Found Footage Friday: ABBY~! KIMALA II~! RUSHER~! INOUE~! ORTON~! TAKER~! OMNI~!

Abdullah the Butcher/Giant Kimala II vs. Rusher Kimura/Mighty Inoue AJPW 12/1/90

MD: Big IWE stars vs. monsters energy here, even if Rusher and Inoue were up in the years. This overachieved from my expectations, which were set in part for seeing Abby in so many short, abruptly ending tags from this era and from seeing Rusher in so many comedy matches. I love those matches by the way, but that wasn't going to work here.

What we got instead was pretty gruesome actually. Rusher bled early and they worked over the wound with headbutts, chops, and Abby just sticking his finger in the wound awesome. When Inoue got in, he turned the tables, sitting up on Abby's shoulders and poking him repeatedly with the fork until he dropped back. Then he kept it going with a bunch of awesome headlock punches until Kimala broke it up. The kept things rolling with a couple of chairshots from the outside in. Pretty valiant stuff.

Even the finish had one or two more rotations than I was expecting as Abby hit his cool Angle Slam type suplex but Inoue survived it only to get crushed with the throat shot/elbow drop combo. Post-match, Abby and Kimala bowed to all four sides. Not a lost classic but I'd say still well worth your time.

ER: This was disgusting, extremely violent, not far off from Great. Matt said gruesome and that's a good word for it. This wasn't a Fork Stabbing Abby match, this was built around punching and bleeding and digging into cuts. The match is helped by the HD of these new episodes of AJ Classics, as the second Abby is stabbing his fingers into Rusher's head I knew they weren't going to hold back. Abdullah's stiff fingered thrusts and jabs looked so painful, and it is 50-50 whether or not he had some kind of blade in his finger tape, because Rusher's head bled quick and Abby's fingertips were soon soaked red. Kimura's blood ran in rivulets down his chest and Abby dug his fingers into Rusher's cuts and the rest of his face. It was disgusting and the cameras zoomed in close on it to show the savagery. 

But these IWE guys are tough, so when Rusher finally tags in Might Inoue, Inoue shoot punches Abby in the head a couple dozen times and it's incredible. Inoue enters the ring climbing onto Abby's shoulders and just punches and stabs away at his head. Did we know Inoue was hiding a sharp object that he was going to use to scrape and stab at Abby's head while throwing shoot hammerfists? Abdullah the Butcher doesn't stab a single soul in this match with a fork, but Mighty Inoue introduces a weapon with no warning? Maybe this match is actually greater than great. When they both go down, Inoue grabs him in a headlock and throws sick blood wet splat punches repeatedly as the camera is again right on top of these slasher movie visuals. Every time Inoue ran and flew at Abby with a headbutt, you could hear his head actually smacking into Butcher's chin! He hits one in the ropes to knock Abby to the floor, and more in the ring. Great spot. Inoue's flipping senton is always so cool. It hits with impact but has the flourish and showmanship of French Catch. Abby rolling just out of the way of a senton and leading to him massacring Inoue's throat was a great late match sudden turn. Abby's Angle Slam is a really great spot and I love when he breaks it out. Using his bulk to perform weight physics is an Abby we don't get to see as often as Stabbing Abby. 

Kimala II was the odd man out in this, and he usually is, which is why I always look forward to Kimala II matches. He is the weirdest All Japan regular during their extended run of high expectancy ring work. He is clumsy, he doesn't work anywhere near as stiff as the style demands, he falls weird on offense, and despite being in his mid 20s he moves about as well as Abdullah the Butcher. But he torpedoes into the action at fun times, including a big bump thrown through the ropes to the floor. He's probably the thing holding this match from being legitimately great, but you can't deny the crowd excitement when he started slapping his belly. 

Dustin Rhodes/Ricky Steamboat/Shane Douglas vs. Steve Austin/Brian Pillman/Barry Windham WCW 2/7/93

MD: We get the last eight minutes of this and then a big post-match brawl. On the one hand, it's a shame we lose out on the elimination match because it sounds amazing on paper, but we're better off for what we do get here than nothing at all. Part of that is because Steamboat looks like the best babyface in the world here. Some of it is the way this is shot with no commentary. It just feels closer up, right in the midst of the action, and Steamboat working from underneath here is just transcendent. The way he moves his body, expanding and contracting, hanging on to the ropes, finding strength within, expressing pain and writhing emotion, is just over the top great. 

And Austin, in his own way, is almost as good. He's put upon, frustrated, aggravated that Steamboat refuses to quite, that he paints himself as so sympathetic a figure, that he dares to appeal to his humanity. At one point, Steamboat ... it's not begging off, I wouldn't say he's begging off, but he does seem to call for some level of mercy, maybe just to get things back on a more even playing field, but Austin, framing it perfectly, timing it as dramatically as possible, cinematically in a way that would only work in footage like this, that would be overwrought or overproduced on TV, literally spits on the effort. That makes it all the more poignant when Steamboat, in the midst of his big comeback, blows a mist of spit himself later on. Just really primal stuff.

That stays through into the chaotic post-match, bodies flying and violence ebbing and flowing and ebbing again. Weirdly enough, Shane Douglas might have stood out the most here, as he came off as a real powerhouse. Still, this post match, as good as it was and with a real sense of consequence for matches to come, comes off a little like a consolation prize for the elimination match we didn't get. Still, what a look at Steamboat and Austin.

Kurt Angle vs. Undertaker vs. Randy Orton vs. Mark Henry WWE 3/3/06

MD: House show match from the vault from Australia. I was expecting to see Henry assert himself. That was the draw, but really this was all about Randy Orton, especially but not only him reacting to Undertaker. It's a bit clipped and we come in after entrances with him preening in the corner only to turn around and find Taker there, going for a handshake before he gets rocked with punches. It's easy to joke about the Kyle Fletcher parallels but he was around 26 here and they're clearer here than at almost any other point of his career as best as I can remember.

This is not a version of Orton I remember well, but he was pretty effective even if I did see the strings at times. Plus it was a house show so they really played into it. There was a bit where he teased getting knocked into the crowd three or four times before finally landing on a fan's lap and thanking her after the fact. It was all pretty funny stuff. Plus he was flying around as a menace throughout, including dashing from one opportunistic pin to the next.

Angle was a bit of a non-factor overall, in part due to his current persona, I think, but just because Undertaker and Orton were taking up so much air. And then Henry just seemed there to cut people off at times. He did it effectively but his role could have been much more interesting. Still, this was fun for what it was, but it would have probably worked just as well as two singles matches. 

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Found Footage Friday: STEAMBOAT~! ORTON~! PIPER~! ORNDORFF~! HARTS~! BEES~!

Ricky Steamboat vs. Bob Orton Jr. WWF 3/6/86

MD: We've got a trio of matches from Richard Land's patreon that weren't in ready circulation here. It's worth checking out. There's a well known Steamboat vs Orton match from Landover in 85 and this is a good partner to that.

They go fairly long here (I thought it was headed to a draw actually, especially after Orton survived the flying body press), and it's relatively back and forth thought with fairly lengthy stretches of momentum. Orton's a bump machine here, flipping into the corner and flying all over the place for Steamboat's shots.

Likewise, Steamboat sells like you'd expect him to. After the first minute or so, you can tell that they were going long, but it really picks up in the back half. Steamboat gets a win out of nowhere but then Orton pile drives him after the bell and hits the ref, getting himself suspended immediately (got to put over the PA commission).

Roddy Piper vs. Paul Orndorff WWF 3/6/86

MD: Even Monsoon said this feud had been going on for a while at this point, but they get in and out and get the job done here. Great hot start. Piper's one of the best at throwing fists to start like this, making sure to lose and get knocked out of the ring, only to throw a drink right into Orndorff's face.

Orndorff spends most of the rest of the match selling the eye, and Piper uses to to full advantage anytime Orndorff starts to get over on him, including one great fall away (in the basketball sense, not the wrestling sense) eyepoke. Just when Orndorff finally has Piper on the ropes (or in a Crab as it is), Orton rushes in to cause the DQ. The feud was a little worn out at this point, maybe, but they covered a lot of ground with high energy in just a few minutes here.

Hart Foundation vs. Killer Bees WWF 3/17/86

MD: We come in slightly JIP here, but this was really good. Anvil takes the first chunk of it, getting clowned by the Bees. Brunzell has a great drop toehold, but more of a trip with his arms and there are some good rope running spots. Hart sneaks in on commentary to complain about the (legal) doubleteaming.

Harts take over on Blair and they keep it moving and interesting. Brunzell's hotheaded and draws the ref repeatedly giving this a real southern tag feel. Choking with the ring rope. Double teams (including a modified decapitation). Illegal switches. Some really good hope spots in there as well. Brunzell comes in hot after the (very earned) tag and hits the dropkick for a nearfall. The Bees pick up the surprising (to me at least) win after another bit of miscommunication. Honestly one of the best heel Hart Foundation matches I can think of.

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Found Footage Friday: RACE~! RUDE ~! SHOCKER~! SANTO~! TWICE THE STEAMBOAT~!

Ricky Steamboat vs. Harley Race WWF 10/26/86

MD: We've got a couple of matches from Richard Land's patreon. Go give him a look. This was extremely house show-y, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes it can be a really great thing. I'd call it broader than usual though, which is saying something for these two in specific. They worked towards a curfew draw and there's some clipping but we get a solid 20 minutes so certainly the brunt of the match. That I can't quite make it narratively come together for me was less about the clipping and more about how back and forth it was and just the way they seemed to be working it.

There were definitely some themes throughout: groin shots, Race's head, Steamboat hitting multiple knee drops or elbow drops in quick succession, both men trying suplexes or slams but having the other land on them, Race having a lot of cheapshot cut offs or reversals. They went back to these repeatedly. I'm not sure I could necessarily pull a narrative together out of it. Race was beaten down in his WWF run, but I think I might prefer him this way. I noticed it in 90 Puerto Rico too, how much I appreciated his savvy and timing and framing of things and how so much of what frustrates me about 70s or early 80s Race (especially in Japan) is just less present. It doesn't mean he didn't bump: he took a face first bump off the apron to the floor, but there's maybe less of a drive to big action too often and too early and instead a focus elsewhere. As for Steamboat, when he hit those repeated knee drops, the fans went absolutely nuts even past the point the ref pulled him off. He had a sequence whhere he climb the actual ropes to hit a fist drop and then went up for a splash off the top and despite them continuing to mention the curfew time, they had me for a minute that his momentum was unstoppable and that was going to be the finish (Race got his knees up). So yeah, maybe it didn't come together and maybe, given what they were going for and the setting, and just how good these two were at this point of their career, maybe it didn't have to.

ER: Remember when we didn't have a single Harley Race match on our DVDVR 80s WWF set? We didn't have any Terry Funk or Moondogs or hardly any Andre matches either so it says more about the process than any Race exclusion. It was the first set and the match selection process got air tight by the Other Japan Men. But it is a microcosm of many things that point to how little Race's WWF run is typically discussed when discussing his career. What is the highest regarded Race WWF singles match? That never got discussed as much during any assessment of his work. It's no surprise to anyone reading this that I love the final years of great wrestlers. Harley Race is a guy who always seemed old and his WWF run started when he actually was getting old. An old used up sack of shit 43 year old. Harley Race is my peer. I feel spiritually connected now to 1986 Harley Race's incredible bumping, leveled on the spiritual plane. Equals. Sore joints, delicate back, waking up with a surprise sciatic jolt down your leg, fucking 43 years old. 

My body has seen less abuse than former NWA World Champion Harley Race's body. He's a man you couldn't fathom in modern wrestling. This kind of man doesn't exist in the world today, and certainly doesn't exist in current professional wrestling. I like the Butcher as much as anyone but that's a guy who goes in on a brewery with his boys; Harley Race is the guy who would Tasmanian devil his way through that brewery. None of us have ever been involved in violent road incidents as pastime. Harley Race is an anachronism. A man sitting shotgun in a Seville pulling his 5th Bud off the ring one night is the same 43 year old scary uncle who was taking pratfalls like a barroom Buster Keaton a couple hours earlier. I cannot honestly fucking imagine living life as Harley Race. I can imagine being Cody Rhodes or Jey Uso pretty easily. But I can't picture what being Harley Race in the 70s was like. 

I think Harley Race is a beautiful wrestler. Let me know if this makes sense, but I think I love the way Harley Race bumps so much because he bumps the way Andre would have bumped if he was half the size. Harley Race hides this athleticism in plain sight the same way Andre would, by moving stiffly and falling differently than anyone else's physics. Don't let anyone ever tell you that Harley Race was old and washed during his WWF run. This was a house show main event. A large house in Maple Leaf Gardens in a main event going to a draw. Maybe people subconsciously don't view Race's WWF run because they were viewing him as a relic from the midwest making towns era and not a guy who worked in the TV era. I don't know. Harley Race was a relic by the late 80s, but his appeal as a relic was his entire appeal. He was never not a throwback to people because he was too real to be fake. This is a house show main event that contains no less than eight violent or unique Race falls, putting on a show for people who will never have any way to visually revisit the ballet again. 

Now we revisit, and we get to see Race in 86 was as good as Race in 74. I couldn't believe the way he moved. He's a large man making Ricky Steamboat's offense and pull look authentic, falling hard and getting up quick, falling onto his ass, being flipped onto his ass, beating up those knees in ways that make me now squint in pain at my spiritual peer. I don't know how much money I would have to be paid to face plant off the apron to the floor the way Race dementedly does here, but it's probably more than what Race made that night. What the hell were you doing man? Race could have very easily not done that and still sent fans home knowing they had seen Harley Race put on a show. Can you imagine seeing your dad fall this way? God. The energy this 43 year old peer has is something I don't think he was ever given proper credit for. Race as a go go go forebear of Kurt Angle is overblown. He looks like a guy who shouldn't be able to do the things he does, and that's a cool trait. If you somehow saw a man in your day to day business that looked like Harley Race, you'd know he was a tough son of a bitch. But you'd never in a million years think he'd be able to work for 25 complicatedly athletic minutes and build a rousing full match reaction for a draw. I was blown away at how he got up for everything and how hard he landed for even simple bumps. This is a man who only knew how to fucking go out there and perform in main events. Harley Race couldn't exist today. 

Ricky Steamboat vs. Rick Rude WCW 6/25/92

MD: This was far more conventional than the Race match despite being billed as no disqualification (mainly to cover Madusa shenanigans in the finish). It was almost comfortably so. Steamboat took over early with a perfectly timed and place punch to Rude's gut (well, abs) as he left it open. Theatrically perfect. He lost the offense by going for the climb up headlock takeover one too many times and ending up in a belly to back. Rude then worked over his back with various holds, Steamboat fought out, sold the back just enough to allow Rude to take back over with a cheapshot and then they repeated it.

It's formulaic but the formula balances when you have wrestlers who can make it work. It's time-tested and proven true and it worked great with this crowd. Steamboat's selling (not just in the moment but as he fought just to move despite the pain he was in) put it over the top. Rude finally went for a sleeper instead of something afflicting the back and Steamboat was able to come back more thoroughly. He nailed a teeter totter-ed tombstone but Madusa distracted the ref. He had her up for a press slam but Rude hit him with a chop block. Rude tried to hit the Rude Awakening but Steamboat reversed it and hit one of his own only for Madusa to put Rude's foot on the rope. When Rude finally got to hit it, Madusa pushed Steamboat's foot OFF the rope in a nice parallel moment for the finish. Again, none of this probably came as a surprise to anyone reading, but it all a great bit of business. Straight down the middle, smart, engaging, and well executed but not post-modern in the least. The Race/Steamboat match felt like abstract art compared to this.

ER: This was fantastic. I know WCW shows drew like shit in this era but fuck man the people watching the picture perfect way Rick Rude moved around Ricky Steamboat's pose holding karate timing. This was super athletic and hard worked, paced out great, and didn't waste a single action. There's so much waste in modern wrestling. You can tell when guys don't care about a kick to the stomach or gloss over a set up to get to the big conclusion. It's obvious, but you get mired in it when most guys do it. It's the style of the times. But seeing the boys do it, seeing Rude at the peak of his Pro Wrestling Being, and treating each Steamboat chop and punch in a way that moves his body theatrically yet appropriately. Every headlock and cravat and abdominal stretch and boxed ears and shoulderblock was treated like an important detail, and it's that reverence for every detail that made these Missouri Meatheads stay loud the entire time. I love how Rude's body gets shoved sideways by Steamboat's chops, how he lurches in place taking his punches. Nobody moves like Rude even though some have badly tried. Do you know how much godawful Dolph Ziggler/Kofi Kingston matches I watched that were all the worst versions of Rude/Steamboat? It doesn't matter how much they ape the match, it was weightless. Weightless, and nothing uniquely goofy like Rude flopping his arm while getting his head bounced off the top buckle, a man wrestling a big match for a small but intensely invested crowd. And the HEAT Madusa got and how ANGRY they sounded when her distraction meant Rude kicking out of the excellently battled over tombstone? Her hair looked perfect and her Barbie Party Dazzle dress couldn't have looked better. When she shoves Steamboat's foot off the bottom rope without the ref noticing? Bobby Heenan couldn't have done it better. 

El Hijo del Santo vs. Shocker Monterrey 10/21/01

MD: Turn of the 00s Shocker is a guy who I get but that I don't necessarily get the praise at the time for. He won a DVDVR 500 in 2002. Good punches. Lots of swagger. He's good, but that good? Everyone gets into lucha at different times. I push up against the conventional wisdom of the 90s and early 00s a lot because I got into it around 2012. That absolutely frames the way I look at Casas and it probably does Shocker as well. I first saw him during the RUSH feud and I might like that gnarled bastard more than this guy to a degree. It also means I jump at chances to see new matches from this period though. And this one gave me a lot to look at.

And you're not going to much better than a 30 minute Monterrey find against Santo. This was actually a kind of weird visual experience because there was confetti in the ring. Usually not an issue, but combined with the VQ, every far shot ended up looking overly pixelated because of it. Not a huge deal overall. This had time to breathe which meant they treated it almost like a title match, spending most of the primera on the mat. This was not smooth entries and exits and reversals though. It was gritty and uncooperative, snatching at limbs and rolling around. Even the stuff that should have been slick, like both men, legs locked, moving into a headstand to trade blows, didn't quite work. Not working was fine though because it just meant Santo landed on top of him and punched away.

After eating a big back body drop to the floor, a tope, and then Santo's finishing run off the top and with the clutch, Shocker took over in the segunda. He hit all the marks with gusto like you'd expect, a low blow, lifting Santo up at a two count, tossing him into the stands, doing a handspring into a pose. Santo was always trying to fight back, like the hero he was, but Shocker kept on top of him accordingly.

Everything came together in the tercera just how you'd want. Shocker tossed Santo back into the crowd, but he turned a whip into the post around, opening Shocker up. From there, he zoned in on the face (something the commentary said the women had previously begged Santo not to do). Shocker cut him off and they went back and forth til the end. That included a great battle over another Caballo Santo's corner tope, before we got an imaginative ref bump while Santo was in the tree of woe with Shocker misaiming the dropkick, another foul while the ref was down, a face-saving pin for Shocker and ultimately the DQ win for Santo. Everything was working exactly as it should have down the stretch with what came before it providing all of it gravitas. This actually helped bridge some of the gap with Shocker for me. Yes, he was in there against Santo but he did everything right, had lots of imagination, and covered it all with that patina of swagger and style. I'm not sure that makes him the best in the world, but I can see how certain people with certain preferences might have thought that around that time.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 7/31 - 8/6

AEW Collision 8/5/23

CM Punk (c?) vs Ricky Starks

MD: This had a ton of time to breathe and it's probably the best I've ever seen Starks look. Just the right combination of energy, attitude, and a chip on his shoulder; he looked like a star. They built off of the last match with bits like holding the ropes open, and played right into a very split crowd reacting to two tweeners. The entire feeling out process (worked like a title match opening) was buoyed by the loud and consistent dueling chants, highlighted by both guys getting to do each other's taunts. The first commercial break had Punk in control doing the Hogan shtick and playing with the crowd. The second commercial break had Starks in control and Punk working from underneath with hope spots and comebacks and a crowd that was more inclined to just chant for Punk.

Steamboat added tiny bits of specialness without overshadowing what was going on. That included coming out to his WCW theme, reacting to Starks' armdrags, calling Starks out when he held the ropes on a sunset flip, and then playing into the finish, which maybe could have had Steamboat roll in just a little quicker, but ultimately he was moving swiftly and it worked for me. And then the post-match segment, paralleling what happened fifteen years ago, cemented the Starks heel turn in the most memorable way.

At his best, Starks carries himself like an Attitude Era star, like someone who could hold his own in a TV main event in 1999 right in the thick of it. There's no one else on AEW TV that works like that and what he needs to pull it off is to be able to turn the volume up as high as possible and wrestle with endless confidence. If he believes, the crowd believes and it feels like a big deal. He felt like he belonged in there with Punk on this night and because of that, the crowd bought into stakes that are dubious at best.

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RIP Bobby Eaton Pt. 1

It has been a rough couple of weeks for wrestling deaths, and the great Bobby Eaton had a great career and great life. There is so much tremendous footage available, so we are going to be doing several posts over the next week.

Bobby Eaton vs. Koko Ware CWA 12/6/80

MD: I think this was actually December 1980, deep into the year without Lawler, which is a time in Memphis I always have a lot of fondness for, just due to the outlandishness of having guys like Ellering and Eaton king. This is pure Memphis, as Valiant's out to destroy poor Koko's TV (again; he's de facto lead heel having just insulted Tommy Rich's mother) and Koko can't do anything about it since he has to fight for his life against King Eaton. He would have been an underdog in any situation, but he's got extra fire and extra anger as the TV gets destroyed by the announce position almost immediately, and it's up to Eaton to bully him and lean on him and really keep the offense going in order to keep Koko down. The containment works exactly as intended and when Koko ducks a shot and starts to fire back the studio goes nuts building to a bigger prize when Koko actually gets his hands on Hart. If I have my timing right on this, they were in the midst of Tojo/Valiant vs Rich/Koko main events with Eaton vs Tony Charles in the mid card and this was a great example of entertaining TV that served a lot of purposes and gave the fans a legitimate thrill and pop despite being entirely inconclusive and setting up the live shows to come. Exactly what studio wrestling should be and Eaton played his part perfectly. 

PAS: These two formed a legendary but under footaged tag team a couple of years after this match, and it was cool to watch them work a studio fight. One thing that really struck me about this match was Eaton's athletic explosiveness. Bobby Eaton didn't look like an elite athlete, but man was his motor high and his attacks kinetic. Just the speed and force he hit a simple elbow drop, just great. Fun business with Handsome Jimmy smashing the big ass 1980's vacuum tube TV too.

ER: 21 year old Bobby Eaton is a treat. He's like an athletic brother of Francis in Pee Wee's Big Adventure, making chubby faced sneers while working a long mid-match headlock. But the 21 year old also hit really hard shoulderblocks and threw his headlock punches with a confident sass. Koko plays this like kind of a cooler black Bob Backlund, sticking his butt out to sell Eaton's already hot punches. Drop downs and leap frogs are quick and honest, and Eaton hits one of the most gorgeous highlight reel elbowdrops. He runs off the ropes and leaps from the three point line, landing perfectly horizontal with his elbow across Koko's collarbones. Jimmy Hart is an incredible manager and not only was his voice great from ringside, but his physical involvement at the finish was really tough stuff. Hart had a feel of a guy getting into a public fight and immediately getting in over his head, like a too tough talking small town pharmacist. 10 minutes of Memphis stacks up consistently with the best wrestling ever. 

Bobby Eaton vs. Abdullah The Butcher WCW 9/28/91

PAS: This was an incredible four minutes. Abby jumps Eaton before the bell while he is hugging some kids and smashes him with a kendo stick, posts him, throws him into chairs and lights him up with chair shots. They brawl to the back, and right when you think this is 90 seconds, they pop back out from the curtain with Eaton pasting Abby with those right hands, he tees off with a chair on Abby, and looks like he is going to finish him off with an Alabama Jam until Catcus runs out and jumps him. Eaton gets thrown off the ring apron into the guard rail, and gets double teamed until Rick Steiner runs out for the save. Totally wild stuff, with Eaton almost working as a Steve Austin babyface. Loved it. 

ER: Here's a great match to show someone who would be interested in seeing in how much can be accomplished in pro wrestling in just 4 minutes. This hardly ever gets to be a real match, the bells rings before 4 minutes have even passed, and yet I guarantee every fan in attendance went home talking about this match. Abdullah jumps Eaton during his entrance and really beats him, including throwing him like a comic book villain through some chairs, then beating him down on the floor with a chair. He completely overwhelms Eaton, kicking his ass back through the curtains. Magic happens once they cross that curtain threshold, as Eaton comes out firing, punching Abby back to ringside and runs halfway around the ring to find his own damn chair. You get a real joyous bloodlust crowd reaction when Eaton charges back with his chair, and he absolutely pastes Abby with 4 or 5 chairshots that looked as violent as any Attitude era shots. Cactus runs in when Abby gets in too much trouble, and he rocket launches Eaton off the apron ribs first into the guardrail. This was incredibly entertaining, Abby looked humongous and dangerous, Eaton looked like the kind of babyface everyone would want to root for, Rick Steiner looked like a fearless top babyface. It was the best of everything. 

Bad Attitude (Bobby Eaton/Steve Keirn) vs. Ricky Steamboat/Arn Anderson WCW 5/1/94

MD: There's a moment midway through this match, just after the heels took over with a blind switch, where Eaton hits an elbow drop off the top rope on Anderson. It lands well and looks impactful, because of course it does, but afterwards, Eaton does something odd. He stumbles off to the side and bounces off the second rope before he recovers to keep the beating going. You're left wondering why he made that specific decision. Was it to sell the beating he had taken so far? Was it to get over the damage that he was willing to do to himself and how dangerous and powerful the elbow drop was? Was it to justify with a move so back, even so early in the beatdown, didn't immediately put Anderson away. I don't know. It could have meant any of that or all of it, but fifty other wrestlers doing an elbow off the top in that moment wouldn't have done it. Eaton did and it added to the match because it felt totally natural and it felt meaningful. It made everything that was going on somehow more tangible and real; it wasn't rote and you didn't expect it and it made you wonder, but in a way that drew you more into the match instead of taking you out of it. That's what Bobby Eaton did. 

If it was to sell the early beating he took, that would have certainly been warranted, because he fit a lot of pain and stooging into a three minute period, bumping up and over the rail, including a press from Anderson off the apron into it. None of the bumps were particularly huge but he sold them in such a skittish, almost tragic way that they meant far more than far bigger ones than most others would take. We're eulogizing Bobby here, for good reason, but a quick note on Arn: he always says he wasn't a great babyface because he didn't have "tools," and here I think tools are shorthand for dropkicks and the sort. He always had the makings for a standing tall Bill Watts/Dusty Rhodes style babyface though and that's fully at play here. He had amazing timing on hope spots (which makes sense as he was always so good at his cutoffs) and could garner sympathy as he dragged himself around the ring during a beating, and when you had great strikes and a lightning fast KO move like the spinebuster, you didn't need to be throwing about flying back elbows. Though, of course, it helps when you're across the ring from someone like Bobby Eaton.

PAS: 1994 WCW is a bit of a blind spot for me, I don't really remember seeing very many Bad Attitude matches before, but this "pals of Stan Lane" version of the Fabs is really great. Keirn had turned into a real creepy looking guy at this point, and had really good heel facial expressions. He hit this awesome looking flying forearm for his high spot and was great at the nuts and bolts parts of being a heel. I enjoyed babyface Arn, loved the Spinebuster as a babyface move here, and he and Steamboat make a really effective pair. Of course Bobby was electric, with big bumps and great looking small bumps, cool twists on formulas, and a real speedy energy for a guy who was also great at going slow. 

ER: Bad Attitude were a really great proto Southern Comfort, with a wild eyed Keirn sporting a craziest era Billy Bob Thornton shaved head mullet as Eaton plays the more strait-laced southern pro. And you get to see these complementary souther pros take apart a FIP Arn for 8 minutes, and it's great. Eaton takes some big leaps, getting rocket launched by Arn from the apron to the guardrail, and later landing a perfect top rope elbowdrop on Arn. He and Keirn cut Arn off from Steamboat really effectively, with Keirn coming off like a cool closed fist punching tough guy and Eaton knowing exactly how to play all the timing spots, when to distract Steamboat, when to direct Arn back into the wrong corner. Steamboat's hot tag is really the only down part of the match, with Steamboat coming in with lesser Kofi Kingston offense, karate chops that are the weakest looking strikes in the match, and a standing splash that's pulled so much it's like a dad fake wrestling with his toddler. We only got half a year of Bad Attitude, but it was a real great combination of two legendary tag wrestlers who gelled immediately. 

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New Footage Friday: Rude, Blonds, Scorpio, Steamboat, Sting, Destroyer, Baba, Razor, Tito

The Destroyer/Bill Dromo/Kurt von Stroheim vs. Giant Baba/Michiaki Yoshimura/Toyonobori JWA 12/1/64

MD: Everyone who's seen any amount of Destroyer matches think that he's great, just a perfect marriage of credibility and comedy, able to provide far more of the latter than you'd expect, especially in Japan, while never, ever losing the former. The reason why we can never quite rank him higher against his peers is that we just don't have enough varied footage. Here, though, he was in his mid 30s, and he feels undeniably like one of the best I've ever seen. Baba's amazing too, with this electric alacrity that I'm not sure I've ever seen out of him. He's got this lightning throat chop that feels like Sangre Chicana's comeback punch. It's that good.

This goes forty minutes but it feels like a breezy fifteen. It tells a half dozen narratives, narratives that maybe never add up to a greater whole, but still never feels disjointed or ambling. The other four guys in the ring hold their own, with Destroyer, Dromo, and Von Stroheim amazingly on the same page for three guys who seem completely different. The finish is the best thing too, Destroyer, who stooged and gooned and grumbled the whole match, expertly escaping a rolling bodyscissors and locking in a laser-fast 1964 figure-four leglock, basically earning two falls in one. It was this great Buddy Rose moment where a guy who fed and fed transcends the normal scorn of the crowd by showing that he's an absolute killer.

PAS: This is some of the earliest Destroyer footage we have, he is an all time great who we don't have a full view of. There isn't a ton of new tricks a new Flair match will show us, but we don't know all of the Destroyers tunes. Structure of the match was interesting, they would alternate between the heels controlling with quick tags, and the native trios getting off big moves with the heels stooging and bumping. Nifty bits of stooge work by the heels, I loved Destroyer flying all around the ring for Yoshimura's drop kicks, and Baba is treated like a total monster. The match really kicks into gear in the last section with Destroyer slamming Baba on the floor, and Baba coming back like a maniac wrecking everyone.

The finish itself was totally awesome, with Yoshimura ripping off a rolling bodyscissors, and Destroyer spinning out super fast into a figure four, it was a crazy bit of athleticism, which you don't really see in later Destroyer matches. They do the super old school thing where the refs and other wrestlers need to untangle the legs to break the hold and Yoshimura lays slumped in the corner selling like he tore his patella. Destroyer struts around like a cocky dick as Yoshimura can't answer the bell for the third fall. Destroyer comes off like such a legend, a badass who can end a match in an instant. If I was a fan in the 60s I would totally would buy a ticket to see Baba or Toyonbouri try to take him down, but I would be terrified that he could break one of my hero's in the snap of his fingers.

Tito Santana vs. Razor Ramon 6/29/92

MD: I know 84-94 WWF as much as anything, with 90-92 WWF that sweet spot of nostalgia from when I was 10. So while this wasn't great, I still wanted to talk about it. Obviously, Hall had honed the Ramon gimmick as the Diamond Studd (and if I'm not mistaken, a bit in PR before that), but there's an element to his work here that is really interesting.

He feigned apathy in a way that no WWF heel ever had before him. Basically, he worked this match as a dismissive cool heel and it was something the crowd had never really seen. There's been a lot written about how cool heels swallow their opponents on the mic, but look at what he does here (and how he turns it on a dime to effect later in the match). When Tito gets him in an armbar early, he just casually walks to the ropes, putting his foot through to break it. He feigns that it's not even worth the effort to try to escape. By the second or third time he does this, the fans are irate at him because it goes against everything they know. Some heels (like a Dibiase sort) might have tried to get to the ropes, but only because they couldn't escape any other way. To Ramon, it wasn't even worth trying. Later on, while feeding for Tito a bit, he'd just sidestep him and use his side to redirect him over the top rope. He'd sell the arm, would jaw with the ref, but he was in absolutely no rush to go back after Tito. It was this 90s mentality which went against everything the fans were trained to think about wrestling. There was also an element of visual dissonance. Ramon was big, bigger than Tito, but he was just so purposefully laconic and taking shortcuts, not because he had to or because he liked to but because he didn't see any point in not taking them.

Here, because it was one wrestler in one match, and because Ramon, once he was outwrestled by Tito (who cares as much as anyone) later on, showed cracks in the facade, it worked. The fans barely reacted to him at the start and by the time he won (after lazily getting a leg up on a flying forearm and rolling through a flying body press with a tights grab), they hated his guts. Extrapolated forwards, however, especially as he continued to rack up wins, there was a real danger that he would have torpedoed the credibility of everyone he was in the ring with, making them all look like fools for caring so much when he didn't care at all.

ER: Matt's early wrestling nostalgia lines up almost exactly with my childhood wrestling experience, so the most notable thing about this to me was that Razor *was wearing pants*. And they weren't just generic tights, they were clearly Razor Ramon tights. I have never seen a picture of him wearing tights, although I'm sure there must be one out there, so right away this felt weird. Matt did an impossibly great job of running down a match that was essentially worked like a Young Lions match (it felt like Razor went out there specifically showing what he could do in a match with zero offense, with I think his biggest highspot being a legdrop to Tito's balls), and for fans looking back I bet this came off as memorable if only because the match actually goes about 10 minutes, and this being a Superstars taping, after this they were going to be seeing 15-20 different 2 minute matches. But it's pretty impressive to me just how fully formed the Razor Ramon character was. He has a lot of mannerisms down that he would go on to use for the rest of his career, like he has it all figured out. Again, Matt does a great job of running down the subtle psychology, that cocky foot on the ropes that Razor employs throughout, but I also liked him calling his shot before the bell, indicating he was going to toss Santana the hell over the ropes. He later does so and turns to the crowd without even having to tell them "Told ya so". I wrongly assume this is because they're debuting a bunch of guys before the Rumble, which it seemed like they did, but checking the date and that's likely not the case. I appreciate guys getting mileage out of no offense, and most of this is Ramon and Santana trading holds and reacting, with the only real offense being Santana hitting a nice dropkick and the flashy flying forearm and a crossbody (which is reversed), and Razor eating knees on a Vader bomb spot. The rest is mannerisms and machismo, a cool snapshot of the next several years.

Rick Rude/Steve Austin/Brian Pillman vs. 2 Cold Scorpio/Ricky Steamboat/Sting WCW 5/6/93

MD: Looking at the Observer results on this match, it was in front of ~300 people in Terre Haute, Indiana. On a Thursday. WWE was elsewhere drawing 2500 with Giant Gonzales vs Taker and Money Inc. vs the Steiners on top. Right before this match the crowd had to sit through Orndorff vs Eric Watts and Bagwell vs Wrecking Crew Rage (they did get Rip Rogers vs RVD and Benoit vs Regal).

So here you have six guys who are stars, who were on magazine covers and in video games and had toys made of them. Rude and Steamboat wrestled in front of massive houses. Austin and Pillman and Scorpio less so, maybe. Sting was Sting. And in front of 300 people in Terre Haute, Indiana, they put on a hell of a match.

Scorpio was glad to be there, felt like such a star, and was hugely helped by all the heels begging off from him. The Blonds act was perfect for a match like this, pretending to want to scuffle with the rowdy crowd, pairing with Rude really well, feeding endlessly for the faces. Rude was at the height of his power. He was one of the best in the world in this period and he could do more with his hips alone than most wrestlers could do with six or seven full body rotations (you know what I mean).

It was an elimination match, which was fun in some ways but it meant we lost Scorpio a little earlier than I would have liked. It did mean Pillman got to shine a bit in the back half though, and meant that the finish (which was great, maybe one of the best finishes in 93 WCW) was entirely between Sting and Pillman. This was the perfect combination of star power, house show goofing, and guys actually working hard when there was no reason in the world for them to do so. Were they really putting on matches like this every night?

ER: What a special little gem of a match, the perfect mix of all six stars' abilities and terrific house show stooging and shenanigans. There's no way fans went home feeling they got ripped off after this one. This would have been a great and well remembered match on PPV, but I like the in the crowd feeling we get for this one, as while Matt pointed out there were 300 people there, those 300 people were excited for this match. Rick Rude was clearly one of the best wrestlers in the world during this era. You rarely get to see a man stalk the ring and work the match with this kind of unabashed, deserved confidence. Dude knew where he was at every step of the way, knew what would work and did it better than anyone could have. He milks the atomic drops from Scorpio like you hoped he would, pretends to be occupied on the apron so he wouldn't have to take Pillman's tag when Sting was going wild, throws a full Rude hip swivel in while holding Scorpio before hitting a spinebuster (this really popped off fans around our camera man), and there was a tremendous moment where he started headbutting Sting, then lost control and started throwing a ton of headbutts....before realizing how much his own head was now throbbing; we get great Rude stumbling around while he's selling his own forehead, with him wandering perfectly into place for Steamboat to throw a lonnnnnnnnng windup punch from the apron. If I saw a spot like that on a house show I genuinely wouldn't care what else was on the show, my spent money would be deemed worth it. Rude was an absolute force during this era, really a guy I want to go back and just watch every ounce of his WWF/WCW work.

Everyone else was great here, too; this was far from a one man performance. Blonds - like Rude - were great doofs and total badasses. We get an incredible shot before the match, total luck really, of Austin going after a fan and Pillman having to hold him back. Austin is going after a guy literally right next to our camera man, so we get to see the incensed hate in Austin's eyes and how much of his body he's really throwing into Pillman's stoppage. Obviously there was no chance Austin was going to lay his hands on some Terra Haute hillbilly, but he commits to the act and these same fans are riled up the entire match. Stone Cold is what brought me back full bore into wrestling fandom in high school after I had abandoned it a few years prior, and when I got back into wrestling I had never seen one second of WCW Steve Austin. Everything I loved about Stone Cold was right here already, 4 years earlier. Babyface team was fantastic, every bit of wild energy you could want from a babyface house show trios team (look at that big Sting press slam!!), and it was awesome seeing Scorpio treated like a star. This is a real gem, something you desperately hope there is more of, out there, somewhere.

PAS: I love house show handhelds especially from the 20th century. You are going to a get a much more interactive performance in a small Indiana gym, they aren't working to the back of the arena, because they aren't in an arena. You get to see guys work shtick to the crowd, and it is just incredible to watch all time performers interact like this. Absolutely loved Rude here, we got a ton of variations of his hurt butt sell, took several atomic drops, missed a sunset flip, nothing says wrestling like Rude clenching his ass cheeks and tip toeing around the ring. Scorpio is always a treat to watch, he is constantly mixing in unique bits of offense and selling, here he broke out a flying back Super Astro tope, which has got to be the only time that spot was ever done in Indiana. Such a treat, and it is pretty great that this is just available to watch on your computer 25 years later.

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New Footage Friday: Hollywood Blondes, Dusty, Slater, Black, Dustin, Corino

Tommy Siegler/Roberto Soto/Argentine Apollo vs. Hollywood Blondes/Assassin ASWA 12/28/72

MD: This was a really interesting match from the Ann Gunkel promotion in Georgia. We have plenty of 70s footage but this feels more alien, if only because we don't usually see this Assassin and Roberts as a Hollywood Blond and Siegler's pretty rare, footage wise. Apollo looked great here, definitely the world's best Superfly Sifi Afi. Even if he was just aping parts of Rocca's act, he was doing it so well, that it didn't matter in the least. The guy died young of a heart attack, but it still feels surprising we didn't see him more into the early 80s. He could certainly go here. The Blonds were, of course, great stooges, but I thought everyone looked really good here.

This had a long shine with a few teases of the heels taking over. Past Apollo cartwheeling all over the place, and the heels stooging well, this was mostly notable for the announcers going out of their way to call Ann Gunkel the prettiest little girl promoter you ever did see.

The heat was equal parts boring and interesting. They ran through headscissors spots with all three babyfaces working from underneath. It felt a little like a lucha momentum shift instead of a classic face-in-peril. They were hot for all the tags but not as hot as they might have been. At one point the Assassin cut off Soto by turning a headlock into a belly-to-back which doesn't feel like a 70s spot at all no matter how common it'd be in, let's say 1990s AJPW (and both guys sold it as an impact too which was interesting). Siegler was the babyface that fought out of the headlock the best. I'd like to see more of him. After the final hot tag, this played out like a lucha comedy match from the 80s, with a few heel miscommunication spots and a lightning pin. Fun relic that showed off some elements that felt either experimental for the era or maybe connective tissue between what came before and what would come.

TKG: Was that Assassin Jody Hamilton? Cause damn he was once a lightheavy workrate machine. I mean still clearly doing "cerebral" gimmick but just workrate "cerebral". Kind of really the star of the heel team. Grey had an insane knee to the face, but Assassin was doing the more intricate stuff. The whole banged himself up a little loopy sell after hitting the big suplex to set up the reversal spot totally worked for me in the way that a lot of "I hit a big move then will be reversed next" signature 80s stuff doesn't. A lot of this was faces winning exchanges stuff and I thought they worked out a neat almost lucha hierarchy in how they set that up. Siegler gets the pin and was clearly being pushed here but was at the same time very clearly the low man on the totem pole. Apollo clearly captain (and the one guy to do the muga handstand escape out of the reverse headscissors that both other faces attempted to pull off) and Soto was an amazing workhorse who clearly was #2 guy on team. Soto is a machine on this and I need to see if there is much WWF Invaders on the network to look at. He also has a permanent thousand yard stare where his whole body communicates babyface but yeah mask makes sense.

PAS: The Assassin had Jody Hamilton's nose, so I am assuming it was him. Never thought I would see Jody Hamilton ripping off dropkicks and headscissors. I really enjoyed Apollo in this, he was clearly doing a tribute act, but he still had some really impressive agility and acrobatics. I loved his lightning fast one foot dropkicks. I would have liked to see a little more Buddy Roberts to get a better sense of him pre-Freebirds, but he seemingly had the least ring time of anyone in this match. Really enjoyable 20 minutes, which works as both a historical document and an entertaining wrestling match. 

Dusty Rhodes/Dick Slater/Ricky Steamboat vs. Black Bart/Ron Bass/Tully Blanchard MAW 12/25/84

ER: You knew this was going to be absolute fire because everyone shows up dressed like they just got done with some yard work and Dick Slater wears a gigantic foam cowboy hat to the ring like he was Turd Ferguson. We don't get a finish to this, they're all out of time folks, but we get these six guys punching each other for 12 minutes and that's definitely something you want. Tully is the ultimate punching bag in this, falling all over the ring for everyone, and at one point Dusty and Dick are holding onto his belt while taking turns punching him, not letting him fall over the entire time. Black Bart stooges around the same way Necro Butcher does, which checks out as I believe he trained Necro. Ron Bass keeps spending time on the floor avoiding action, then entering only to get knocked right back. This was heavily controlled by the faces, but we do get a couple nice moments of Steamboat taking a beating, including a cool post-piledriver sell where he pushes himself backwards while on his knees looking lost in a fog, and he takes a monster bump over the ringpost to the floor. Not sure how much is missing or what this whole thing built to, but I loved every bit of it that we got.

TKG: Steamboat's superplex is so purty and Tully and Steamboat are great as I guess the Kikuchi and Fuchi's of this. Well that's all backwards as Jumbo, Taue, Fuchi are the face punishing heels heels while Dusty, Slater, Steamboat are the heel punishing faces. But AJPW should've done some touring bunkhouse matches. I was just watching the July 4, 81 Slater v Tiger Jeet Singh and Slater is so good at the babyface pacing of horseshit brawling and moves well between communicating moments of being a guy who just enjoys being in a fight and guy in a fight and then back.

MD: So this is more rare than found. It's a classic JCP TV match from the very end of 84. It's so cool to see Steamboat tag with Dusty and even just for Steamboat to interact with Bass. This was to establish Magnum as much as anything else. He's on the outside keeping JJ at bay. Just over the top bunkhouse brawl action with a crowd that was absolutely overjoyed to see every second of the bad guys running into the good guys' offense. Dusty looked like the biggest star in the world with his affectation-laden offense. Slater was a wild man, kicking, scraping, biting, using his boot to the fans' delight. This has the BS "We're out of time folks!" ending but sometimes you need a shot of that particular sort of disappointment in life just to remind you that you can't have everything you want. What we do have of this is way better than just being character building.

PAS: One thing I love about Slater and Dusty is that they always look like they are super excited to be in a fight. The opening seconds with Dusty in his bunkhouse gear, and Slater with the novelty foam cowboy hat just put a giant smile on my face. The smile didn't leave me until the cut off at the end of the match (this was a commercial tape for fucks sake, those things were expensive). Almost all chaotic brawling, with the heels mostly getting their comeuppance, flawless bit of business all around.

Dustin Rhodes vs. Steve Corino UWF 6/8/07

MD: This is wilderness era Dustin, when he wasn't quite in the best shape. I had actually looked into this stuff not that long ago when a PR match popped up from 07. UWF was a TNA-affiliated promotion that was venturing north into the ECW Arena for some reason. There's actually a lot of potentially fun Dustin matches from this run, including matches with Scott Steiner and Aries and Damien Wayne and Bobby Houston. Probably the neatest thing about this, past the fact it simply exists is that Corino feuded with Dusty. Both guys got to cut promos. Corino brought out Mitch Williams, Philly's poor man's Bill Buckner, who at least seemed to have a blast out there as his heater (though he never got his comeuppance). The match itself was a decent enough brawl for their current physical state. It needed a few more minutes, but they bled early and hit each other hard and had a few imaginative spots with the bell. I liked how they sold the usually terrible finish to a bullrope match as Dustin having learned the tropes well from watching his dad. Now I just have to convince Phil to buy the Dustin Rhodes, Scott Steiner, Rick Steiner, Kirby Mack & TJ Mack vs. CW Anderson, Steve Corino, Hernandez, Homicide, & Elix Skipper double cage match from this promotion.

PAS: I am amused at the cheap heat use of Mitch Williams in Corino's corner, I wonder how much money you have to pay him to come out in a giant mustard colored dress shirt to get people to boo him. Pretty surprised we didn't get a Dusty elbow on him, but I imagine that would have cost more. Both Corino and Dustin are all time great bleeders and Corino especially seemed to blade two or three separate times. I enjoyed the dumbness of having to touch all the turnbuckles in a six sided ring. There were a couple of rude chair and cowbell shots, and this felt like a fun houseshow brawl, nothing all time great, but delivered what the crowd wanted.

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New Footage Friday: Mando, Chic, Flair, Race, Youngblood, Briscos, Steamboat

Mando Guerrero vs. Golden Boy Olympic Wrestling 5/80

PAS: Roy Lucier is uploading some dying days Olympic Wrestling from LA, and this was corker of a match. Its a Mexican death match which basically is a street fight, Golden Boy is Chick Donovan working a Nature Boy gimmick. Mando jumps him at the bell and wrecks him. Throwing him around the ringside, including using the empty front row seats to run and dive off of (cool use of the seats, not good that the whole side of the front row is empty.) He grabs two straps and laces Chick with them and just rips apart his arm including chair shots and nasty crossarmbreakers. Mando is a force of nature in this match, coming at him with such intensity. Donovan rakes the eyes to take over and opens Mando up by smashing his head into the turnbuckle bolts. He works the cut and gets the pin after a thrust to the throat. Golden Boy comes off like a total badass for surviving that onslaught. Kind of an odd structure with Mando taking 85% of the match before losing, but the work in it was great.

MD: Mando is my least favorite Guerrero. I totally get why someone would like him, and I respect certain things he does. He's the most over-the-top, theatrical Guerrero. He understood how they were viewed by most audiences and most promotions and leaned into that the most. I think he ought to get credit for that with all of his tumbling and flash. It makes for something that really stands out. It just doesn't usually make for good matches.

Here, I had some hope, because some of that mentality, distilled to a straight up brawl, could create something fairly bombastic and memorable. In the first couple of moments, we start to get signs of that too. Unfortunately, it doesn't last. Mando was losing this one and fairly definitively as well. His response? He takes most of the match with holds and containment. Chic barely gets anything. I'd say that this was a context issue in as we don't know what led to a match with such severe stips, but Chic was presented as the next Gorgeous George and the fans didn't seem to care at all that he was getting early and frequent comeuppance. They sat on their hands. By the time the heat and the blood came into play, it was too late. I think these two probably had a really great brawl in them, but that's not what we got here.

TKG: Holy fuck that was great. Have we seen a lot of brawling Chic Donovan before? I’ve seen Donovan live on the indy scene as technical heel doing more Austin Idol mannerisms. But this is full on brawling Donovan and I’m not even sure if you can compare what he was doing to Austin Idol. The announcer compares him to Gorgeous George and he brings a man purse to the ring but not mincing. Donovan’s punch bitchslap/chop combo was like Tenryu if Tenryu looked like a Long Island Jewish Helen Reddy. Mando who were also kind of used to working AWA midcard technical doing carnyish spots also great in brawling showcase. Cool seeing him really attack a bodypart like an illegitimate Anderson brother in match where you expect to be going for KO. Left this wanting to see every match in their feud.

ER: This was great, loved it all. The structure was maybe a little weird, with Mando taking the first 70% entirely and Chic taking up most of the last 30% before winning, kind of a weird almost babyface comeback for Donovan, who really had taken an absolute shit kicking up to that point. Mando punches Chic around ringside, absolute dynamite right hands. Chic takes bumps into the ringpost, into empty front row seats (the crowd didn't feel small, but for whatever reason an entire front row was empty), Mando doing this great downward punch to the forehead while standing on the seats, then running across the row to do a kind of by the hair bulldog onto the seats. He even whips him hard back in the ring with TWO straps, and yanks on his arm a bunch with a big armbar spot. Donovan's comeback was suitably violent too, I agree with Phil that he looked like a total badass taking that beating and then really firing back. It's so weird because he's clearly a smug prick, but here he is getting all this fabulous babyface build and comeback. Mando gets busted open and Chic bites at the cut, and really has cool theatrical punch combos, looks like Sid Caesar doing a Buddy Landel character. This was two guys who I rarely take a look at, and this made me want to see anything they've done that's like this.

Jack/Jerry Brisco vs. Jay Youngblood/Ricky Steamboat NWA 7/9/83

MD: I got a little worried at first since out of twenty minutes of footage, the first few were taken up by the fans pelting Jack and Jerry with trash. I'm always up for that sort of heat, but I still wanted a match too. (I didn't know that the last few were full of the faces stealing the belts and the Briscos complaining about it too). I should have known better. The fifteen minutes or so we got were downright sublime.

It starts with posturing, with Ricky pointing and pointing, a Brisco swiping, a duck, and an atomic drop and it never stops all the way to the finish. I haven't gone back and revisited these matches so I'm not sure entirely how much of this was done down around the horn but it felt both fresh and organic and completely seamless with absolutely no wasted space. Everything didn't just mean something. Everything meant everything.

Steamboat was the king at this. He's already got the biggest armdrag in the world, but here everything was big: every bit of clapping on the apron, every tag, every swipe from the outside. The beatdown on Jay is great, with them targeted the theoretically damaged back with everything in short order: gnarly holds, a Billy Robinson backbreaker, this amazing suplex right onto middle the top rope, back first. The hot tag doesn't feel entirely earned, but the fans buy it and it leads to a little loop that allows Jay back into make an even better hot tag. The finishing segment is great with the faces demolishing a leg (with both these great Dibiase fistdrops onto it and the most beautiful Indian Deathlock you'll ever see) before shenanigans allow the the Briscos to take the win. Just a great match from a great series.

PAS: This was excellent, one of the best new matches we have seen from the Network. Classic tag wrestling set up, with all four guys working at a high level. The Briscos beat down on Jay was an all timer, they are both such asskickers, I have found title match Jack Brisco a bit dry, but heel tag wrestler Jack Briscoe is great. That suplex on the tope rope, looked like it might have put Youngblood in traction. Steamboat is a dynamic hot tag too, just so good at portraying hyped up energy, and the Briscoes fly around for him like champs, I love all of his goofy karate chops, totally what you thought martial arts looked like before anyone actually saw it. You don't see a ton of face tag team limbwork, but man do Steamboat and Youngblood go after the knee, the Indian deathlock by Jay is maybe the best I have ever seen, he is floating off the mat with a perfect bridge. We get a solid BS finish and an irate crowd ready to murder the Briscos. Thought this was way better then the Starcade match, and was up there with the top 80s tags.

TKG: Early 80s Race and Flair are guys you think of as having pretty big movesets but really they get eclipsed by Briscoes and Youngblood/Steamboat. These guys are just whipping out moves. All the cool stuff working over Youngblood’s back: the first back backbreaker etc. People talk about Steamboat’s moveset shrinking in WWF mostly in terms of him dropping the superplex but there is so much stuff he shelved. Also you think of Flair and Race as big bumping guys and while they have their more elaborate bumps, the heel Briscoes flying around are really slapstick amusing. I wish Roughhouse reffed this match too

ER: This was incredible. What a all time great tag match. This honestly made me rethink the standing of the Kobashi/Kikuchi vs. Can Ams match. This was the first time I think I've ever thought the Briscos looked more kickass than the Briscoes. Jack Brisco in this match would be one of my all time favorite wrestlers. Brisco is a hyped guy I usually don't get excited for, but here my god. What a colossal dickhead, and a dominant one; he beats Youngblood around the ring, great punches, big knees, drops two vicious kneedrops to Youngblood's chest, hits this almost press slam bodyslam, just major strength. Gerry was an absolute savage here as well, in ways I've never seen. He looks like he's going to snap Youngblood in two places when he stands way too far away on a slingshot suplex, just bending Youngblood over that top rope and muscling him over. He even saves the match and wins it in one fell swoop by diving in with a huge outstretched splash as Steamboat is pinning Jack. And that babyface team my god! Youngblood took a furious asskicking and by the 15:30 mark of this match you start noticing that Youngblood has garnered so much damn sympathy through his beating that this building is rabid. Men and women, old and young alike are just screaming there heads off for Jay and Ricky. It's beautiful pro wrestling. Steamboat has a magnificent hot tag, heavy as hell chops, big haymakers, big mannerisms, everything explosive. He's making up fistdrop variations on the fly, drops two great ones onto the screaming Gerry's inner thigh. What?? This was smoking hot, screaming loud, hard hitting, worth the ticket price professional wrestling. What a find.

Ric Flair vs. Harley Race NWA 7/9/83
PAS: New Flair matches aren't really that interesting to me at this point, but this was a new babyface Flair match, and he works pretty different as a face. These are a pair of really dynamic offensive wrestlers, and I really enjoyed watching them tee off on each other. Race has some shtick I don't love, but man does his stuff look great, he just crushes Flair with knee drops and punches. Flair breaks out some offense we don't normally see from him too, a flying forearm, some cool looking uppercuts and he actually hits his top rope elbow instead of getting punched in the stomach. Flair actually press slamming Race off the top rope is a nice bit of role reversal. We get a version of my least favorite Race spot, where he does a brainbuster on the floor, instead of a piledriver, but it is as dumb that Flair has to go back on offense so soon. This wasn't a match with a ton of substance to it, but it was a real go go offensive match which totally got the crowd into it, and any chance to see different shades of these great wrestlers in appreciated.

MD: This was a pretty standard 20 minute title match. Unfortunately, they worked the first part like it was more of a 60 minute one. Watching Flair-as-champ matches, almost always the most enjoyable part is how he works both on top and from underneath during the initial holds, the struggle, the abandon, how they work in and out with spots. Here, Flair was the face and there was very little of that. It was pretty boring and it was almost a relief when they cut to the crowd doing something interesting instead.

Thankfully, it picked up from there, mimicking some of the other Flair-Race matches we have from that summer. I liked seeing the wrinkles. There are a few matches where Race suplexes Flair on the floor, but here, instead of reversing a pile driver to recover, Flair dodges a diving headbutt. The suplex itself was super nasty because Flair's foot got caught on the rope barricade. (There was also the fake out elbow drop as Race rolls, which is a great spot in any match) The back half is heated and exciting, building to amusing sequence where they almost couldn't decide on which bs finish would actually end the match. The real star of the show was the little girl they kept cutting to who was increasingly annoyed by everything Race did. I'm glad we got this one, as it's always notable to see another pure babyface Flair performance, but the worst parts of it didn't live up to the best parts.

TKG: Camera person spends a lot of time on a girl who you expect to be picking a daisy in an anti-Goldwater commercial and she really is into this match and you get why it would work for her. I love some babyface Flair. Love the babyface Flair bumps, the offense etc. This is more Flair from above babyface Flair then you get in say 89 or so and early parts of this are Race begging off till he headbutts Flair in the dick. I’ve complained in the past about Race’s suplex on the floor spot where it demands that opponent get back in ring before 10 count and often is next guy on offense. But it’s perfect here as the missed diving headbutt to floor set up Flair’s transition to offense and Flair knows how to continue selling while transitioning. The match is reffed by Sonny Fargo who is fantastic, does a great job eating his first bump and just all his timing and interactions to set up finish really make sense and are believable. He knows Flair doesn’t want to win by DQ and is willing to let things slide for a while but…

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New Footage Friday: Jake the Snake, King Tonga, Piper, Dick Slater, Inoue, Steamboat

Mighty Inoue/Ashura Hara vs. Dick Slater/Ricky Steamboat AJPW 5/14/82

PAS: What a nifty match. Steamboat and Slater were working as a workrate heel team, dominating the natives with hit and run offense,  which is one of the only times I can remember Steamer working heel  The late Dirty Dick was an offensive juggernaut he had this great amateur scramble with Hara and lands some nasty jabs and knees to the throat and a dope piledriver. Inoue had a great series of rolling sentons, but this was mostly the native team fighting from underneath. So weird to see Steamboat hit his big crossbody as a heel double team, there is an alternative universe where Steamboat/Slater was the Midnight Express as opposed to a random one off team on an All Japan tour.

MD:It's hard to understate just how much we have to watch right now. We're looking at dozens of matches virtually unseen by the eyes of the community over multiple years of AJPW TV as well as handhelds and whatever else pops up. Just on what we have available to us in this moment, we could probably run this feature for six months or longer. That said, when Dick Slater dies, you probably should watch a Dick Slater match.

He gets a rap for being a Terry Funk clone/tribute act, but if you're going to be a tribute act for someone, you could do a lot worse. As a kid, I first encountered him as one of the Hardliners, with Murdoch, and while both guys were past their prime and while the act was short lived, they left a mark on me and probably set the stage for my enjoyment, later in life, of that sort of mean, gritty meat and potatoes heel tag team that would just credibly beat babyfaces up. Later on, I encountered him as heel ace while Flair was away being champ in 84 Crockett or attached to Dark Journey as a heatseeker in Mid-South or as a wild babyface in Southwest/Houston and that's not to begin on the stuff we don't have much of his like his big runs in Florida or his reportedly excellent team with Orton. He's a guy I really like and that I'm always glad to get more footage of.

This is just a straightforward, well worked, tag with a bit more substance/narrative than you often get from this setting. It might be the best I've seen Steamboat look in one of these random AJPW matches and maybe the closest to a heel I've ever seen him look. After the initial workrate-heavy (and very good) back and forth, it settles in with long stretches of dueling legwork, well-executed, and Slater and Steamboat working well together as a heel unit. Steamboat doesn't do anything outright dirty, but he's focused and unrelenting with just a hint of flash. It's a trip to see him breaking out a tandem elbow drop or atomic drop with Slater.

TKG: Aw man, I dug this a bunch. I am a big fan of Slater as WCW 89-97 rudo who you can just stick in anything and he’ll make it work, and that’s what this felt like. We need some scientific wrestling with Steamboat on one side and Inoue, Hara on other…get Slater and let him take over body of this. This is some fun scientific wrestling here and a neat Dick Slater showcase. I think my favorite section of this match was the early mat work where Inoue/Hara are working over Slater’s leg. Slater is just super active as a guy getting body part worked over, constantly looking for escapes, ways to break hold, ways to reverse etc.

Brett Sawyer vs. Jake Roberts GCW 10/23/83

MD: We watch footage. That's how we get at wrestling. That's how we understand it. Footage is our language. Most of the time, that's a blessing. When it comes to conventional wisdom and remembered narratives, sometimes it's a curse. It's disheartening to watch Ray Stevens matches and not see evidence of what everyone said made him special. It's downright aggravating to see Brody's offense look terrible time and time again. Then there's Jake. Jake Roberts, the self-professed master of psychology, the grand manipulater of the crowd. If you watch a hundred Jake matches, more often than not, it's either not there, or it's there to no great purpose. If it's there at all, it's there, instead, to replace greatness, as a lazy crutch to make it through the match, one that might bring a crowd up and down a bit, but never too up and never too down and never, ever all the way over the top.

Here, in the midst of one of the most legendary nights at the Omni, buried in the middle of a card that they had to structure somewhat carefully to leave the crowd with something left for the big main events, here against Brett Sawyer of all people, we get to see the Jake we were always promised and frankly, it's glorious.

Sawyer came in with a taped up leg, but despite giving up size to Jake, took the early part of the match. That is until Jake caught his leg in the ropes and starts in on it. After that he's just unyielding, attacking it from every angle, utilizing the full breadth of his tall, lanky frame to dive onto it for the sake of the last row, preying upon the weakness to bust Sawyer open, using dirty tactics like tying him back up in the ropes or hitting chop blocks from behind even when he didn't have to, and soaking in the rising tide of boos from the crowd. He oscillated between tearing it apart and letting everything sink in, slinking around the ring as Sawyer writhed. There was a palatable anticipation in the crowd for Sawyer to maybe make it back up in those moments and downright outrage when Jake rushed back in. Buzz came out as did your elder statesmen babyfaces in the form of Ole and Wrestling 2, making this seem downright momentous.

In the end, after the towel came flying in, Jake was escorted out by four police officers, and even then, I think the only things that halted a riot were the promise of the main events to come and the hope that sooner than later, Buzz was going to get his hands on Jake to avenge his little brother. It's everything we were always promised, finally.

PAS: It is pretty crazy on the night of Buzz Sawyers most legendary match, that Brett Wayne had the better match. This was masterful stuff by Jake, such a sleazy cheapshot artist abusing a poor babyface. From the moment he points to the knee brace, you could tell he was going to unleash some violence. I loved the early knuckle lock section where Jake kept climbing to the first turnbuckle to gain leverage, and even put his knee on Brett's shoulder. I also loved all of the knee work, it felt less like a scientific wrestler working on a limb for a submission, and more like a sadistic child torturing an animal. Roberts slinking around and chop blocking the knee, kicking Sawyer, lifting him up by the knee (which led to a great spot where Sawyer climbed up his body to land a big punch). Sawyer really leaks all over the ring too, and it brings out the council of elders 2, Ole and Buzz to eventually throw in the towel and save this kids career, as Jake just starts punching at the knee and staring down the crowd and the babyfaces. Bizarrely they didn't run Roberts vs. Buzz in the Omni after this, because this was one of the best set ups I can remember seeing.

TKG: I don't know man. I always like Brett Wayne Sawyer, and normally dig Jake egging on crowd. And liked some of the little moments like when bleeding Sawyer firing himself up by shaking fists and slapping mat and Jake cuts it off by stomping on his mat slapping hand. And loved the big Ole, II, and Buzz stuff ringside. Ole wanting to prevent Buzz from getting involved while interjecting himself and trying to fire up Brett was cool, but didn't do a ton for me

It felt like it just stayed at one level of intensity for 15 minutes, never felt like I wanted it to go from Jackass taunting audience and attacking leg to jackass challenging audience and trying to break leg...it went from jackass attacking leg and egging on audience to him continuing to do it until match ends

Roddy Piper/Cowboy Bob Orton vs. King Tonga/Superfly Afi WWF early 1986

MD: There was a moment right at the start here when I saw the paltry, somewhat disinterested crowd and all those empty seats, when I realized it was 1986 and not 1984, when I saw the two teams standing in the ring, seemingly calm, that I thought they might just phone it in. What gain was there to give this crowd, in this setting, anything but chinlocks? Yeah, it was Piper and Haku and Orton, but I had my doubts. No one's ever talked about this match, or even really this tour. There's not much evidence of it anywhere.

So, I was wrong. Very wrong. Piper saw this as a canvas full of possibilities and gave a performance that reminded me of Terry Funk in Puerto Rico as much as anything else. Some wrestlers see empty seats as an opportunity to have a night out. Piper saw them as hundreds of weapons with plenty of space for them to be thrown. It became less of a match and more of an open world battle, down to Haku chasing Piper across a field to tackle him.

Eventually, it more or less settled into a normal match with the heels getting heat and the crowd slowly but surely figuring out how to react, but even then there's the ever-present possibility that Piper was going to run off into the field at any moment. He'd settled down a little since 84 but really only a little. My biggest regret with this one was that the camera didn't stay on him all the time. Orton's great but it's the manic unpredictability that you can't look away from. When I watched this, it only had about 130 views and it still has less than 200 as of this writing. Go watch this now and boost that number. You'll thank us.

TKG: Was this good enough to have made the WWF 80s set? It’s not as good as any JAPW or Puerto Rico arena tour match but it is a fun arena tour match. And doesn’t have the inexplicable heat of the Spoiler v Rocky Johnson match from the same Kuwait tour, but this is so much more entertianing. The arena tour stuff is fun as all the attached chairs seem super awkward as they got tossed around and I dug big chunks of the in-ring stuff. Was this a smaller ring than they normally use? Really felt like the heels could hit a top rope knee drop to anywhere in the ring. I dug all the top rope knee drops to cut off faces. I think there were three or four. People complain about big finishing moves getting used in body of matches, but fuck those people. The Sivi Afi eating death finisher also looked as nasty as you wanted it to.

PAS: On the eve of one gulf state stadium show we get a look at an earlier version. There have to be max 150 people at this show, and for some reason Piper/Orton and the Tongans go completely crazy, I can't remember any 80s WWF match being worked like this, as it was closer to a Memphis arena brawl then anything else. They immediately spill into the crowd and guys in thobes are fleeing as the wrestlers are stumbling through the crowd hurling chairs at each other violently.  Piper and King Tonga was especially great with Tonga open field rugby tackling Piper in the soccer stadium grass and whaling punches at him. Afi some how ends up busted open and is really bleeding badly, and one point he is trapped under a table as Piper tries to crush his chest. Both heels take some athletic bumps, and Piper does his awesome blinded shadowboxing. Totally off the wall match, which would have been legendary if it was on a Saturday Night's Main Event instead of in front of two dozen Kuwaiti shieks.

ER: I had no idea WWF did a Kuwait tour in 1986, though I found an LA Times article from that year talking about how Hulk Hogan's single was popular in Kuwait. I always love wrestling matches held in unfamiliar areas, wrestling fans arranged around a ring differently than you're used to, and most importantly a crowd filled with people who don't seem like they typically go to wrestling shows. I have zero clue what the Kuwait wrestling scene was like in 1986, and it's not too much of a stretch to picture Piper and Orton talking backstage before the match and saying "Let's put on a show for these guys in dresses." And almost immediately the match spills into the crowd and the people in the crowd respond as if they have zero idea how to handle what is happening. People are scrambling to get out of the way, Orton takes a flying bump over the guardrail, all the chairs in the crowd look like every single person just brought their own chairs from their kitchen, Orton jams a chair into Afi's groin, Piper runs from Tonga and gets tackled from behind at the knees like a fleeing perp, there's a good chance the commentator thinks Afi is actually Superfly Snuka (which could help us timestamp this match more to the first 3 months of 1986, as the Superfly nickname certainly didn't last long, and Piper was gone after Mania and came back months later as a babyface feuding with Orton), chairs get thrown and there's a genuine sense of confusion and chaos among the crowd. Nobody has identifiable Event Staff gear, so there are some random guys just running up to the action, really could have been any old psycho. In ring there's some classic ring cutting off, Orton especially is awesome doing false tag claps and actively talking trash to ringside fans. We spill out to the floor again, Piper upends a table and throws it on Afi, stomping on it. Fans genuinely seem unsure how to react to any of this. When we get back in the ring we get a great spot where Orton and Piper cheat enough to make Tonga get in the ring, and as the ref orders him back out Tonga gets rushed and knocked off the apron, taking an absolutely nasty bump, falling backwards while getting his foot caught in the bottom rope and lands right on the back of his head. The ref checks on him while a double team front suplex easily finishes off Afi. Phil is totally right that none of this at all felt like a WWF tag match from this era or the next couple eras. Do we have any info on what else was on this show (other than the Rocky Johnson match that also showed up)? Do we have any information at all on why WWF ran Kuwait in 1986? Hogan popularity? Sold show? Fascinating discovery.

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New Footage Friday: UFC vs. Memphis, Blackhearts, Can-Ams

Shinya Hashimoto/Riki Choshu/Ricky Steamboat vs. Big Van Vader/Animal Hamaguchi/Bam Bam Bigelow NJPW 10/11/90

MD: We went with this because it had Vader in it so it was timely. It's not the best showcase match for him, though. There's some exciting brawling with Choshu to begin but this one is really much more about Bigelow, Steamboat, and Choshu. Vader and Hashimoto just aren't in the ring as much. I love Bigelow from this era. Vader may have been more willing to ham it up with crowd interactions than he would be later, but Bigelow takes it a step further. He does a flip bump on a Choshu clothesline. How great is that?

Steamboat really is the X-Factor here, though. He's as Steamboat-y as it gets, providing the heart of his match with his selling, allowing for a stretch of heat that you'd never get in a match like this without him, but also realizing he's in Japan and being double tough in his attempts to fight back and way, way over the top in his offensive bursts. There's this clothesline duck-jumping kick to the head-karate pose that he does against Bigelow that is the most flawless bit of pro wrestling imaginable Post-match angle goes on forever but Hamaguchi makes it worth it with his unexpected charisma. I imagine most people would be glad to watch this.

ER: I've not actually seen any Steamboat/Vader matches in WCW, but I don't think they matched up that often and I certainly didn't realize they had matched up before WCW. But I don't seek out a lot of Steamboat, so this is not something I likely would have known. I am definitely low vote on Steamboat, and didn't think he looked good here, but it worked because everyone treated him like Kikuchi in the classic AJPW six mans. He was nowhere near as good as Kikuchi here, but his light chops and almost connecting dropkicks made him the easy choice to isolate from the group. At one point Bigelow is throwing nice right hooks and has to remind himself to acknowledge Steamboat's little chops. Bigelow had a really great performance and never tried to out-monster Vader, who looked like an outright monster. Hamiguchi would tag in and work like an actual animal let out of a cage. This heel team probably only teamed up on this show, but man that is a winning trio. Bigelow was there for big man bumps (even taking this great banana peel bump onto the apron after the pinfall), Vader looked gargantuan and completely unstoppable, and I loved Hash and Riki as the guys running in to save little Ricky. Bigelow and Vader are a fun team and I loved them using their fat, like Bigelow holding onto Steamboat in the corner while Vader just squished him in a fat sandwich. We didn't get a ton of Hash, but he made his presence felt with a squarely planted DDT, and not many people are better than Choshu at tagging in and blasting folks with a hot tag lariats. I also loved Hamaguchi hugging it out with Choshu after the match. "Hey, no hard feelings, I just teamed with who they told me to" leading to Bigelow and Vader immediately calling him out on his bullshit. "We were still here dude. We saw you."

PAS: I thought this was great and mainly great because Steamboat was spectacular in it. I thought he was a great face in peril, he is an all-time great seller, and I loved how he kept fighting back during the beatdown section, he gets pounded by Bigelow or Vader, but he always fires back with a chop. I loved the section where Bigelow and Steamboat kept exchanging and each shot was faster and harder until they were just unloading on each other. That is a matchup I can't remember seeing before, and I feel like they would have had an all time singles match. The Vader vs. Hash sections were awesome, although it was more of a taste then a meal, but man is that an all time battle of badasses. The finish run was great, with every body running in a throwing big shots ending with a classic Choshu lariat.


Can Am Express vs. The Blackhearts AJPW 9/4/91

MD: This got a lot of time and was big and dumb. Kroffat is one of my favorite AJPW 90s guys because he is a hugely natural de facto heel in a place where you don't always get that. Here, though, the Can-Ams were playing de facto babyface, and they don't hold up as well. Furnas is a solid muscleman hot tag in that role, but Kroffat, even with some flashy flourishes, was playing against type.

The Blackhearts deal is that they have a great entrance in the dark, will bump big, and have so, so many ridiculous tandem double teams, none of which actually look good. The sum of it all gives them an A for effort but this was far more fun than good.

PAS: This was an amusing big dumb heavyweight tag spotfest. It was more Eliminators then Steiners, but it was some big dudes with ideas. Some of them looked bad (the Blackhearts double bulldog was conceptually interesting, but looked dumb), some of them looked cool ( the assisted face buster by the Can-Ams was nifty) but they were all kind of thrown out there without a ton of substance. Still I enjoyed large parts of this in a turn off your brain off kind of way. I could see an ECW video montage of this match set to an Alice in Chains song being pretty cool.

Dustin Starr/Din Thomas vs. Derrick King/Matt Serra 6/15/18

PAS: This was a match in the long storied southern tradition of the sold show money mark tag match. Instead of opposing high school football coaches, we have two ex-UFC guys Thomas and Serra working with old Memphis hands Dustin Starr and Derrick King. This was part of Dana White's Looking for a Fight travel show. Starr and Thomas work heel and Dana White and Jerry Lawler are at ringside along with Starr's valet. Fun shticky match, with King and Starr having really great punches and Thomas and Serra doing some nice amateur rolling. The stuff with the UFC guys against the Memphis guys was a little awkward (Thomas looks like he might have gotten knocked silly by Starr's axehandle), but I am always going to enjoy this kind of match.

MD: Well, this was something. The best thing about this was the fact it felt so Memphis. Really, the first twenty odd minutes or so (out of 27) were pure Memphis. Calhoun was ref. Lawler switched the sides and big timed Dana. Starr is pure throwback, not the Brian Christopher we want, but probably the Brian Christopher we deserve in 2018. There was stalling, jawing, strutting, pretty good punches and over the top selling. The next best thing was Serra and Thomas sparring, with Serra throwing Thomas all over the place. And the last best? Probably Dana White's shit-eating grin as he watched Starr stooge all over the ring.

It all fell apart in the last few minutes with Serra and Dana spending the entire run-up to the hot tag just talking to each other casually as King struggled his way to the corner. That was pretty much the worst hot tag in wrestling history. There was maybe one too many bits of White getting involved with Maria post-match but ultimately this was fine. I was curious how they were going to protect the UFC guys, especially when they were in with the wrestlers and that all worked pretty well. Serra bullied Starr. Despite Serra having the cartwheel, Thomas was the one who seemed more natural for wrestling. He was having a blast, even relishing a bodyslam. And it all ended with a reminder that everyone should spend some cash on Jerry's food. It's the most Memphis thing I've seen out of Memphis in a while

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A World War Was Announced a Day Ago but Regal Didn't Know

Lord Steven Regal v. Ricky Steamboat WCW 8/19/93-GREAT

PAS: Thanks to our pal Beau James we get an awesome 1993 Regal handheld match. As one might expect you get a lot of shtick in a Regal house show match, including Steamboat hitting an inverted atomic drop and doing a mocking mincing walk. Steamboat also does a old time put your dukes up challenge, you don't see a lot of physical comedy Ricky, but he is pretty good at it. There is a great long Backlund/Blue Panther short arm scissors spot, and some great Regal smashing forearms. I think with a real finish this would have ended up as an EPIC, but the time limit just kind of comes without any real build.  So happy this just showed up.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE REGAL

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All Japan Motherload - Ricky Steamboat vs. The Sheik - AJPW 6/11/81

ER: Best Sheik singles match ever? Okay, that can come off like I'm ranking the best brand of truck to get run over by. I'll rephrase it as "I watched an actual good Sheik match." This is actually one of my favorite Steamboat performances too. Now, I also don't really like Steamboat that much. I'm that guy. He's probably my least liked "undisputed great worker". He has been a part of plenty matches I liked - even loved (the Rude iron man is a favorite) but his work just doesn't speak to me. Here he showed an aggression that I wish was far more common in his matches. Sheik actually showed up looking like he wanted to work, bumping right out of the gate for a couple nice dropkicks. Steamboat grabs a nasty side headlock and works over Sheik for awhile, one of the more compelling headlocks you'll see in a match. Sheik put it over great, and before long we get to spike action with Steamboat immediately knocking it out of Sheik's hands and using it himself. Sheik gets busted open which leads to an awesome moment of Sheik choking Steamboat on the floor while bleeding onto Ricky's chest and face. Steamboat flips it and looks like a lunatic while strangling Sheik, even holding up Sheik's head to get more leverage on the choke. This whole thing was awesome, from two guys I normally don't care about. Plus, the youtube file calls him "Steambort" which has made me laugh at least 4 times.

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Why Does Regal Come Here, And Why Does He Hang Around

Lord Steven Regal/Stunning Steve Austin v. Ricky Steamboat/Johnny B. Badd WCW 8/14/94-GREAT

Really fun tag match with all four guys really in cracking form. Austin was in much of the match for the heel squad and was at close to his athletic peak, bumping huge, executing his offense well. Regal would tag in and throw nasty shots at both Badd and Steamboat. At one point he backs Badd into the corner and just unloads on him with rapid fire forearms. Steamboats hot tag is just great, he flips Regal with two Mexican armdrags (which I have never seen an actual Mexican throw) on Regal he then actually hits a leaping Thez press on Austin, bounces up and double legs Regal, just a dynamo. Finish is exciting too with lots of twists and turns leading to Steamboat rolling up Austin. Hogan is in at this point, and the fun ends soon, but it is great to see this kind of cool stuff was going on this late into 1994.

Lord Steven Regal v. Fit Finlay WCW 4/29/96-EPIC

Well this is as great as you remembered it being. It really had the ragged, out of control feeling of a violent fight. All of the big highspots felt totally organic, nothing was set up. When Finlay put his foot through the window, it felt like a crazy fuck, wild with rage, throwing a kick too close to a window. The smashing each other with bumpers and slamming each other into doors wasn't even the most violent stuff in the match. For example Finlay is choking Regal with a seat belt, and just smacks him right in the mouth. Regal's elbow drops on the hood were also really beautiful. Regal's piledriver on the roof of a car felt like a finish, and it also felt like he was just trying to get the fuck out of there. I remember being incredibly annoyed at the time at Bischoff yelling at the cameramen to pull into a wide shot. The camera men don't pull back very far, and I think it actually adds to the sense of insanity, makes this feel like an out of control fight, as opposed to Heenan telling hack jokes.

William Regal v. Tommy Dreamer WWE 11/8/09-EPIC

I was on the fence, this is a 8 minute match against Tommy Dreamer, can this really be an epic. Fuck it, this was just too great and Regal was just too awesome for me not to give the full E. Dreamer took a crutch shot in a street fight the week before and the bolt penetrated his triceps, so he is coming into this match with a big white wrap on his arm. Regal is on that arm like a fat kid on the last piece of pinata candy. Really the best example of Regal as vicious WWII prison guard. He just tears and pounds on the wound, he is someone with so many ways to hurt you. Meanwhile Dreamer does a great job of selling the injury (which I am sure hurt like a broken heart) while throwing in some really exciting comebacks. I loved how he went for a DDT, only to Regal hurl him down using the arm, still Dreamer was able to catch him in a one armed spinebuster. Finish was awesome. Dreamer is rolling, finally getting the advantage, but Regal rolls to the floor, grabs the arm rings it over the cable, while Dreamer is recoiling, Regal flies into the ring and hits the running knee right on the arm. Best Tommy Dreamer match ever, and a hell of performance by Regal

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE REGAL

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