dives because his timing was perfect. Anyway, of course the locals won and everyone survived to see tomorrow. 

Jacques Rougeau vs. Pierre Carl Ouellet WWF 10/21/94

MD: This is about 80% of a perfect match to me. 75%, 75%. I was thinking structurally, but the thing needed blood too. It has parallels to MS-1 vs. Sangre Chicana in some ways. And before you balk at that, think of the setting. This is Jacques in Montreal, in what was supposed to be a celebratory swansong. He's up against Pierre. He's got Raymond in his corner. Polo's out there with PCO.  

And Pierre cheapshots him before he can get his robe off. Raymond tries to break it up but the ref pulls him off which just lets Pierre stomp away. Jacques tries to fire back, but Pierre's younger, stronger, bigger. He lays in a beating, a nasty, brutal thing. Every time it seems like Jacques has an answer, he cuts him off. Jacques is able to outsmart him and back body drop him over the top. He lands on his feet. Jacques gets a flurry and he catches him in midair and puts him in the tree of woe. When the ref tries to stop things, Polo comes over to choke him. Pure heat. There's one moment where Pierre is whipping Jacques off the ropes and Jacques makes a sort of out of control bobbling motion, almost seizing, with his head as he's getting whipped and it's some of the best selling I've ever seen.

The thing is, Pierre can't put him away. So he starts to go with more and more high risk moves. He hits a flip dive. He goes off the turnbuckles, once, twice, and then Jacques catches him, crotching him on top. It's not quite the punch heard round the world but it's pretty damn satisfying, especially to this crowd. 

And it opens the floodgates for the ritual beating. And what a beating it is. When Jacques tosses him into the stairs on the outside, it's about as loud as I've heard stairs. After beating him around the ring, Jacques goes for a mounted punch (no puns). Pierre tosses him off and we get this great ref bump. Polo comes in to attack. Raymond hits him with a superkick.

And that's when they should have taken this thing home. Have it seem like Pierre was going to get the advantage, have Jacques mount one last comeback, go to the finish. They don't though. They just sort of meander with some nearfalls and momentum shifts and they don't lose the crowd, but once you see Polo back on his feet rooting for Pierre, you realize that the match went just a little long in the tooth. The finish is amazing, Pierre going for a tombstone and Jacques turning it around for this gnarly sitout variation and then slowly, fatefully draping a hand over for three. There's just no reason why that couldn't have happened almost immediately after Polo got taken out. And blood. Blood would have been good. Still, 75% perfect is pretty damn good.

Cesaro vs. Gunther WWE 11/8/21

MD: This is a house show match between Cesaro and Gunther. In Leeds. It is definitely. That's nothing to scoff at. It's just not transcendent like Cena vs Reigns or even the parts of Jacques vs Pierre that were transcendent. 

It had room to breathe. It managed the crowd well (and a crowd like that needed managing). It didn't get ahead of its sails. It didn't go off any rails. It was measured and focused and did what it had to. Instead of having the crowd go for dueling chants or ironically entertaining themselves (or shouting 2! a lot or whatever), it got them to clap up three times, early on in a test of strength, then during a surfboard (the one with the head in; Cesaro got out of it with some headbutts of his own after he turned it) and finally once in the heat as he was building to the comeback. 

It got them to chant for the swing right before Cesaro got it down the stretch. They hit hard, both early on and right before the finish. And yes, they built to that swing and they paid it off. They worked things fairly even up front. Gunther would go for cheapshots and deviate from the wrestling first but Cesaro generally had an answer. I liked the big comeback spot as Cesaro was able to catch Gunther in midair and turn him, strength outdoing strength, and the finish was good, with a near-miss with the ref before a cheapshot and a thudding top rope splash. This hit marks, and that's admirable. A good match. A good house show match. And good for the crowd for letting it guide them.

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Found Footage Friday: LOW KI~! PCO~! DR. DEATH~! 2 COLD~! MEAN STREET POSSE~! LONDON~! KENDRICK~! FBI~!

WWE Vault Dark Matches

Pierre Carl Ouellet vs. El Tornado(?) 7/7/03

MD: Pretty insane performance by PCO here. Not surprising but he went so far over the top that he did three things in one match probably not otherwise seen in a WWE ring in 2003: a sit out chokeslam, sit out pumphandle slam, top rope exploder. That was on top of both a flip dive to the floor and the flipping cannonball senton he won it with. He also took a gnarly face first corner bump that was not at all warranted by the guy half his size whipping him across the ring. He balanced it with a lot of energy and charisma and a connection with the crowd but it almost all felt like a rib somehow. His opponent was game and along for the ride and got pretty good heat at times but not necessarily through much that he was doing. Just having the offense against PCO here was going to be enough and he didn't capitalize on it by leaning into it in any way. I don't think I'd hire PCO off of this but I sure as hell would give him a 2003 ROH run.

ER: It's crazy how PCO ran the ropes better than every person on the current WWE roster. Not sure who El Tornado(?) is but the man had a fine backdrop and a real nice slingshot senton. It's awesome to see PCO taking bumps off the edges of aprons 20+ years ago, not so different than the Shawn Michaels casket match bump that turned him into one of the worst big match workers of the 2000s. We all know PCO now for his inhuman bumps, but I didn't remember him being so good at bumping into the buckles. Every time he went into the buckles - back first, chest first - it looked so hard. There are some spots in this that they absolutely would not have allowed a regular heavyweight to be doing. The top rope exploder was incredible, both men standing on the top with seemingly no balance issues, PCO getting legs behind it like he was just standing on the mat. Insane. The cannonball hit perfectly, but really everything he did hit perfectly. The man could have been great doing just "basic" clotheslines and slams, but instead he was out here killing himself and a game opponent whom none of us know. 

Mean Street Posse (Rodney/Pete Gas) vs. Low Ki/Vincent Goodnight 8/7/00

MD: We come in on a crazy Low Ki dive (set up well by Goodnight teasing one drawing the MSP in another direction, a set up not used nearly enough now honestly) followed by a great transition where Ki, going for another dive off the apron is knocked off by Rodney knocking Goodnight into him, landing right in Gas' clutches for a world's strongest slam. Gas looked pretty good here, honestly. Most of the rest of the match was a FIP on Ki and Rodney looked ok, but Gas was in the right place and doing the right thing with the right energy. They did a phantom tag (with a clap) as Goodnight had the ref, solid stuff, well taught. The comeback had Goodnight punching one MSP in the corner while Ki kicked the other and they weren't entirely in sync (Ki would have just kicked him all day) before they just crashed into each other and I saw the Gas Mask for the first time in years (I remembered it being more of a full reverse full nelson for some reason when here it was more of a just a lift up). There was probably a really good Ki vs Gas singles match in here somewhere.

ER: I am a big fan of the actual wrestling abilities of the Mean Street Posse, so was excited to see this turn up. Low Ki vs. Pete Gas is one of those oddball EWR pairings that surely never happened in the real world, and yet here's Gas and Rodney hanging in to catch Low Ki's Phoenix splash to the floor, Ki kicking Gas across his very large face, and Gas slamming Ki hard on the floor. Who taught Rodney how to throw his actually good worked punches? Who taught Gas to throw such aggressive low cut missed clotheslines? How many pairs of normal jeans could have been made out of Rodney's double wide legged jeans? How did Gas have such nice form on his vertical suplex? I love Gas choking out Low Ki and breaking before 5, repeatedly telling the referee he could count. What's incredible about Pete Gas and the way he says "I can count!" is that he knows exactly how to say it the way a guy who didn't actually know how to count would defensively and angrily say it. I loved Rodney's sell of Low Ki's short superkick, bumping fast after leaning in chin first. Vincent Goodnight was the only part of this match that didn't work. The guy looked like a worse version of Lenny Lane. Hundreds of guys would have made a better Low Ki partner, but what should stand out the most is how legitimately good the Mean Street Posse looked.  

Paul London/Brian Kendrick vs. FBI (Little Guido/Tony Mamaluke) 8/1/06

MD: This was a hot mess, but still pretty fun. The problem was that the crowd was totally behind the FBI, which Guido (ribs taped even) was able to play into and Spanky, maybe, just a little bit as well, but that no one else could adapt to and the match structure didn't adapt to. London and Kendrick might get a pop for a big move or double team or dive but then the crowd would turn right back on them again. Guido worked really well with both guys. At one point they did a cazadora before Kendrick looped around into a roll up but during it, Guido smacked him right in the back which is a great bit. Mamaluke looked real rough around the edges but when he actually landed, that added more than substracted. There was one missed clothesline where a foot got up somehow that looked nasty, right before London absolutely wiped out on a dive. If they had adapted and really leaned hard into Kendrick/London heeling I think this would have been over huge and could have been honestly great but they stayed the course and ran off the road.

ER: Kendrick's and London's shorts are hands down the worst gear in wrestling history. I fucking hated these enormous culottes in 2006 and they look even worse now. They look like 9 year olds wearing their father's board shorts. I don't think this match was too negatively affected by the teams sticking to their plan and mostly ignoring the fans. Sure, it probably would have been amazing if London and Kendrick came in and chose to be overt heels, but this felt like a crowd worth ignoring, one that wouldn't play along regardless of how you played to them. They were going to react to all the big spots no matter what but they also wanted to get themselves over. I don't think it was a bad crowd, but it wasn't a crowd to cater to. 

As is, I thought this was among the best Guido looked during his long WWE run. This guy was working with something to prove. He looked great against both champs but especially against Kendrick. He and Kendrick worked a lot together but this felt like they were pushing each other hard. Guido blocking Kendrick's majistral, punching him in the back during a cazadora, dropping a knee on his face, both men pushing pace. Everyone else in the match outclassed Tony Mamaluke, who was shockingly behind what I remembered him as. This man couldn't keep up with what anyone else was doing and then he somehow managed to kick Kendrick in the face on a missed clothesline. I skipped back several times and still don't know what he was doing or why he did what he did. It's like he threw he leg up as if Kendrick was supposed to roll over a knee lift with a cradle...but he was also throwing a missed clothesline so what was that leg even doing there? Guido holds Kendrick right after so Mamaluke can hit a cool standing cannonball into him, then everyone lets London splat on the floor on a dive. Nobody came close to catching that man. London's shooting star press vaulting off Kendrick's back looked incredible. 

Justin Credible vs. Kid Kash 9/18/01

 

MD: The crowd did not want to go along for this journey. Kash did small things fine, I'm talking firing back after a big spot or working out of a chinlock. He did some very impressive big things, a run up flip dive to the floor, a pretty complex leaping rana off the top. Credible was... you know, credible, not just sitting arond on the chinlock, working him in the corner, hitting his pull out powerbomb. The fans just weren't buying what they were selling though. In some ways, I think this was a pretty well put together tryout sort of match, but it just didn't click. They even had one unique spot I liked a lot where Credible kicked Kash off of him, pressing him right into the corner hard, only for Kash to fall forward with a headbutt to the crotch. That got a little bit of an "ohhh" but they were right back on their feet a moment later and couldn't really capitalize on it. Or anything else, I guess. At least Kash had the XWF to fall back on.

ER: This is the kind of content the Vault Fans are clamoring for. Justin Credible is one of those wrestlers that is impossible to have a hot take about. There have been a lot of wrestlers who we have worked to change the narrative on, but what if Justin Credible became one of those "actually you know who was really great?" wrestlers. How useless would that be? Maybe it's true. I remember him being an above average bumper and I'm sure there are some other skills he doesn't get credit for. He doesn't get credit for them, because he is someone that nobody wants to talk about. I love talking about guys like that, so let's see if I can further ruin my life by becoming a Justin Credible Truther. His weird minimal contact DDT looks really great when Kid Kash is flying fast onto his face. I also like the way he leaned out of almost all of Kid Kash's punches. One thing you want to do in someone's tryout match is lean out of all their strikes.  He was decent at catching both of Kash's swinging huracanranas and not great at catching his dive, but his scoop powerbomb out of the corner looked good and his superkick was better than I remembered. This was the first Justin Credible match we at Segunda Caida have written about in literally 18 years. Can't wait to revisit his work in my early 60s. 

 

Dr. Death Steve Williams vs. Scorpio 4/28/98

 

MD: I don't know. When this dropped, I saw a bit of "I don't see how this guy could have main evented against Austin" and maybe that would have been an issue. Asking him to do a twenty minute walk and brawl while the stooges were guest timekeepers or whateve rmight have been a problem. This, where Scorpio could create a lot of the motion and Doc could catch him midair off a slingshot with a straight punch or catch a dive and drop him into a tombstone, or just run him over worked pretty well. When he had to bump, he used his whole body, going feet overhead in a slow timbering motion that worked. Credible strikes. A long press slam that got over with the crowd, enough mannerisms to remind him he was alive at all points, a few too many swears that made it all seem just a bit more labored than it had to. I'd watch another twenty matches with this Doc in this environment up against end-run Vader or rookie Edge or Val or Faarooq or whatever.

ER: I have been so excited for this one since it got uploaded, and, yeah, it didn't fully work. I don't think it was either man's fault, but I don't know what the actual problems were. I am not someone who buys into the whole "Doc wouldn't have been able to work WWF style" because that narrative is almost always based on the fallacy that "all Doc does is dangerous suplexes". Dr. Death Williams (as Howard Finkel calls him) is not a one dimensional wrestler, and in 1997 I thought he was one of the greatest wrestlers in the world. Watch his few early '97 ECW matches and tell me his (great) match against Raven couldn't have worked with the majority of the 1998 WWF roster. His 1997 All Japan work is excellent. Watch Misawa's first Triple Crown defense after winning it back from Kobashi. Yes, Misawa takes several suplexes onto his head - it was his fetish after all - but Doc is so much more than suplexes in that match. His energy and look would have absolutely played in WWF a year later. What's so confusing, is that a lot of that energy was completely absent in this match. Maybe that last full year in AJPW really did break him down, but I'm still not so sure. Before this match, the man had just spent the previous month working long Champions Carnival matches, so it's possible his body was worn out from that. I don't know. He did look a step slower here, in a way that I never saw him look in '97, so who's to say when that started. 

It's also easy to forget (unless you go back and watch the footage) that Scorpio was not at his best in early 1998 WWF. The man's timing in singles matches was so far out of whack. I don't know why, but watch late '97/early '98 WWF Scorpio and the man was a constant timing problem. He didn't start looking like himself again until he started teaming with Terry Funk, magically regaining his old form overnight. This match was during the Funk team run, but his singles match timing still wasn't there. I don't think either man did anything specifically bad here, sometimes things just don't work. I still don't agree with the narrative that Doc wouldn't have been able to adapt to The Style. "His big suplexes wouldn't have played in WWF, they needed punch kick guys in their main events" and well the best parts of this match were every single time Doc turned it into a punch exchange. Punching Scorpio out of the air on a slingshot was easily the best spot of the match, but he had several different punches that all looked tremendous, including a staggering right while both were selling on their feet, and a series of jabs that backed Scorpio into the corner and looked like something out of Valentine/Garvin. The crowd doesn't get into any of it, until a Scorpio back suplex makes it sound like they are getting actually fired up for Scorp's comeback. But then he starts his comeback and it dies instantly down to silence. Oh well. 

Maybe this would have seemed like a good match if the crowd had reacted to any of it. It looked like a match that deserved some reaction. The press slam spot looked great, the punches all looked good, Doc catching Scorpio's moonsault press was a cool spot that wasn't being done in 1998, but even then it looked like the crowd wanted something bigger than just a front slam out of it. The reactions were not there and that killed the match good. But both men also seemed off in ways that I don't think reflect their actual abilities. Anyway, I wish I had a Dr. Death match against every member of the 1998 WWF roster for further research but yeah yeah this didn't work like it should have. 

 

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Wrestlemania Weekend Cherry Picking Friday: Joey Janela's Spring Break 2

ER: 100+ hours of wrestling happened in one city over 3 days, so we've been trying to go through and watch the stuff that appealed to us. Here's a couple matches from Spring Break 2 that looked fun.


PCO vs. WALTER

PAS: Man this was awesome, it was basically like if Randy the Ram vs Necro Butcher was an actual match. PCO is certifiable, WALTER chop his chest so hard that it turned eggplant purple, he got powerbombed through a table, ate shit on a moonsault to the floor, and just kept going. WALTER was great as a violent bully who got more and more flustered as this insane old person kept standing in front of him and firing back. The chop exchange in this match worked so much better then the elbow exchange in Cobb vs Ishii the day before, because they built to it, it was PCO absorbing a beating and refusing to back down and firing back, instead of just two guys exchanging to exchange. Loved PCO's tope and top rope rana too, what a certifiable nutcase. Great match, will probably end up the most memorable indy match of the weekend.

ER: This was really fun, total PCO showcase with WALTER giving him a venue to try all of his new offense. Ouellet is basically working as "middle aged and crazy Terry Funk", and it's crazy to note that PCO here is literally just a few years younger than that era Funk. He looks crazy, like a sadistic gym teacher burn victim, and wrestles as if he has a bucket list of moves he'd like to attempt before he's done with wrestling. This all builds to nuttier and nuttier PCO moments, from a moonsault off the top to the floor (that looked downright Funk-y, all crooked and landing more on floor than men), and WALTER was awesome at being kind of perplexed by it all. WALTER mostly just threw chops, and PCO's chest had turned black halfway through the match, looking like he was getting some cool new Uso ink. PCO hits a dive, a great Finlay roll, tries a split legged moonsault because why the hell not, gets German suplexed onto his stomach, hits a huge top rope rana, and flattens WALTER with the cannonball. Fully agree with Phil about the chop exchange, this wasn't throwing blows back and forth to a clap along rhythm, this was a crazy old guy refusing to accept that he couldn't stand up to this giant of a man (seriously some of the camera work in this match made WALTER look Great Khali size), really added emotional heft to the match. PCO's execution wasn't always there, but the crazier the attempts made by a wild Canadian pirate, the more leash is given on how pretty something needs to be. Truly a weird and unexpected display, and impressive because he easily could have gotten away with doing far less and still gotten praised for it.

Mike Quackenbush vs. David Starr

ER: This was tons of fun. Quackenbush works a couple times a year and looks just as great as he ever has. I'm positive he and Starr have never matched up before and it's an immediately great pairing, with Starr getting tangled up in all of Quack's cool movement. Quack is probably my favorite hybrid wrestler of all time, with the biggest and weirdest bag of tricks in wrestling. The announcers point out that he has such a deep pool of offense that you never know what he'll dust off, and Starr has no problem meeting that head on. We get some cool twisty armdrag exchanges, and a great moment where Quack gets Starr into a snug abdominal stretch, Starr shakes him loose, but Quack springs back right into the stretch. It's like that scene in Young Frankenstein where the monster catapults a girl on a see saw and she lands perfectly tucked into her bed. I'm always surprised by big Quack bumps in his "comeback" matches, as for a retired injured guy he sure doesn't hold back. One moment Quack will be doing something super smooth and graceful, like his note perfect Hijo del Santo style rolling senton, and the next moment Starr lariats him off the apron and instead of bumping on the apron he does this great dropdown back bump splat on the floor, and later Starr chucks him a couple times into the turnbuckles with nasty death valley drivers. Starr has some cool counters of his own, really liked a small package reversal, and he really starts crushing Quack with some suplexes and running knees. We hit a crazy peak down the stretch where Quack plasters Starr into the guardrail with a dive, instantly slides back in the ring to follow up as the camera follows his movements, and as it pans back we see Starr waiting at the same time Quack sees him, and catches Quack with a brutal DDT into the apron. Starr was smart to work heel here (though heel Quack would have been fun, nobody would have wanted to boo him), and I liked the finish of Quack trying to work this nasty double arm submission, really looking to rip both arms off, and Starr finally breaks free and hits a big lariat. This was a great mix of stiff work and artistry, a match style not a lot of guys can pull off.

PAS: I thought Quack was really fun here, he has a weird unique style and really knows how to integrate his weird stuff into a compelling match. The spot where he bounces back into the abdominal stretch was really cool. I did like the story of Starr getting frustrated and taking cheap shots, although I thought the Beyond guy on commentary was a little OTT in his Starr bashing (Starr just left/got fired from Beyond). I wasn't totally buying Starr in this (I am not buying Starr at all really) , I thought when he tried to go hold for hold with Quack it got a little dancey, and his frustration faces were on 11. Always fun to see Quack, and he works well as a special attraction.

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