Found Footage Friday: WWE IN AUSTRALIA~! BABE FACE~! FANTASMA~! SUPER ASTRO~! SCORPIO~! SATANICO~! EMILIO~!

Super Astro/Fantasma vs. Babe Face/Scorpio WWA Olympic Auditorium 09/12/87

MD: This has been sitting in plain sight for a few years but was thankfully was brought to light by the Wrestling Playlists newsletter recently. It hits so many of the marks you'd want with four very talented wrestlers doing their thing in a slightly alien place for slightly alien promotion. Super Astro is this tightly contained ball of energy, a little shorter than his peers, a little stockier than you'd expect, but it's almost like there's a wick counting down on him and he's always ready to explode. It gives his roles and vaults and stylized tricks an extra bit of oomph. They're things that would be impressive regardless but with him it's all somehow supercharged, and Scorpio, bald and wide and spry took it all so well. He shoved Fantasma before the bell and Fantasma bounced back off the ropes and shoved him back, causing him to bump huge. That's just the sort of guy Scorpio was.

I wouldn't say this had a rudo ref so much as the rudo was holding the tecnicos to far higher standards. That meant they withheld tags in a way that you don't usually see in lucha (though the out of the ring rule was definitely in play) and it allowed the rudos to stay in charge in the primera. That built the pressure for the comeback, even through the end of the fall and a nice double takover onto Fantasma and subsequent submission. You can tell the pressure was up beacuse there was an upset Granny at ringside. 

It was interesting because they used the ref taking back/not allowing tags to build heat but the moment of comeback was wholly within the ring on a bit of rudo miscommunication. From there things went even with it looking like the tecnicos might get swept under again only to outquick and outslick the rudos, all building to Astro knocking Scorpio out and landing on him with a senton through the ropes to the floor. Brutal stuff and Scorpio either bladed or got bust open. Either way, he was a bloody mess. That was the equalizer as simultaneously Fantasma was doing a ridiculous submission in Tombstone position on Babe Face (who I have less to say about here but he was perfectly fine in his role).

The tercera was full of the sort of great exchanges you'd expect until Scorpio was able to go behind on Fantasma off the ropes, using his momentum to push him through the ropes and right into a waiting chairshot from Babe Face. From there it was an academic 2-on-1 with them picking up Astro repeatedly after having him beat. That sort of hubris didn't lead to comeuppance though as they finished him off after one of Babe Face's great off-center running sentons and a nasty legdrop from Scorpio. I'm sure this led to some phenomenal return match we don't have, but at least we have this.

ER: You show up for a match like this to see what Super Astro might do, but then you leave getting to see  stocky rudo toughness from Babe Face and Scorpio. Super Astro is must watch in any setting. You're always going to get something worth writing about. Imagine seeing this stocky little guy in LA doing a slingshot senton to the floor in 1987. It's great. But this is a match that makes you want to watch more Babe Face and Scorpio. Scorpio Sr.! I have not seen much Scorpio Sr. He is as ugly as his son in a completely different way, more hideous monster way. He also looks like the perfect wrestler. Wide, round, ugly, bald, cocky. He's got a fat buff guy or buff fat guy body squeezed into a red King Kong Bundy double strap that you wish could be pulled off as well in modern wrestling but everyone is shaped wrong. Babe Face, it turns out, also has a perfect pro wrestling physique. He is stocky and muscular and compact and powerful. He's Bill Dundee with 20 pounds of thick bulk. He is one of three of the smallest most powerful men, wrestling inside of the largest ring in wrestling history. You fill not believe how long it takes Super Astro to run ropes in this ring. It's incredible. 

We all love Super Astro and we love the way he is in a competition with himself to take higher back body drops. But this hits peaks whenever Babe Face or Scorpio are throwing punches and chops and headbutts. Babe Face headbutts Super Astro in the eye socket to force a tag out and I thought we were going to get a bloody mask hole Super Astro match. He is stocky rudo cocktease, pouncing Astro to the floor to interrupt a dive, cameras catching a great close up of Scorpio's mug before he overhand chops Astro out of his boots. Things build throughout to big Babe Face/Fantasma showdowns, until Babe Face fucking BRAINS Fantasma with an open folding chair to the top of the head while Fantasma was draped over the ropes. The announcers say something about Intrepidos Punks, so either they're describing these two stocky men of differing beauty, or they're advertising the late 80s movie of the same name and either way makes this great. Los Intrepidos Punks lay a fucking beating on Astro while Fantasma's corpse is under the ropes, slapping him back and forth, Babe Face hitting full weight sentons, kneeling on his chest and groin while Scorpio holds a legdrop like the most smug sideburn asshole.  

I liked Fantasma's aggressively pistoning 69 bearhug. 

Emilio Charles vs. Satanico [hair vs hair] CMLL 3/20/98? 

MD: Pretty unique hair match here though one that hits a lot of the right notes despite that and despite some goofiness. As best as I can tell, this is rudo vs. rudo though Charles is the clear crowd favorite. Satanico gets an early ambush and starts dismantling Charles like only he can. No one is better in the history of wrestling at orchestrating violence, including his own. The bump Charles takes into the third row, head over heels, is excellent. Charles starts to mount some comebacks (including one really nice Fujiwara armbar reversal out of a grounded abdominal stretch that's lucha loose but symbolically perfect) but the ref (who apparently he hit the week before?) seems to get in his way each time and Satanico finally gets the caida on a backslide with a fast count.

That causes Charles to start complaining to the commission. Rey Mendoza is out there and says that Charles has a stipulation in his contract that he can call for a change in ref so Babe Richard comes out to take over. Meanwhile, Charles is unloading on Satanico, including tossing him into the crowd. Satanico is able to sneak in a foul though and locks in the Satan's Knot. That seems like the end and the end to Charles' hair, but he gets lost in the moment and refuses to let go and the ref awards the caida to Charles. So it's a bit of an odd dynamic with the ref switch and Satanico basically winning the second fall only to have it overturned. It all gets paid off in the tercera with Charles getting a foul in of his own and everything building to another Satan's Knot only for Charles to fight his way out of it and lock in this great Gory Special (where he has to slowly bring his hands together) before dropping down with it into a pin. I wouldn't call this the most primal match or the quickest path between two points but these guys were so good and they made this work so well for what it was.

ER: The ugliest default babyface fighting dirty through getting punched in the forehead and thrown into the third row by the devil. Satan himself throwing short punches aimed to open up an ugly man's forehead and biting him. I love situations where Charles became the tecnico. He is good at working through tecnico stages of a three fall match, peaking the reactions in the tercera and getting bigger reactions with consecutive quebradoras while the crowd loudly hates Satanico for breaking holds with biting at men's thighs. The devil fights dirty when the devil's beautiful head of hair is at stake. Satanico is a great rudo because he also wrestlers through submissions like the tecnico, pulling each limb with celebratory swipes like he's an Olympic runner raising both arms through the finish line. It makes Charles' win, through a biased ref and the persistent devil himself, even more of an ugly man tecnico triumph. I thought the execution on Charles' tercera-winning Gory Special was so good for this specific match. A fought for Gary, Charles' hands clasped, drawing out the inescapable backslide. 

It didn't get as violent as I expected it would, for a match I knew nothing about. When you start with Satanico biting and punching at a cut you expect escalation and that violent escalation never comes. We also don't get the actual haircutting. Satanico knew that he looked like a totally different badass when he had his head shaved and I wanted to see what that looked like at 50.  

Batista/Chris Jericho/Chris Benoit vs. Triple H/Ric Flair/Edge WWE 4/8/05

MD: New Richard Land Handheld from Australia right after Wrestlemania 21. Some of those names should worry you for a 50 minute clip, maybe, but this is house show bullshit and that's the best bullshit there is. Plus it's about ten minutes of entrances and pre-match talking and ten minutes of them breaking down the ring. I thought I was going to be taking one for the team here but I had fun with this. The pre-match yapping was ridiculous with Triple H going on about how terrible Australia was and how in America they had an army that could kick their asses, the Salvation Army. Basically the most definitional Triple H stuff imaginable. Batista's retort was short and sweet (he had just won the title), and the crowd was hot for all of this really.

All of the early exchanges were fun. Benoit and Edge started. Benoit chopped Edge out of the corner. Edge went for a tag. Both Triple H and Flair dropped down to avoid it. Jericho came in and Batista and Benoit cheerlead the crowd in a Y2J chant. Flair came in, had a chop off with Jericho so the fans could chant woo and then walked into the babyface corner to eat a bunch of punches and take the first flop (of many) of the night. Jericho grabbed a sign and paraded around with it. Batista came in. Flair eyepoked him and chopped him. Batista no sold it. Flair begged off. Batista waggled his finger. Flair took his second back body drop. Triple H came in. The crowd went up for the idea of them going at it. Flair wooed at Batista from the corner repeatedly. Batista posed and the crowd went nuts. Triple H won on a shoulder block exchange and posed. They milked a test of strength for a while before doing it. Triple H kicked Batista, drove him down. Batista fought back up and clotheslined Triple H over the top and the crowd loved every second of all of this. Truly entertaining house show BS, what much, much more of wrestling should be and what a lot of the times it isn't in a world where these barely exist anymore.

Again, this had a ton of time and they worked double heat on it. Jericho was drawn into the heel corner and when he came back and made a hot tag, Benoit came in hot for a bit only to miss the diving headbutt. Eventually, Triple H had Benoit down in the corner but got distracted by Batista and leaped right into a foot, wherein he spent an entire minute (not a second less) standing there looking at the lights dazed before flopping. Only on a house show. I'm actually not sure that spot hit as well as it could have but points for committing to the bit certainly. That let Batista make it in finally, let everything break down, and let Edge eat the power bomb (thumbs down beforehand) to end the match. I don't know if I would have seen this same match around the loop but to see it one time was honestly a lot of fun. Just a totally different world that barely exists anymore. And we're talking 2005, not 1985 here.

ER: We've been doing - and Matt's been running entirely - Found Footage Friday for over a decade now. It's probably the most valuable thing we've done because it preserves at least 1-3 different takes on footage that none of us as fans had ever seen before. In many cases, we've written about matches that can get newly added into a Greatest Matches discussion, 40 years later. New narratives, new looks, new opportunities to have views changed. It's an incredible resource, constantly growing. This week alone we have a new apuestas match, new Babe Face...and now a new 30 minute match with SC stalwarts like HHH and Edge and Chris Benoit. 

People love our HHH writing, and this is the match for those people. This is an essential HHH match for HHH fans, because not only did all 30 minutes feel completely laid out by HHH, but all six men wrestle like HHH from different eras of his career. This is a match agented, produced, and then wrestled by six HHHs. Jericho wrestles like Terra Ryzing, Batista wrestles like HHH did when he came back gassed up after the quad tear, Benoit sells like HHH in a way that you know it won't lead anywhere, Flair is slowed down so he wrestles like HHH during that long era of bloated HHH aping Flair spots, Edge wrestles like the worst version of 1998 bad Opponents' Momentum offense HHH, and HHH wrestles like some unholy house show HHH amalgam that includes a long comedy spot that he doesn't know how to make resonate but he 100% would have gotten anyone else fired over.

This was a HHH match in every way, and it was good. There is so much wrestling I've never watched and so much wrestling I never will watch but I love Matt, and Matt got me to watch a 30 minute HHH/HHH/HHH vs. HHH/HHH/HHH in Australia, because HHH - with his meaty nose and heavy brow beadying his eyes - is like Bruno at MSG to Australians.  

Seeing Flair work the brunt of a long house show match was surprisingly fun. HHH could never connect his in-ring comedy to a crowd like this, and we get a literal example of that during what should have been the crowd noise peak. Flair's punches looked fantastic throughout, and even though he enters the match in control he's soon taking a back body drop and it leads to a fantastic Flair spot, where he rolls up in the babyface corner, eats a headbutt from Benoit and a punch from Batista, hops around like he's getting back into the fight, then flops. Flair takes another back body drop when Batista tags in, classically begging off before poking him in the eyes, but none of his chops have any affect and he's soon flopping and back dropping and leaving down the aisle. It's the kind of ass showing that HHH admires about Flair, but could never bring himself to actually look weak enough for the extended periods that make the stooging work, meaning it always came off like Stooging While Still in Control and never worked. After Benoit gets his hand smashed with a chair (nasty business smashing it against a ringpost) and gets cut off, the long heat segment builds to Benoit's hot tag, but the entire tag is iced out by HHH doing a full minute of Working On Material that sounds great on paper but gets no reaction live. 

HHH leaps off the middle buckle into Benoit's up-stretched boot and stands there on his feet, selling and swaying, for exactly one minute. You can picture Larry Sweeney doing this spot and burning the house down, knowing the exact moment to grind an entire match to a halt for one self-aggrandizing spot, and how much HHH would fucking BURY anyone else who did that spot, regardless of how well it got over. To see HHH pull out a 2006 Chikara spot on a house show and get no reaction for it is the wrestling equivalent to a gay bashing Republican getting caught in a rest stop bathroom, all secret unfulfilled urges and embarrassing missteps. It's as clear as day that HHH would brand anyone else who tried this much of a comedy overreach a mark who isn't serious about the business that he's devoted his life to. Six different HHHs in one match, and the real HHH is the one desperate to show his chops as a comedy worker that didn't understand punchlines

Great match. The kind of match you can put on after a Gene Snitsky/Shelton Benjamin title match.

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Found Footage Friday: CROCKET CUP 87 NIGHT 2~!

Crockett Cup 87 Night 2 JCP 4/10/87

MD: We had a lot more of Night 2 than Night 1 but some of that was still handhelds or pieced together and this is a big VQ upgrade regardless, so we're just going to go through this as much as possible on the idea that a lot of this is very much Found even if not entirely New.

Round 3

Bob & Brad Armstrong vs. Tully Blanchard/Lex Luger

MD: Really great stuff here. That's not a surprise. There's an extended (almost ten minute) heel-in-peril shine to begin where Tully gets a few moments but mostly gets clowned over and over. What makes this work is how he constantly tries to drive to the corner and everytime things go really wrong for him is when he tries to stretch the rules, like using his foot to make a tag. JJ complains and the Armstrongs do a phantom tag while the ref is dealing with that. I love the wrist control by Bob here. You get such a great look at how he's holding Tully's hand and the torque involved. So simple but so good. Eventually Luger does get in but the Armstrongs come back only for JJ to pull down the rope and send Brad flying.

The FIP isn't as long but they get a lot done quickly, using the guardrail and working over the back. Brutal stuff with Brad on the floor reaching not for the fans, but for his dad even though there's no way to make a tag, just trying to drag strength and power from his love. The hot tag is great too with Bob coming in fiery as can be, laying into the Horsemen with basically machine gun chops in the corner. I got a kick out of the finish which had the ref miss a pinfall due to the chaos and JJ and Tully do a double clothesline with JJ on the apron to pick up the win. It's funny to think that would add so much but it had symbolic value so it totally worked. Good tag and great to see it in this level of video quality.

ER: I thought this was tremendous, 8 perfect minutes of tag team wrestling. Also, 8 minutes reminding us of what a perfect wrestler Tully Blanchard was. Tully was the primary highlight of this, but I think the whole thing was highlights. Every single second of Bullet preventing Tully from tagging out is pro wrestling perfection. Every second. The cameras catching the perfect angles of the inches Bullet was letting Tully get from Luger, the cut to the hand-on-brow disappointment and disgust from JJ Dillon looking like Robert Prosky in Thief, Luger's teenage quarterback hands on hips frustration when the tags keep being prevented, the way Tully's legs dragged and floated when Brad held onto a side headlock, it was all perfect. Luger was a great partner for Tully. This was Luger's best hair era, by fair. It never came close to looking this good again. His fringe, his gentle approach to being a jacked Ramones superfan. I loved how all of Tully's long build to the hot tag was more about Bullet tagging in his son to square up to Luger, who looks like Asshole He-Man. 

Tully Blanchard has the same kind of physical bumping style as Bobby Heenan. Heenan's bumping gets talked about more because it's flashier and one of the greatest bumping styles anyone has ever attempted. Tully doesn't use the same physical movement as Heenan, but he bumps with the same physicality. Tully has the ability to work these inches and near misses as well as he works big looping O-face back bumps when tugged and pulled and thrown by the Armstrongs, in a way that only makes the Armstrong Family Biceps look like main event power. I don't think there's a more perfect bump than Tully ping ponging perfectly onto his belly into the corner right on his mark, after leaning into Brad's missile dropkick. It's that kind of precision that people see in Chris Candido, the things is that Candido is just 0.7 Tully. Candido was tan, shaped, modeled. Tully looked like your friend's dad who was the asshole orthodontist accused of touching a girl under the gas. The guy in your church denomination you don't want to talk to in the lobby after service.

Road Warriors vs. Midnight Express

MD: The feeding early on, especially by Bobby Eaton, is all time great. The way he's able to rush in and take things and contort pro wrestling physics and make it all look good is up there with the very best ever. He somehow hits the guardrail after getting tossed out and you buy it. He makes a press slam into a snake eyes look like a move that people should be doing weekly now but it's something I've barely seen this century and that if anyone else took wouldn't look nearly as good. Likewise, he took a chop (looked like to the chest to me) and then sold his face, pointing to his jaw repeatedly like he just lost three teeth. Lane does okay too, going head over heels just bouncing off a Warrior, but it's not quite the same as Bobby.

When the Express take over on Hawk, it's from going to the eyes again and again and again and double teaming at every point. They just have a few frenetic minutes in charge, but the sheer amount of varied and interesting cheating they're able to do in believable ways is just remarkable. You buy that the ref just didn't see it because they were so good and Animal was so frustrated. Eyerakes, tossing Hawk over the top illegally, using the racket, again and again. When the hot tag comes, everything becomes chaos and the ref goes down. Cornette threw a fireball at Animal and I thought Animal no sold it but on the replay you see that Ellering pulled Cornette's arm so he plausibly just missed. It's a dangerous thing to devalue though so I'm not sure I loved that. To the crowd, it must have looked like Animal just no sold it. Still that infuriated the Roadies and they took the racket and got themselves DQed the ref came to. This was another really good one as they matched up well and everything had the perfect weight to it, save maybe for that fireball at the end.

ER: This is a famously great tag that has never looked or sounded better. The sound on these new uploads is so key, it makes every bump seem like an impossible physical feat to maintain. There's so much good about this, including Bubba, Cornette, and Ellering at ringside. They all got reactions and none of the reactions took away from the others, just an insanely hot match where everything clicked. Bobby Eaton in 4K is truly something to marvel. He and Hawk are a perfect combination of wrestling physicality. Eaton was so gifted, another guy who moved all in his own way...and Hawk wrestles like the ideal jacked cool guy to be knocking Bobby Eaton around. Bobby was such a ham here, in a way that totally works when selling for the Roadies. Hawk hit a short hard chop that was so loud, Bobby improvised on the spot that it him right in the mouth, backpedaling all the way across the ring to tag in Stan. Sell it to the 18,000 people who couldn't see that it hit chest. Lane took some big shots too, getting whipped upside down into the buckles by Hawk and then calmly begging off as Hawk approached, like hey easy man we got other towns to make. Lane getting yanked by the arm from the apron into the ring was such a great bump, the athletic grace of the Midnights combined with the power of the Roadies. Bobby and Stan get great reactions for their bumps, but probably not as big as the reaction Bubba gets when he steps to the apron and removes his coat and hat. Huge. 

The finish is incredible, one of the great chained together bullshit finishes I've seen. The Midnights throw Hawk over the top to the concrete with full distraction, then Bobby hits Hawk in the ribs with the loudest racket shot and kicks him straight in the guts. It completely breaks down into chaos and pandemonium after the bell and it's fucking pro wrestling baby. That's chaining it all together. That's what we used to do. We used to cut off the ring and drink a case of beer and we used to chain bullshit together without reversals of reversals of reversals. A Cornette fireball to endless racket shots to bodies going every direction in perfect chaotic order. The Roadies murder Bobby with a Hart Attack to cap it off. Bubba takes a hit through the ropes that sends him crashing to the apron and down to the guardrail. He looked humongous and the fall was grand. Incredible pro wrestling. 

Rick Rude/Manny Fernandez vs. Superpowers (Dusty Rhodes/Nikita Koloff)

MD: The #1 seed vs. the biggest babyfaces in this. While the first round had its share of fairly lame teams (especially compared to the year before), now in the quarterfinals you see the breadth of the talent here. This was a huge match. They'd only run it once before at a show at the Great Western Forum. It was a way to put the tag champs up against these guys with the belts not on the line. Rude vs. Nikita was such a natural pairing too and they leaned into that early with some fun strength stuff including Nikita breaking out of a full nelson.

Dusty played FIP after taking a post shot on the outside, with him gradually working back towards a comeback and these guys all knew how to milk it of course. Things broke down after Dusty hit a leaping clothesline off the ropes. Rude came in and then Nikita. Manny went for a flying body press but Dusty rolled through for the wins as the fans went nuts. 

ER: This was short but hot the entire way. I love the Raging & Ravishing team. Everyone in Crockett is so physical. I keep using various forms of that word because everyone is so physical in a totally different way. Manny Fernandez doesn't even look like someone who exercises, he looks like the most dangerous man in a bowling alley, but then he's throwing these impressively controlled kneedrops and holding back his body to keep his shots worked, and it's crazy how dangerous he can make himself look while being this safe. Rude is so good at working with Nikita and Manny knew exactly how to work as Rude's partner, I just love how these men fell around the ring. 

Round 4

Giant Baba/Isao Takagi vs. Tully Blanchard/Lex Luger

MD: Baba/Takagi had a draw as Ricky Morton was out (what a shame to lose that weird match). This was a kind of weird one too. Lots of leglocks early. It looked like things would open up when Luger slammed Baba but then he missed an elbow drop and Baba just beat up Luger and Tully. Novel pairings at least and fun to see them take his stuff (chop, big boot, Russian leg sweep). Takagi looked strong in there, good strikes and the fans really got up when he mowed through both Tully and especially Luger. Takagi missed a corner charge and weirdly Luger couldn't get him up for the rack. He hit an elbow drop for the pin instead. Up until the finish I could see there being interest in a Takagi vs Luger match back in Japan but after that, nah.

Dusty Rhodes/Nikita Koloff vs. Midnight Express

MD: This was a blast really, the whole shine especially. There was an early bit where Koloff broke clean on Eaton, Eaton refused to break clean on Koloff, punching him in the face, Koloff gave chase, Eaton dodged a shot back in the ring and pointed to his brain, Koloff slingshotted him back into the ring and then dropkicked him, which was absolutely perfect pro wrestling. Beautiful stuff. Then Lane got thrashed about and claimed it was a tights pull and Eaton got caught in the ropes as Dusty pinballed him again and again in a teeter totter only to fall outside and immediately get hiptossed onto the floor. Pure Eaton right there. He does the silly painless bit to pop the crowd and decides to take the huge bump anyway. Dusty finished it by giving all of the Express and Bubba elbows and basking in the glory of it all.

Heat was on Nikita and they did what the Express did best, fit a ton of egregious offense into a very small amount of time. They focused on the neck cheated in both large ways and small, and made use of numbers and ring-positioning. They pushed it just a little too hard, had just a bit of miscommunication and Nikita used that to hit the Sickle, no hot tag needed. Given all the different finishes at play, it worked. It also felt a bit like a banana peel, definitive as it was, because of the lack of the hot tag, so that almost protected the Express in loss in a weird sort of way.

Ric Flair vs. Barry Windham

MD:A lot to cover in a paragraph or two. This match, given how it was preserved/presented over the years and that it was going back to a relatively dry well, has traditionally not been thought highly of. But I do think it was very good. There are individual bits that I love, and I honestly do think they come together. 

Some of those bits:

• After the initial feeling out, Flair chops Barry in the corner. Barry puts on a grin and storms out. Flair backs off but struts it off. They repeat the process and this time Flair falls down before strutting. Then Flair gets in a knee and does it one more time. This time Barry sells it big but still storms out and threatens to do a ten punch on Flair. He backs down. Flair goes for a cheapshot and Barry fires off on him. It was such a great exchange in part because how it escalates.
• Late in the match, Flair, who has been knocked around both inside and outside the ring, gets an advantage and scales the top. We all know what's coming, but the execution is so different than what we'd see in the years that would follow. Flair slows himself down to jaw with the fans. Once he reaches the top, he does it again. Barry gets up and waits for him to turn. When Flair does, he's shocked and begs off. Barry shoots a punch to his gut before grabbing him. Flair shakes his head repeatedly. Barry goes to throw him. They struggle over it. Flair grabs his hair. Barry finally gets him over.
• The biggest tease of the match is Barry hitting a one legged missile dropkick which looked so out of the norm for 87 that it felt like a big deal. He pins Flair for 3 but flair had his foot on the rope and got his hand there too at the last second. The hand drew the ref's eye to the foot and after he made the count, he had to restart the match. He was beside himself over it.  Barry immediately gets his finisher, being the leaping clothesline off, only for Flair to get his foot on again. The moment had passed.

Structurally, they go from Flair getting a hotshot and taking over and working the arm to Barry coming back and Flair taking back over to work the leg and getting the figure-four. They got in and out with advantages switching, throwing in plenty of high spots and building to some of the big moments above. When Flair wins it after a series of back and forth pin attempts and holding the tights, it's acceptable but not exactly satisfying, but it didn't need to be given the victory that would follow.

Dusty Rhodes/Nikita Koloff vs. Tully Blanchard/Lex Luger

 

MD: Ok, so I'm running out of time on this one and it's definitely been out for years. One thing I do want to point out that you get watching the show in context is how people controlled Nikita and had a chance by targeting the next throughout the show but the whole show builds to this one where they tear the brace off of his neck. So I really did appreciate that in context. 

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FOUND FOOTAGE FRIDAY: OMNI 2/26/84

 

Jesse Barr vs. Pez Whatley

ER: A match made completely worthwhile by the finish. Up until the finishing stretch I was prepared to write "Yep this sure is some undercard wrestling. Well Barr did work his chin lock fairly effectively and I appreciate that" and be done with it. But then we go on an excellent one minute run to finish on a perfect high note: Barr throws Whatley through the ropes to the floor, fast, and the cameras pan to Whatley and what appears to be a ringside security guard facing away from the ring while eating popcorn and literally reading a fucking magazine. When Whatley tries to get back in the ring he's greeted by Barr's legitimately great kneelift - the best piece of offense all match - and I love how Whatley's reaction is to get obliterated by the kneelift and desperately try to roll back to the floor before being dragged back in. All of that is made worth it by Barr taking one of the greatest banana peel bumps I've seen when Whatley sweeps his leg. Barr made it look like he had no idea the football was being pulled. 

MD: Nice way to get acclimated to 1984 here. The ref, especially does a great job in both checking Barr before the match (showing Barr that if he doesn't agree, then he'll declare Pez the winner) and then catching the hairpull on the top wristlock cutoffs the second or third time Barr does it. Barr was maybe 25 here and you had to wonder what his ceiling might have been at this point. He looked good, high energy especially on a kneelift catching Pez on the way in and then bumping big for Pez's finishing stuff, and Pez, of course, knew exactly what he was doing and played to the crowd well between it. Ok opening match but I'm glad they didn't decide it needed to be a time limit draw. 

TKG: Fuck all that, this ruled and was ridiculously hot for an opener. Pez Whatley backdrop driver may be the most impressive suplex on a show with great throws. Just holds Barr up in impressive lift before perfectly dropping him. Whatley just looks like a hoss throughout this dominating on mat. Why wasn’t Whatley in the Varsity Club? Why didn’t he get a Triple Crown title challenge. You watch that suplex and shocking that it wasn’t finisher. Barr actually hits a desperation knee to get straight back on offense. And really the high knee lift is Barr’s only move. Was Barr doing a loaded knee pad gimmick? Barr refuses to let ref Scrappy McGowan check his kneepads before the match until Scrappy threatens him with DQ, all of his offense and comebacks and signature bump built around knee lift. Hits a knee lift for control and then slaps on a chinlock. Whatley wins with this high neck yolk move (instead of a bulldog from behind he yolks opponent down from the front), Whatley goes for it several times and never quite gets it till the win. First time, I thought it was a crossbody that he got too much height with, second time I thought it was a Mil style in ring tope and when he finally hits it clean, clear that is what he was going for and match is over. The moves based match structure had a real first round of a early 2000’s Super Eight feel to it, and you could totally see Ketner booking a Billy Fives, Scoot Andrews, Barr, Pez 4 way dance for the next month.

The Spoiler vs. Johnny Rich

ER: Spoiler standing on the top rope looks like a magic trick. It looks like an illusion. He's standing so still, like he's not even standing on anything at all. Don Jardine is a man the same age as me and twice my size, yet he stands effortlessly on the ropes with the grace of El Hijo del Santo. Watch him. Watch his entire body. At one point he appears to be only standing on one leg, right leg on one set of ropes, left leg on another, until one of the legs lifts...and the rest of his body doesn't move. His entire body is still, no part of him looks like he is countering weight to maintain balance. He looks like he is standing on solid ground. He looks incredible. You've never seen anyone walk the ropes like Spoiler. Fenix, Komander, Elix Skipper, any name, none are comparable to what Spoiler does. 

I could go on and on about the unreality of his rope work - if this wasn't a full card and only this match, I would write several paragraphs on him standing on the ropes - but maybe the greatest thing about it is how he uses his rope work for heel heat. I don't think there has ever been a heel who has used "look how well I balance on the top rope" as the basis for his heel heat, but there is Spoiler on the top rope, striking and holding a pose like a large buccaneer, showing off his balance to a bunch of husbands and wives out on a Sunday. The Spoiler draws heat from standing still on a very high point, and the crowd starts coming alive for Rich's comeback because of it. Johnny Rich does this thing where his punches keep looking better the deeper into the match we go, and it makes the crowd louder and more responsive. And then my man hits the blade for Spoiler's claw, and we get this incredible, violent, wrenched in claw that Spoiler made look like he was breaking Rich's entire upper torso. The shot of Rich, still standing, body being contorted while held in the claw, blood covering his face quick, made me go from "Man Spoiler matches always deliver" to "oh wow they did something special in just 6 minutes". 

MD: Great look at the Spoiler and I'm glad people will see him that are unaware. Hot start to this as he clubbers right away in the corner only for Rich to fire back. But then the size advantage takes over as he just hefts him up and then tosses him into the corner. The rope walk elbow drop is just super striking because he does it with ease and without hesitation and he followed it up by draping Rich in the ropes and kicking the ropes and they made it look great and painful. Someone needs to steal that. 

Rich eventually rolls in (and to the other side of the ring so he can recover) and fires back with jabs, but pressing Spoiler into the corner is no good. He'll just grab your head and use it to steady himself as he walks the ropes. From there, he started utilizing the claw, getting Rich out of the ring with it and then immediately catching him on the way back in, leaving him a bloody mess. I'm happy people will get introduced to Spoiler this way (And Rich was perfectly fine in his role with fiery but futile comebacks).

TKG: The Spoiler putting Rich in a cat’s cradle is the greatest yo-yo trick ever done with a wrestling ring..

Ted Dibiase vs. Mr. R

ER: This was not designed to be a great match, but instead was worked like the first six minutes of a bigger match, all basic Mr. R side headlocks floated over into Dibiase pin attempts and then back again. I had never seen any of the Mr. R angle and my favorite part of this was Rich avoiding Jesse Barr and Spoiler's attacks as he rolled out of the ring and jumped the rail. The fans were into this and all they did was headlock shoulderblock stuff, showed how over the full angle was. 

MD: We had maybe 25 seconds of this previously. I imagine those might have been the 25 seconds we needed but we have so little actual Mr. R footage, this is still interesting. They worked the first five minutes of a very conventional match with the usual chain wrestling. Dibiase was very into it and this was fine, but it's interesting just how normal and conventional it was. After about five minutes, Dibiase calls his cronies in and the heels all try to get Mr. R's mask, but he darts out of the ring like a trickster and hops the rail and wins by DQ. The energy at the end with the angle bit was very good but this was really all just a tease.

TKG: There was some cool fighting for top wristlock stuff here but this reminded me of a lot of the Mid South Dibiase technical fussbudgeting with no direction killing time before the loaded glove finish. I kind of need to feel like you are stealing a win for me to get mad at a DQ.

Les Thornton vs. Tommy Rogers

ER: My God Les Thornton is a little tank. Tommy Rogers had a real credible side headlock and he really cranked it in a few times, especially on one spot where Thornton tried to push off, but just when I thought I knew what snug was, Thornton made me say "whoa" aloud (in the bathroom at work where I was watching this) at how violent his reversal to headscissors was. Thornton pulled off the headscissor with such speed and force, in a way I haven't seen. Rogers couldn't have stopped this if he wanted to. Made me want to see a Thornton/Finlay match. Every headscissor looked great and Rogers sold his frustration in them so well. His hair pulls are done with such a quick snap that it made me smile when Rogers finally broke a headscissors with a knee straight to the head. Rogers has a clean sunset flip that looks like an actual pin, and Thornton really thunderclaps his ears with his legs to break. Love the bounce Rogers got on Thornton's butterfly suplex and how both men made every headlock exchange look like actual struggle and applied pressure. The finish had a couple things that didn't quite work. Thornton has a way of taking Rogers dropkicks that makes Tommy look like a chump, and Rogers tried a back suplex that saw him dropping Thornton's full weight onto himself. Thornton's pin reversal win looked like it didn't even have half the leverage of any of the headlock/headscissor exchanges. Basically I loved the first 13 a lot more than the last 2.   

MD: I thought this was going to be wrestled straight but as it went on Thorton leaned heel. There was a lot of ref interaction early. I liked him the first match but he got a little too involved here turning holds over, kicking the arms off when they were holding the ropes, etc. They did some really neat things with headscissors right after pins including a transition into a takeover from Rogers i'm not sure I'd ever seen.

The match opens up midway as Thorton starts to introduce heel tactics. It leads to a really big extended comeback by Rogers where Thorton keeps trying to cut him off but can't. That played more to Rogers' strengths so it was better than if this was just wrestled clean. The fans were pretty into it by the end and when Thornton holds onto the tights to win, they are very much not happy with him.

TKG: Meltzer wrote about Malenko v Benoit from Road Wild that it would be a great match with a different audience and I was like “fuck that, they would have worked it differently for different crowd”,,,the best part of that match is how hostile the work was making the crowd. I was joking with Phil the other day about a Les Thorton v Scott Mcghee match which the WWF had booked to kill heat and send crowd to concessions. I assume Vince Sr was getting percentage of concessions and built into his card formula were these log technical draws that were intended to get a hostile crowd response and send people to concession stands and my memory of Thorton v Mcghee was that crowd started “boring” chants from moment they came to ring but actually never left their seats for concessions, transfixed; just couldn’t take eyes of one guy has a headlock which other guy counters with a leg scissors and just got more and more hostile about the idea that it was holding their attention. Match had a bunch of same elements while that one was built around egging on hostility while this is built around the pops for the face and encouraging the cheers. We don’t build matches to kill crowds anymore and kind of miss it as an art….but this was really cool too

Wahoo McDaniel vs. Nikolai Volkoff

MD: Basically a slugfest. Volkoff had big over the top punches. Wahoo had straight shots and chops. Volkoff did do this one shot to the face that I thought was amazing and Wahoo, as he was firing back, did a chop where he just ran through Volkoff in a way that I hadn't seen him do too many times before. Volkoff did get one bearhug in there but it was functional and led to a wild clap escape by Wahoo. He hit both of his backbreaker variations (including the press slam one). Things got wild on the floor with Wahoo dodging a chairshot. This was one of those matches where it was just interesting to see how they made the noise for their strikes. Not stomps so much as recoil jumps, things like that. Eventually the ref, who had been all over the show as noted, tried to get in the way of a Wahoo choke and both guys ultimately tossed him for the no contest. Wahoo tried a bunch of elbowdrops to crush Volkoff but he kept on rolling to safety.

TKG: Crap, was Nikolai Volkoff always this bad? It is Wahoo, you can hit him. He won’t cry. Volkoff’s lift before backbreaker is always impressive but c’mon. Wahoo keeps on leaning into strikes and Volkoff pulls them even more. Aways a joy to see Wahoo tee off on someone but Volkoff is a shitty guy for him to be stuck against.

ER: Damn, was Nikolai Volkoff always this good? Do I like Nikolai Volkoff now? Wahoo is Wahoo and the chops (more than one to the face!) are great and his comeback had the heaviest shots of the match, but has Volkoff been good this whole time and I just haven't sought out any of it? Is the Don Muraco Eastern Championship Wrestling Title match good? Is the '94 WWF run good? Volkoff was a big weird guy here and I loved the way he kept awkwardly kicking at Wahoo's forehead like he was Bad Taue. Imagine how great Volkoff could have been had he just been Bad Taue? He throws his kicks up with the same awkwardness of Taue, but with normal body proportions so his legs aren't as long. He does two great backbreakers to Wahoo. Well, one good back backbreaker and one incredible backbreaker. Volkoff is one of our few wrestlers to make gear a part of his backbreaker. It must be so humiliating to not only have your back broken, but to have your singlet or trunks stretched and wedged and rearranged during the lift. Volkoff kept lifting higher and Wahoo's singlet kept stretching further, an insult I think worse than mussing someone's hair. He bumped bigger than I expected when Wahoo started firing back, getting upended by a running chop and pinballing all the way across the ring for Wahoo's excellent shoulder shrug to the jaw. 

Jake Roberts vs. Ron Garvin

MD: Just an exceptional match. With these GCW Omnis, we see the Jake Roberts that we were always promised, the master of psychology, of bringing the crowds up and down and using every dirty trick. He was good later on but was too much a babyface and without the room to breathe like he had here. His ribs were taped coming in so we had his reach and leverage and dirty tricks and Ellering at ringside against the promise that at some point in the match, Garvin would get free and use the hands of stone to punch those ribs. 

They built it and built it and built it, Roberts leaning hard on the ref disallowing punches and utilizing every hairpull, tights pull, piece of rope to choke, distraction from Ellering, everything he can manage. At one point he goads Garvin into the corner (with Garvin having the advantage) only for Ellering to pull the leg out. So much of the match is just a seated armbar, but they work it so well, with hope spots like Garvin pulling Roberts' shirt up to expose the taped ribs, just that. It's so good. He gets him once but Roberts' escapes, and then when he finally gets him and ties him up in the ropes, laying in shot after shot, the place comes unglued. The ref takes a great bump and while Garvin's able to stop Ellering from using the chair, Jake blindsides him and DDTs him on the chair. When the ref comes too he hits a couple of insult to injury elbow drops for the pin, keeping the program going and getting huge heat. Just a brilliant match, maybe even a perfect one for what they were trying to accomplish.

TKG: I think of Garvin as a guy who is relentless on offense, and less of as a guy who is really great at selling but he is…he isn’t bumping for strikes but somehow by standing tall and selling the toughness of not going down, he makes the strikes look far more legit. Also I am so used to TOUGH manager Paul Ellering, that exasperated throwing hands in the air freaking out Ellering was super fun.

ER: 1984 t-shirt Jake is such an amazing era of Jake Roberts. He never looked more like the most dangerous Molly Hatchet roadie. The load out guy who everyone fears but everyone knows is the guy who can get you crank...and beyond. He did not look like a wrestler or move like a wrestler and it's what made him one of the most compelling wrestlers. He did not throw his uppercut like a wrestler. When he throws five downward punches at Garvin's face when Garvin has him by the leg, he punches like a carny. When the throws cross chops at Garvin's throat they're...maybe the best non-punch strike you've seen. Jake is wearing a t-shirt to cover up his taped ribs, and this might be the only Garvin match I've seen based around him throwing body shots. Once he starts teeing off on Jake's ribs, even tying him up in the ropes like Andre, the crows loses their mind. The whole thing is incredible. Roberts stifles Garvin for so long and escapes at the right moments, and it all burns down as Roberts is finally getting his ribs battered while he sells it like he's doing kabuki, bent at the waist on tip toes. The finish is dynamite, with Garvin being spiked right on Ellering's chair with a DDT. You can't fake the way Garvin takes this DDT, that's a man going vertebrae first onto that chair. The best past is Jake doesn't pin him after that. He rouses the ref by shoving him the way a big brother would shove his little brother after calling him numb nuts, then when the ref is watching he falls onto Garvin with an elbowdrop. He grabs at his ribs on impact, totally worth it. Had this been on one of the DVDVR 80s sets, we would have called it one of the greatest Jake matches. Now we can. 

The Road Warriors vs. Stan Hansen/King Kong Bundy

PAS: In my mind this is an insane Kaiju battle, a tag version of Andre vs. Hansen. It wasn't that, much more of a traditional tag match, but it was delightful. I am going to leave Eric and Matt to rhapsodize about the initial lock up, but man was that beautiful stuff. We don't have a ton of Road Warriors stooging and bumping, and they do a great job of that early, I can't remember seeing Stan Hansen working face in peril, and we get a nice spoonful at once, I have definitely not seen hot tag Bundy, and hot tag Bundy was incredible. I wanted a bit more of an explosion at the end, it felt like this was a match setting up a huge gimmick blowoff, which never happened, but man what a treat.

MD: Finish or no finish, the fans got their money's worth on this one. It was, in some ways, very weird in the entire history of wrestling. GCW Roadies were still raw, were very willing to stooge and show ass in a way that they really wouldn't later. Bundy was a big towering babyface, and Hansen played face-in-peril. We don't have a ton of performances like this out of him. 

When they did finally take over on him, it was by focusing on the arm, the old Hansen standard, but his hope spots were great and rousing, just big booming attempts to fire back, with the fans getting behind him, before he'd get cut off. There were only so many teams in the world that could believably keep him down like this but the Road Warriors in 84 were on that list and they really made it work. Bundy coming in at the end was like a wrecking ball and yes, this broke down with Ellering grabbing Bundy's leg and all four guys firing off until the ref called it. It's great that the Road Warriors became what they did, but I do wonder what I would have looked like if they stayed on this road instead. Just a tremendous Hansen performance overall and a new piece of a puzzle that was already feeling complete. 

TKG: This was way more a standard tag than I was picturing but a pretty great standard tag. I assume most of this will be covered by everyone else but I really loved all the Hansen face in peril trying to make sure that he still was getting blood flow to his fingers while the Road Warriors working over his arm.

Ric Flair vs. Brad Armstrong

MD: This went how you'd expect it to go except for that maybe it stayed clean (though with Flair still strutting when he did well) for quite a while. I loved Brad's energy on his hope spots/comebacks. The bit where he climbs the bottom rope to start firing back on Flair was great and I want to see Daniel Garcia implement that as part of his act ASAP. Just super, balanced pro wrestling with a little something for everyone who might be watching in 1984. More of this please, and soon.

ER: I want to know more about the Donald Sutherland/Kurt Vonnegut led couple who left at the same time with the cool younger leather jacket couple. Leather jacket guy had his hand on his girl's inner thigh and they had just found out this Brad Armstrong headlock had hit the 10 minute mark. They made a look before both getting up at the exact same time and I didn't see a single solitary second the rest of the show where it looked like they even know they were there. A bunch of kids take their place and the 13 year old on the end is wearing a sleeveless Union Jack and has his arms crossed the entire time. He's the fucking coolest 13 year old I have ever seen at a wrestling show. 

TKG: The weird thing about the “traditional long slow build Flair main event” is how fucking fast paced it is. Like this is the fastest paced match on show. In theory Flair is trying to slow it down but it never slows and just builds. I also really like the way it feels like 2/3 falls match where it has parts, an initial technical fall section, a brawling section and a quick running exchange section that feel like they build off each other. At one point Flair does his first set of chops during the technical section to regain control and those are completely different than the type of chops he does during the actual brawling section.

TKG: Referee Scrappy McGowan worked this entire show solo and it is a real impressive performance. HE is neither a tough ref who is completely in control nor a ref in over his head struggling to assert himself but instead just a perfect medium. Guy who gets manipulated by heels but also stops heels from cheating. Of the Georgia refs, he isn’t one that I think of as getting talked up but he was really great throughout this show.

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Found Footage Friday: TEAM USWA~! TEAM WCCW~! THUNDERDOME~! BRET~! FLAIR~! MONTERREY DEEP DIVE~!

Thunderdome Cage Match: Team USWA (Bill Dundee/Danny Davis/Jeff Jarrett/Billy Joe Travis/Gary Young) vs. Team WCCW (Eric Embry/Tom Prichard/The Awesome Kong/El Grande Pistolero/Steve Austin) USWA 1991

MD: This is going to be a found week. I swear I've seen this before but it could just be a phantom memory or I'm getting it confused with some NWA Anarchy match or something. Everyone's in the cage to start and there are handcuffs set up around the cage. Whichever team gets handcuffed to the cage first loses and the survivors get the key and get to unlock their partners for five minutes of pure, unfair violence. There's also a pinfall stip but it's confusing to everyone how it works even if it plays into the finish. 

Kong gets handcuffed right as the match starts, which gives the babyfaces an advantage from the get go and also takes out of play the biggest physical threat in the match. It's a choice, I guess. There is that sort of danger you get from let's say a NJPW elimination match, where if you get too close to someone who's handcuffed, you can get disrupted or grabbed. That too plays into the finish. In general though, Kong is a non-factor here. There's one solid visual of all of the USWA guys attacking him post match (which gives away the finish, sorry), but in general, he's gone from the get go. Pistolero might have been Gypsy Joe. If that's the case, it's a shame he didn't get to do much either as he's one of the first guys to get handcuffed. 

They cover a lot of ground in less than ten minutes here, though. Everyone gets bloody pretty quickly. People get slammed into the cage. They change dance partners and make some use of numerical advantages when they come up. the USWA side is pretty solid and you have at least Embry and Prichard on the other side, given who gets taken out early and the fact that Austin is green but game. It comes down to Travis and Prichard. Prichard gets too close to Jeff who nails him. Travis rolls him up but he's too close to Embry who breaks it up. Prichard is able to handcuff Travis and get the key. Dundee kicks Prichard who loses the key. Young gets it. The heels win but the babyfaces get free and the fans are delighted by the beatdown that follows. Pretty clever stuff all around. I think there's room for this gimmick in 2024.

PAS: This was basically an all punches match, and luckily we have 6-8 of the greatest punchers in wrestling history throwing hands. If all it is is Bill Dundee and Eric Embry throwing hands, Dayenu. Add that to Billy Joe Travis uppercuts, lots of blood and a crowd pleasing finish. Pure candyfloss pro-wrestling pleasure. I am not sure it would work in 2024, who even throws good punches anymore, but shit it worked in 1991.

ER: I thought this was incredible. I can't believe how much they did in 10 minutes, and I never expected it to swell to an insanely sadistic babyface conclusion. There are seven great punchers doing literally nothing but throwing punches and literally everybody bleeds. The Thunderdome stipulation is low key brutal and actually more violent than anything in the PG-13 Beyond Thunderdome. They did these matches with Robert Fuller and Eddie Gilbert replacing Gary Young (that's a plus) and Billy Joe Travis (that's a lateral and a totally different vibe). I get Kevin Nash being unavailable but I wonder if they tried to get Al Green...

On paper I wouldn't have thought handcuffing every one of your opponents to the cage would work, but then I laughed the moment Amazing Kong got cuffed 1 second into the match and spent the rest of the time hoping someone would come near enough to kick out at. Everyone else was too busy throwing punches. They all looked great, but my favorite bit was when Dundee (who looked incredible all match) finally got cuffed and Eric Embry was trying to line up a punch on someone, but he back into Bill Dundee who caught him with a short punch to the cheek and then a harder punch while he was stunned. Jarrett had tremendous fire throughout, Nightmare Danny Davis always comes off like Rutger Hauer in a street fight in these kinds of matches, and Billy Joe Travis is an incredible dirtbag with real babyface fire. You can tell by looking at him that he's a dirtbag, but the man is a fighter and when he's on your side you want that. 

The finish is downright sadistic. The winning team - the team who cuffs every opponent to the cage - then gets 5 minutes to beat their extremely disadvantaged opponents without mercy. Prichard wins the handcuff key for WCCW but Dundee kicks it away, meaning Gary Young gets it and uncuffs all the USWA guys, who - despite losing - proceed to fuck up every member of World Class to a rousing babyface reaction. This is such a long beating that I kept waiting for the Memphis fans to turn on their own. Seriously, after the match it's just 5 mean being beaten bloodier and bloodier by the good guys, desperate to fight back but chained to a cage, the Good Guys lining up shots at sitting ducks. When the halfway announcement of 2.5 minutes comes, it's already felt like this beating has gone on far too long. This is a merciless beating and the blood flows freely as Team Memphis just stomps on dead bodies like total psychopaths, never once stopping to consider if what they were doing was the correct choice. Ethics aside, every second of this was amazing. What I thought was a silly gimmick that would get in the way of what would have been a better 5 on 5 tag, turned out to enhance every part of it. 

Tigre Universitario/Principe Franky vs. Bello David/Bello Guerrero CMLL 12/92

MD: Deep into the crates here, as Roy didn't even break the matches out of these episodes. I'm going to try to go through each and every one however. Between the pre-match interview and the primera, I got the sense that David and Guerrero were in the midst of a gimmick change maybe. David had a Millionaire name as well and he might have recently lost a match? Luchawiki isn't much help there. Tigre and Franky were in matching gear and worked well as a tandem.

This was crowd-pleasing, action-packed undercard lucha though. There are a few clips; when we come in, they're hitting a foul on Franky and control for most of the primera. Lots of well put together double-team stuff, mostly double clotheslines and back body drops and elbow drops and the sort. The tecnicos come back and hit some flashing stuff including a great rowboat to win the caida. There's some fun stuff with Guerrero accidentally hitting the ref on the outside as well. The rudos got their fall back in the segunda (and showed more exotico tendencies) and everything built to cycling and a pretty exciting finishing stretch where Tigre and Franky continued to work well together (both with an alley-oop into a double axe handle in the corner and the tandem topes into the seats towards the end). The finish had each side getting a fall but Franky accidentally hitting the ref as David kept dodging dropkicks; he locked in a submission but the ref DQ'd him as David was tapping. Entertaining stuff all around.

Bret Hart vs. Ric Flair WCW 2/20/98

MD: Again, this feels like something we would have seen at some point, but it's still worth watching. MGM Grand House show from early 98. They fit a ton into the first few minutes, with Bret sort of stumbling bemused through Flair's act. It's entertaining but I'm not sure I'd call it particularly great or resonant. Definitely entertaining though. That means he has a slap fight with Charles Robinson, trading inverted atomic drops, eating an eye poke in the corner off a break, putting Flair in a figure-four, that sort of thing. Bret got serious fairly quickly once Flair took over, working from underneath as Flair hit some vicious stuff on the floor and a really nice belly to back. We get what I assume to be a brief cut so we never see how Bret gets out of the figure-four but he goes full Lawler for the finish, dropping his strap and fighting out of the corner before hitting some moves of doom and locking in the Sharpshooter. Definitely a moment in time and certainly crowd-pleasing.

ER: There were a lot of Bret/Flair matches that happened, but we don't have as many of them as I assumed. Most of what we have exist as handhelds (I believe Souled Out '98 and the excellent Smack 'Em Whack 'Em title change are the only two officially released bouts) including the great '93 Boston Garden iron man. But almost all of the handhelds was during their long series of '92/'93 WWF house shows. WCW, despite running Hart/Flair within a month of Bret joining the company, rarely ran the match. This happened the month after Souled Out and then they didn't interact for nearly two years. This match is the weakest of the Bret/Flair matches we have, but I don't think that's really an insult. The WWF matches are all great, and while it's been some years since I watched Souled Out '98, that match was at minimum praised at the time. 

This is nowhere near as ambitious as their WWF house show title matches 5 years prior, and it worked much more as a compact greatest hits. We're missing a portion that may or may not be significant (I am leaning towards Somewhat Significant, as the crowd is rather loud through Bret's struggle in the figure four, and when we clip to them standing in the corner they have gone quiet. We could have missed 30 seconds or 8 minutes), and the focus their title matches have isn't really here. The ending, especially, seems a bit too simple: we clip to Bret taking down both straps, backbreaker, Hitman elbow, suplex, sharpshooter with no fight. It was too tidy for the drama they are each capable of. They were both such more compelling during Flair's control segment. Flair and Bret are each guys who are good at yanking on a leg, Bret's inside cradle and backslide were each strong nearfalls, and I popped for a Bret enziguiri while working underneath that felt like an underutilized Bret tactic. The smaller moments of this were better than the broader moments. I particularly loved the way Bret sank to his seat in the corner after getting Flair cheapshots him in the eye, and how he recoiled when Flair did it again standing. 

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Terry Funk Brings Me Along

By Tim Livingston: 

When I was 5, my brother and I took naps in different rooms because otherwise, we wouldn’t go to sleep and we’d upset my parents (still can’t nap for shit to this day). On one of those napless Saturday afternoons in late 1989/early 1990, when I got bored and decided to turn the TV on at an extremely low volume to hide it from my folks, I turned it to TBS, where they just happened to be running a special called “The War of ‘89.” Jim Ross was in studio and they played (mostly in full, if I recall) the matches that were part of the Ric Flair/Terry Funk feud, beginning with the angle at WrestleWar ’89 and ending with the “I Quit” match at Clash IX. Easy programming instead of doing a full Saturday Night taping.

I had seen Funk before on the WrestleMania 2 VHS I repeatedly rented from Blue Moon Video. I rented it mainly because I wanted to see WrestleMania III, but someone else rented it and never returned it basically every time I went in. Late fees must’ve been a bitch. Funk didn’t really stand out then to me outside of the finish of the tag (in retrospect, the best match on the show), as my sports-loving self was all about the NFL/WWF 20-man battle royal [Eric nods in Russ Francis approval reading this]. Funk didn’t stand out to me then. But once I saw this feud? He never left my head again.

That’s because of the Great American Bash. It’s one of the best singular performances I can remember. When I watched this match so many times when I was younger, it was always Flair who was the focus for me. Coming off the Steamboat series, how does he do against Funk, what does he change up, etc. I smartened up something fierce in the years since. And this always stands out as Funk’s most impactful performance to me.

Funk comes out flanked by police and Gary Hart, branding iron in hand, “Man With A Harmonica” playing him to the ring. I can’t really begin to tell you how instantly cool this makes Funk look; the contrast is seeing Flair come out with the best women 1989 Baltimore has to offer, but Funk sees him arrive, meets him outside right away (probably to warn the women how much of a womanizer he was, sets Flair off, and the fun begins.

Funk plays the invading heel archetype to the best of almost anyone’s abilities. He postures and gets his ass whipped, then gets pissed about it as Flair waits for him to get back in the ring(s). Instead, Funk decides he’s not in Baltimore, but in San Juan; trying to remove the guardrails from the floor, pacing the front row and stalking anyone who wants to get fresh. It’s the threatening shit everyone tries but can posture with today; there’s an aura to someone who calls himself “middle-aged and crazy” actually decides to just do whatever his id tells him at any moment. Stan Hansen had the cowbell on a bullrope to instill fear; Terry Funk just needed a reason.

The escalation here is delightfully impactful: Funk tries to go blow for blow with Flair and fails due to Flair being amped up. Flair tries to literally rip Funk’s neck off his body to get back at him for the WrestleWar piledriver, then tries to go the full monty, following up with his kneedrops to the neck and two piledrivers of his own. You even get Flair getting a cowardly Funk back in the ring and locking in the figure-four, until the literal greatest transition spot in history occurs: Funk opens Flair up with a branding iron to not only break the hold, but bust his skull open.

Normally in a match where the babyface is out for revenge you get a hot start before crashing back to Earth; here Funk lets Flair have basically half the match before he gets in his first meaningful shot of offense. But then it’s all to the neck, and all nasty. A stiff piledriver. A wild dive off the apron where a glancing blow with the knee makes contact with neck and Flair sells it like whiplash. Three SICK spinning neckbreakers. Funk even decides to lay the seeds for the “I Quit” match by yelling at Flair to give up after the third one, an unequivocal master of the craft. The match goes just over 15 minutes and Funk barely needed a third of it to make the point that he could own Flair with just one small opening.

Then we get to the part that forever lives in my memory. For my money, the best 10-minutes of pro wrestling ever produced: Flair bloodies Funk, misses the Harley Race knee, trips up Funk on the spinning toehold, and reverses the small package for the win. After knocking out Gary Hart, here comes The Great Muta, resplendent in blood red, misting Flair to the mat, trying to break Flair’s neck with a stuff piledriver, whooping Doug Dillinger’s ass (civilian or not). Then Sting comes out to even the odds, giving us the amazing visual of Flair’s half green, half red face fighting off the invasion and standing tall next to Sting in his chipped face paint.

But we get MORE. Muta throws the ring stairs as Funk retreats with Hart, Flair and Sting give chase and whoop Funk and Muta back towards the entrance ramp, Flair swinging his belt begging for Funk to make a move. When we cut to Jim Ross and Bob Caudle's closing remarks, the brawl continues with chairs and branding irons and everything else. Sting somehow finds a velvet rope and chokes them both. And then, as if you needed a capper to the insanity, Flair gives you the full show: the bi-colored face, title over his shoulder, eyes bright in contrast lit up with the fill lighting, threatening to wear Funk’s Texas ass out. His face looked like he had just survived a showdown with Jason Voorhees and a Xenomorph and lived to tell the tale.

Funk was an agent of chaos, coming in and leaving destruction in his wake, even as he was defeated by Flair. It was another great nod to how he amplified the booking. There was no cheap DQ finish, you can look good even with a loss because chaos reigns supreme, and when you try to get your heat back, you make things crazier. The win or loss barely matters. Flair won, but Funk took part of his soul on the way out. There was a delicate balance where Funk wanted to put everyone in a better position as the show ended, while also bringing up two young dudes who needed the rub. Everyone in a better position coming out of the show than when they came in. The best way to do business.

It's everything anyone could ever love about Terry Funk in one neat package: The absurd, the nastiness, the execution and sloppiness, the unbridled passion and effort; knowing that after a quarter century in the business having done and seen it all, he’s more than happy to show ass. It means the fans want him to get it whooped again next time around. He took the loss, he lost the post-match brawl, but he was - as he normally was - the thing folks remember.

He was absolutely the thing I remember most from that July night, and on this October night, as well. I’m happy to know that many years after my napless kindergarten self saw the match, I was fully able to appreciate his greatness. The singular professional wrestler with a singular performance; timeless as a Morricone tune.

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RIP Vince

Vince McMahon vs. Ric Flair WWF Royal Rumble 1/20/02

ER: With the news of Vince McMahon and the McMahon Family's swift and sudden death, I thought it would be a good time to write about Vince's best match. While I do remember this era, it's mostly stuff I haven't watched since it originally aired, so you'll have to forgive me that I didn't recall Vince - at his absolute MOST juiced - in a street fight feud with Ric Flair over the ownership of WWF. Flair bought Shane and Stephanie's stock? Sure, who wouldn't trust Ric Flair to provide capital in a transfer of stocks. Doesn't seem so bad in retrospect. It also really feels like leaving good money on the table for Flair to return to WWF for the first time in 10 years, his first appearance since the last ever episode of WCW, as a man who now owns HALF of Vince McMahon's company, bought out right from underneath him...and then two months into this they're already at "Street Fight". Flair's first match in WWF in a decade, is in a feud with the oldest man in the company, STARTING that feud with a Street Fight. Imagine the two of them instead in the Rumble Match itself. You have two 50-50 owners of the company, who are ALSO both former Royal Rumble winners. 

Had the 2002 Rumble match featured Vince McMahon and Ric Flair chasing after each other and not focusing on any other soul in the Royal Rumble, Undertaker and Austin eliminating everyone but getting a real kick out of seeing McMahon and Flair Andy Capp their way through the middle of it all, it could have been better than 1992. Just picture the looks Austin would be capable of giving as he considers whether he wants to eliminate McMahon himself, or let Flair hit him with a 10th chop in the corner. Neither of them had to win, you just could have had them chaotically interrupt the middle of it, and then have them drag each other to elimination. There's enough action going on around them that they would get to peak their interactions in between easily hidden rest breaks, when the attention goes back to Austin or Undertaker. We got robbed of several months of odd couple interaction before a big payoff with two genuine weirdos, because we just go right into a Street Fight challenge from Flair. It takes a bit of luster off your No Holds Barred match six months later when you start with a No Holds Barred match. 

But it turns out nothing actually matters because we got something better than all of that. This was a match that managed to play exactly how you would have expected it to play out, while also exceeding every possible expectation. Flair takes the first bump of the match bouncing across the ring as if Vince was Andre the Giant and, well, Vince *is* pumped full of an ungodly amount of horse testosterone and *does* look like a physical freak. More importantly, he hits Flair so hard with a shoulderblock that it looked like he was using Flair to jam his shoulder back into the socket. Some of their strikes look okay, others look way better than they should. Vince throws a kick to the stomach the way you would throw a kick to the balls, but it's actually a good stomach kick. Vince throws a way better chop than you'd think a partially trained man in his mid 50s should be able to throw, and when he sells several stiff Flair chops by crossing his arms across his chest and running in place on his tip toes, he looked like the world's most jacked John Tatum. 2002 Vince was all about making his offense look as real as possible by doing it real as possible. Vince hits a lariat so fucking hard, that it's like he was cosplaying as JBL vs. Guy Who JBL is Pretending Looked at Him in the Shower. 

The weapons stuff isn't as interesting as the actual stiff ring work, but the sign and chair shots are thrown with bad intentions and they make a nice vehicle for getting Flair bloodied. And once Flair is bloodied, that's when we get Vince throwing full Terry Funk right hands as hard as he can at Flair's forehead, AS Flair is leaning against the barricade. Vince McMahon is throwing full force punches maybe two feet away from some fan's head. That's a pro wrestling visual right there and if I was the owner of the company I would have those punches still in the Raw intro 20 years later. After getting his head punched right next to fans, Flair takes a painfully real bump into the ring steps right in front of his children, then gets body slammed in front of them the way Stan Hansen would bodyslam Rusher Kimura. And then, something unexpectedly amazing happens. 

Vince McMahon is a guy who is famous for being so far in the bubble that he is at minimum a decade behind popular trends, while also being forward thinking enough to build the biggest wrestling company in history. Here, Vince shows how ahead of the trends he can be, when - in 2002 - he takes a selfie with a bloodied Flair, stealing Reed's gigantic camera to take the selfie. This was a camera with all the accessories, like he was a ringside photographer, and this man leaned in for a selfie with a hemorrhaging Ric. Next level Vinsanity. 

Back in the ring, Vince has startlingly good form on his ankle locks, drops knees on Flair's ankle, and punches Flair back to the mat any time he sits up. Flair has not wrestled a match in almost a year at this point and he is getting punched in the face multiple times by his new boss. Wrestling is unexplainable to anyone who doesn't have some kind of mental disorder. McMahon takes so much of the match that you wonder if Flair is going to come back at all, or just win by total banana peel, but Flair's late comeback is great. He punches Vince in the balls and takes a ton of chops on the floor, and back to back it's easy to notice one problem with Vince's excellent crybaby John Tatum selling of Flair's chops: It really leaves him nowhere to go creatively when he actually does get hit in the balls. Vince went so big on the chops, but only sells the low blow by rolling to the floor holding his groin. The low blow would have been the time for a Vince bug-eyed gulp, a bit of a Sabado Gigante look right into the camera. Modern WWE matches are nothing but reaction shots, and we needed a big Vince reaction shot here. It's possible his selling was appropriate and he doesn't feel the same kind of pain in his chemically shriveled testicles that you or I would feel. It also turns out we don't need the ball selling, because Flair smacks Vince in the head with a TV monitor and Vince takes one of his greatest all time bumps, flying backward over the announce table ass over crown, legs in the air as he dropped. Flair beats his ass around ringside, gets his daughter to take a picture of the two bloodied old dogs, throws a great mule kick at Vince's crotch, and brains him with the steel pipe that lead to Vince's downfall, and does an applause worthy Flair strut before sinking in the figure 4. This was better than the best possible Flair/Vince match, the perfect clash of old man ego and carny showmanship. It's too bad both men are dead. 

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An Exhaustingly Exhaustive Review of WWF Royal Rumble 1/24/93, Pt. 2

Bret Hart vs. Razor Ramon

ER: Another great match. Perhaps too long, but still a great match. The first 75 minutes of the show is one of the best 75 minute stretches of wrestling you'll find in any era of WWF. A couple pieces could have been placed differently, and the crowd gets weirdly restless in the middle (maybe burned out by too many closely strung together nearfalls? I don't know). This starts with a great opening punch exchange, and Razor never got enough credit at the time for his punches. I'm not sure who else could even make the claim to a better whipping right hand in this era, or any era. Razor's punch doesn't allow much wiggle room and requires a lot of moving parts, and I don't know who threw a similar punch better. Also, Razor and Bret are both great stomp punchers. Razor throws those long rights, whips Bret hard into the turnbuckle, and Bret takes just a classic back first bump into them, making it look almost as violent as his classic chest first bump always looks.  

Hart takes over by working over Razor's leg, kicking it out from under him a few times while holding onto his other leg, slamming it into the ringpost, and it's the only part of the match that feels incomplete or misplaced. It never really leads anywhere, Razor doesn't sell the knee, and I don't think you really needed a leg work segment to set up the Sharpshooter finish 12 minutes later. You can just win with the Sharpshooter, you don't need leg work. Now Razor working over Bret's ribs is much more interesting, and it starts with Razor reversing an Irish whip by jamming a kitchen sink knee into things, then whips Hart low into the corner. Bret slides across the mat ribs first and gets wrapped around the ringpost, and the ribs give Razor a cool focal point for the rest of the match. We DO get Bret going hard chest first to the buckles and we realize, yes, the Bret chest first turnbuckle bump IS the definitive violent corner bump. This particular one is one of Bret's best versions, and think of how many matches that covers. I don't know how Bret's arms didn't go completely numb after hitting the buckles. He ran full speed into them like he couldn't see them and had no idea they were there, and then fell backwards, rigid, to the mat. Most match finishes do not look as nasty as Bret running into the buckles. 

We get a lot of Razor working on Bret with his abdominal stretch, stomps, a stiff shoulderblock, and his always nice fallaway slam. Bret's big comeback from all of that is big, with Razor taking a high  backdrop bump to the floor and then Hart nailing a full body tope (with a couple of sneaky mounted punches thrown in after the landing). They work in a lot of momentum shifts down the stretch, which were all handled well but might have benefitted from one or two of them being dropped. Still, it lead to some classics, including proof that Bret might be the only person who can make the jump off the middle buckle into someone's boot actually look damaging and not silly, and the way he crumbles after hitting it is an incredible sell. It also helps that he hits his Hitman elbow off the middle rope so actually has a reason to be leaping off it into a boot in the first place. The match really should have ended with Bret wriggling out of what surely would have been a match finishing Razor's Edge to trap Razor with a backslide. Nothing that came after was necessary, and the finishing itself came off a little clunky (even with Razor grabbing onto the ropes and Earl Hebner's pant leg to desperately stop the Sharpshooter. Pulling a backslide out of the jaws of a Razor's Edge would have kept Razor stronger, and the backslide looked like a finish (most of the crowd bit hard at the late kickout). Still, even with my criticisms this felt like the 2nd best match on a card with four strong matches. 

Lex Luger debuts as Narcissus in an awkward segment where really nothing at all works. They have the trifold mirror set up in the entrance way, but Luger's gear covers up a lot of his body so you can't even see what all the fuss is about. And there IS fuss. Luger poses to an obstructed view while Heenan lavishes such praise over his body that it nearly approaches Power and Glory workout video levels of uncomfortable. My favorite part was when Heenan drooled over Luger's thighs. "Yes! Look at yourself! Enjoy yourself, Narcissus! Look at his thighs!!!"

The Rumble Match

This is a really really good Rumble, with the only flaw being that it is TOO LONG. It has a great first half and almost felt like a love letter to fans of the territories, as it was front-loaded with several different world and regional champs and that early star power felt big. Within the first 10 entrants we had Flair, Backlund, Dibiase, Lawler, Tenryu and Perfect. Flair and Backlund start it off, and neither Monsoon or Heenan talk about what a historic showdown it legitimately was. When you think of early 80s WWF champ, you think Backlund; When you think of early 80s NWA champ, you think Flair. As best I know, this is the only recorded footage of these two facing each other. There was an early 80s "title unification" match at the Omni but I don't think footage of that was ever shown on TV. So you get a fairly decent chunk of a Flair/Backlund match, years later than you would have wanted it, but they work it like an actual match (as opposed to spending the time trying to lift a guy's leg over the ropes). Papa Shango interrupts as the 3rd entrant but gets disposed of immediately, so we get a 4 minute Backlund/Flair match, and that's pretty neat. Now, Backlund was in this Rumble for over an hour, but I thought he looked pretty bad during at least his first half hour, and 1993 Backlund had a ton of weird timing issues. It often felt like Backlund was purposely trying to throw off his opponents' timing during this run, but he doesn't seem the type to do that. 

The two major standouts of this Rumble are Flair and Lawler. They're each in for just 15-20 minutes but their activity and execution and sheer knowledge of how to work a great Rumble is unparalleled. Flair must have had a running bet to see how many eye pokes he could fit in to his run, as he cuts off every single spot with an eye poke and it's incredible. My favorite was right after Max Moon came in and hit a fiery babyface sequence, and Flair tapped him on the shoulder and poked him in the eyes before just walking off. Lawler looked amazing during his whole run, punching everyone in sight and selling even better, getting into battles with guys we never got to see him battle (like Lawler/Backlund, or Lawler/TENRYU! Just the idea of a Lawler/Tenryu singles match makes me angry that they were even in the same ring and it didn't happen). Lawler has an awesome moment with Max Moon, where Max hits his nice corner spinning heel kick on Lawler, goes for it again and eats a huge backdrop bump to the floor. Huge bumps to the floor were one of the great things about this Rumble as I'd say 2/3 of the eliminations were dangerous bumps or bad landings, and that's an insanely high percentage. Also, Lawler has these incredible lowrider car show screen printed tights. Perfect targets Flair and Lawler and anything those three do with and against each other is gold, and if you want to talk about disgusting eliminations then you have to talk about Lawler and Perfect. 

Lawler takes the highest elimination bump of the match, getting launched by Perfect, and then immediately cashes in that receipt. Dibiase and Koko start shoving Perfect over, and Lawler begins yanking him by the head, really making it look like Perfect was desperately trying to hold on to that bottom rope, turning it into a really violent elimination. Referees are trying to pull Lawler away, guys in the ring are shoving Perfect, and Perfect hangs on to the bottom rope as long as humanly possible. It's, ahem, perfect. Knobbs, Skinner, and Samu have really memorable 3 minute runs, and you need a few high end crash and burn guys to make a Rumble good. Knobbs got a huge crowd reaction and had a real fired up run, Skinner came in like a dangerous potato throwing asshole, and Samu came in throwing headbutts. They all took tremendous bumps to elimination, with Samu's maybe the most dangerous. Undertaker had come out midway through (hilariously right as Lawler was headed back through the curtain, and Lawler gives Undertaker a wide berth) and he eliminates Samu by setting him on the top rope and shoving him hard, Samu flipping onto the apron on his head before going to the floor. Berzerker was fun during his 5 minutes, but with a guy who can eat up that much of the ring you hope for more than 5 minutes. I loved how, when Berzerker entered the ring, he went around the ring literally hitting every single person in the match. He didn't focus on anyone (until following Backlund to the floor and hitting him with a chair) but instead just stomped and clubbed his way through everyone. Koko also had a good run, building off 10 year feuds by going after Lawler while gleefully hiking up his gigantic High Energy windbreaker pants. 

The halves of the match are really clearly divided, as the ring needs to be fully cleared so Giant Gonzalez can debut and attack the Undertaker. I liked the Gonzalez debut, even though they never actually learned how to film him. When a guy is *actually* 8 feet tall, you don't need to film him from the floor up. He's the tallest man in pro wrestling history! Show him from far away so you can see how much larger he is than anything else in the arena! When you shoot him ground up it just makes him look like a normal guy, albeit a normal guy wearing a fur and muscle suit.  The problem is, since you had to clear the ring for that angle, and you front loaded the Rumble with most of the best workers, you're left with IRS, Damien DeMento, and Backlund when the smoke clears. It takes quite awhile to build any of that lost momentum back, with even a Natural Disasters Explode moment feeling tepid. Earthquake went right after Typhoon with no explanation, eliminated him, and then it was never mentioned again (Earthquake was gone at the end of the month and worked WAR for the rest of the year). 

Carlos Colon comes out fairly late, but it's really weird because he clearly belonged in the first half of this when it felt like they were legitimately trying to bring in a ton of regional champs. What would Carlos Colon even mean to a 1993 WWF audience? Also, you better believe Monsoon referred to the 45 year old Colon as a youngster after both he and Heenan had spent the entire match using Backlund's age 43 as a negative against him.  I would love a show of hands at the Arco Arena to find out how many in attendance knew anything about Carlos Colon. They had him announced for the Rumble several weeks before the match, but had only showed a picture of him during Mean Gene's Rumble previews, no footage or anything. It would have been far more valuable to see Colon throwing punches and headbutts at Lawler, Tenryu, and Flair; instead we get to see a lot of Colon against Damien DeMento, which is weird! Tatanka was by far the most exciting worker of the 2nd half of this, and his chops in the corner were thrown with more force than any Flair chop. 

Bob Backlund is 28th elimination, going past the hour mark and getting the most mixed reaction of the match. For the first half hour the crowd audibly hated him, but the longer he stayed in the more the crowd seemed to be pulling for him. When he was eliminated I genuinely could not tell if the loud reaction was applause for him making it that far, or relief that Backlund was not going to be in the main event of WrestleMania. The finish run is Macho Man vs. Yokozuna, which was better than I remembered, but the execution of the finish is as bad as I remembered. They work a 5 minute singles match as the final two, and it's good. Savage gets Yokozuna reeling with axe handles, Yokozuna hits a great thrust kick, Savage fights back, and eventually hits the big elbow. And then Savage pins Yokozuna...in the Rumble...and Yoko kicks out, sending Savage over the top to the floor. I kinda get it, I guess? The pinfall attempt just looks stupid and makes Savage look like a total dweeb, but I guess I can buy that the two of them had been one on one so long at the end that Savage went into Singles Match Mode. But that elimination? One man just cannot press a man from his back, over the top rope, and make it look like anything other than a man jumping over the top rope. Savage does as well as possible in that situation, but surely we could have figured out a better way for Yokozuna to eliminate Macho Man. This Rumble is way too long and dips hard for a bit in the middle, but that first half has some of the best work in Royal Rumble Match history and that alone makes this one of the best Rumbles, warts and all. 

This feels like one of the best WWF PPVs and it's weird that it doesn't get discussed as such. I thought every match was a varying degree of great, with the Rumble Match itself being too long and having too much deadweight but still succeeding due to a lot of hard work from the entrants. Lawler, Flair, Perfect, Dibiase, and several guys who were only in for 3 minutes all had great showings, and it had some of the nastiest elimination bumps of any Rumble. The other 4 matches are great in their specific way, and I think it's important that they all accomplished something very different, all felt very different. The opening tag is one of the great WWF tags of the 90s, Michaels/Jannetty had a better match at a house show the day before (and a much better match a few months later on Raw) but still delivered here, the big boys fight was fast paced and fun, and Hart/Razor gave us a Bret singles match that we rarely saw (they had two PPV matches and to my knowledge no other singles matches that made tape). This was a great show. Every single match is recommended. 

Best Matches: 

1. Beverly Brothers vs. Steiners

2. Bret Hart vs. Razor Ramon

3. Big Boss Man vs. Bam Bam Bigelow

4. The Rumble Match

5. Shawn Michaels vs. Marty Jannetty

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WWF Handheld Reno, NV 1/23/93

Running a 2,000 attendance house in a 12,000 capacity arena just a day before the Royal Rumble, this show had a couple unique matches I wanted to see and a nice snowy winter season happening outside. 

1/23/93 Full Show

The Predator vs. Jim Powers

ER: God bless early 90s camcorder dads who knew how short the battery life on their camcorders were, yet always overextended themselves thinking they could afford to record Jim Powers working Tony Garea tribute matches and still have enough battery for the main event. Memories of every plug of the school gymnasium being hogged by dad's charging their extra batteries. Predator is Horace Boulder under a mask, and it's really funny to me to have a guy named PREDATOR but have him working a lot of pointing at his head after dodged charges or complaining about Powers pulling the tights. Predator seems like a risky gimmick to assign someone in wrestling, but it also makes me laugh thinking about the Predator pointing at his head in the jungle right before Arnold sneaks up behind him with a schoolboy. Predator was the only one keeping this match interesting as Powers is all bad punches and arm wringers. There was a nice spot where Predator blocked a sunset flip and then punched the mat going after Powers, and I like  a guy who pulls his opponent face first into the turnbuckles by grabbing the waistband of his trunks. Predator does an admirable job selling Powers' punch and kneelift to set up his match finishing powerslam, and we collectively thank this camcorder dad for editing out a long Predator chinlock where Powers' abdomen was desperately heaving. 

Samu vs. Owen Hart

ER: This was a better version of the Powers/Predator match in half the time, with our undaunted director also opting to trim out Samu's chinlock. WWF loves having a babyface make their comeback after being held in a chinlock, and this man recognized what he should and shouldn't be filming. Here Owen gets that sunset flip that Jim Powers couldn't turn, but it only gets a one count and Samu hits him with a thrust kick after. There's a fun stretch where it felt like Owen could pull it off, after hitting a nice spinning heel kick and then knocking Fatu off the apron. I thought he was going to put Samu away with a missile dropkick, but Fatu snuck up and knocked Owen balls first into the top turnbuckle, Samu putting him away with a follow-up superplex. After the match, Owen continues selling his balls in the ring long after the Headshrinkers have left, even explaining to the ref what happened from his back. Owen makes the Vader V with his right hand and then uses the edge of his left hand to chop at that V, explaining what the top turnbuckle did to his balls. The ref nods understandingly before exiting the ring. 

Yokozuna vs. Earthquake

ER: This showdown would have looked insane to my 12 year old eyes, a clash of the two (probably) largest men I had ever seen. Little could anyone in attendance have known how rare this match was going to be. Their sumo match on Raw over a year later was their only televised match, and other than that they had only a few scattered house show matches, many of them in California. Seems cruel to present an Earthquake as a babyface in California but that's what they do. This was great in its too brief existence. We get some good shoving to start, Earthquake showing off his footwork to dodge Yokozuna's shoves, running into Yokozuna with shoulderblocks that make both take a step back. Yokozuna takes over with a back elbow to counter an Earthquake avalanche, and runs over Earthquake like it's nothing. Maybe I just get dewy-eyed and sappy during a wrestling match between two gigantic fat guys, but I tell you the air went out of the crowd when Earthquake took that back bump. Yokozuna dropped a gorgeous legdrop and Earthquake did a full body spasm like he had just been decapitated, and I was shocked at how quickly and easily Yokozuna put things away with the banzai splash. This match felt big enough to be a PPV attraction and get 12 minutes. But some things can only be contained in short starbursts. This was only their second match, and all 3 of these minutes were great. But it's a shame that we never got to see them have an actual war of the colossus.

The Beverly Brothers vs. The Undertaker

ER: This was advertised on the arena sign as Undertaker vs. Papa Shango, so I guess they felt like since they blatantly false advertised one of the two matches they announced for this show, the best way to pay that back was by just having three minutes of Undertaker laying waste. The great twist, is that I think this 3 minute sprint is more entertaining than any Undertaker/Soul Taker match I can remember. Undertaker vs. Papa Shango doesn't play as big as it should, but this handicap match was like a T-Rex vs. two velociraptors. But, well, two dumb jock velociraptors. This looked like it was going to be a one-sided mauling, both Beverlys getting run over by Undertaker for a minute straight after cheapshotting him before the bell. Bloom and Enos are both great bumpers, and they play this match like they were Kaientai, and it was the best. They get some brief control, when Bloom hits Taker with a chair and Enos snaps his neck over the top rope. The crowd reactions for Taker's deadman sit-ups keep getting louder, and the Beverlys act more and more annoying the longer they're in control. Undertaker has a fun time with the whole thing, and it looked like he was doing his own separate bit at ringside as he kept stumbling and falling into Mike McGuirk. Beverlys hit a bunch of elbowdrops after hitting a tandem vertical suplex, but leave their backs turned for far too long around a man known for rising from the dead, and the Reno kids lost it when he sat up again and ran wild. Enos takes a huge cartwheeling bump over the top to the floor to sell an uppercut, Bloom gets finished in ring by the Tombstone.

Berzerker vs. Bob Backlund

ER: Berzerker is a great house show act, as he works with the crowd and does unique bits more than any other wrestler from this era, even more than Flair. Here he barks ar Backlund and starts whipping at him with the belt from his tunic while Backlund is folding his ring jacket, that belt coming closer and closer with each whip. The crowd reacts with some real hostility to this one, the Reno crowd booing Backlund's dorkiness at the bell and only mildly getting behind him when he swept Berzerker's leg into Berzerker doing the splits. Berzerker getting his leg swept or kicked into doing the splits is the kind of spot that should get a big reaction every time, but this is a weird pairing and the crowd didn't seem to like it. It's funny when Berzerker rolls out of the ring and is out of camera sight, but you can hear him Hussing around ringside at people. They take a long time to lock up, with Berzerker repeatedly challenging Backlund to reach up and grab his right hand way up in the air, and Backlund responding with trepidation. 

The crowd seems annoyed that the match isn't starting at first, and then Berzerker keeps milking the annoyed reaction to build more and more heat, until the crowd is loudly mocking Berzerker with Huss chants and he is doing back bumps out of frustration. Berzerker finally does get that knucklelock and forces Backlund to his knees, and Backlund valiantly fights to his feet before rolling through to his own top wristlock, which Berzerker breaks with his fist. It's like they're working a Jack Brisco/Killer Khan match straight out of 1979, and that, while simple at times, mostly works. Berzerker eventually takes one of his big backwards bumps to the floor and then marches angrily down the aisle, drawing heat the whole way. In ring he hits a couple of bodyslams and jaws at fans, and works a long (probably too long) bearhug which eventually ends with Backlund somewhat lamely just falling on Berzerker for the pin. A fan either near the camera or holding the camera thinks aloud that this was one of the worst matches he has ever seen. This was not a classic, and was somehow the second longest match on the show, but it did have its rewards.  

Ric Flair vs. Mr. Perfect

ER: This was a real crowd pleaser, the kind of strong 15 minute match that you'd want to see if you were excited to see either of these two, checking off all the greatest hit Flair boxes without ever feeling like it was coasting. Flair is a guy who can play the greatest hits and not feel like he's bored with them and can still throw in a couple surprises with a smile. It's cool seeing how big he can work a house show match, taking some painful high bumps (on a hard ring) while working toward specific sides of the crowd. He's a guy who is excellent at causing a stir in a specific section of the building, knows how to pick fights with people from the ring, and knows how to get great heat for 15 minutes. He does all his shtick and does it get: He shoves Perfect a couple times and gets slapped each time, he takes a long walk down the aisle after eating a shoulderblock, he gets caught going up top and takes a hard bump getting press slammed down, obviously he's going to take a high backdrop. 

When he's on offense he's cheating, and it gets a rise the entire time. I'm gonna give the cameraman credit for partially obscuring the lens when Flair threw a low kick and eye poke, as if he was helping Flair cheat to transition. Flair worked over Perfect's arm and held a grounded headlock while planking his legs on the middle rope. He does the full routine on two sides of the ring, and the spot our cameraman picked couldn't have framed it any better. Flair was practically working this entire routine for this guy. Flair really rubs his cheating in to our side of the ring, at one point holding just one straightened leg on the ropes while bicycling his free leg. We also get a perfectly framed shot of Flair holding his calf over Perfect's throat, like Flair was putting on a show especially for us. The finish stretch is great, with stiff chops from both, Flair getting his trunks yanked down for a good sunset flip nearfall, and then keeping them down to the glee of the crowd when he ducks his way right into a Perfect Plex. Classic house show stuff, 100% success rate. 

Shawn Michaels vs. Marty Jannetty

ER: Shawn gets announced first and does a great job getting heat just by taking off his chaps. He also tries to grab Mike McGuirk a couple times and it gets people upset because he looks like a guy who would definitely try to grab a woman. Marty is wearing fantastic turquoise and zebra tights with perfect tassels, honestly some of his best gear. A stark, damning contrast to the atrocities he would would inflict upon the Royal Rumble crowd the next night. This match had the finish stretch of that next night's match but was pretty different overall, and probably even better. There's a long Michaels abdominal stretch spot that has an excellent first act but then probably carries on a bit too long in the second act before rushing through the third. You can usually wrap up your abdominal stretch spot in one act, but it was still a great hammy Michaels performance. The best kind of hammy Michaels is house show shithead Michaels, where he's shaking his ass at the crowd and giving people in the front row cocky asshole smirks, and those abdominal stretches give him plenty of time to rub some specific fans' noses in it. Michaels goes into control really quick in this match (he skipped and floundered around the ring for a lot of okay Marty offense the next night), sending Jannetty frisbeeing into the ringpost. 

He works over Marty's arm with hammerlocks and strikes, and once he's worked over the arm enough he starts working over Marty's midsection. I love when a heel switches targets after suitably damaging one area. There's a great spot where he drops Jannetty stomach first over a chair on the outside, which at least gives us good reason to work that abdominal stretch for so long. The great first act on that stretch that I mentioned earlier, is Michaels locking it in near the ropes (for cheating purposes) and a nice build to Marty hip tossing his way out of it. But right as Marty gets there, Shawn holds onto the tope rope to block, and the blocked toss re-injures Marty's arm. GREAT spot. The finish stretch has a lot of similarities to the PPV match the next night, working out the timing for a couple of spots: Jannetty catching Michaels with a DDT after Michaels thought he got out of the way of a fistdrop, and Michaels missing a superkick only to be nailed with one for a close 2. If anything, Earl Hebner was really rushing counts, which didn't give a lot of time for the nearfalls to settle in, but added a manic feel that the crowd did respond to. Since Sherri wasn't here, the finish was different, simple, and well done. Michaels gets thrown into the buckles and slumps into them, but ducks out of the way of a great Jannetty missed avalanche and then scrambles onto him for a quick pin. He shoots a quick Fuck Yeah glance at a person at ringside he'd been taunting the whole match, and BAM, Shawn Michaels has left the building. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WWF 305 LIVE

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE BERZERKER

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