Found Footage Friday: '86 CROCKETT HANDHELD~! GARVIN~! FLAIR~! NIKITA~! ARN~! MAGNUM~! DUSTY~! RAGING BULL~! WAHOO~!

JCP Handheld Cincinnati 4/27/86

Wahoo McDaniel vs. Jimmy Garvin

MD: We just get five minutes clipped here. It's a real morality play though. Clear, clear lines. Garvin earns nothing. Whenever Wahoo gets the chants, he's smacking him around the ring. Garvin begs off and gets a cheapshot low. He uses Precious pulling the hair from the outside to distract so he can take over. He uses an eye rake. When he's in charge he's laying in stomps or tossing Wahoo into the rail. Wahoo has big definitive shots. Garvin is underhanded and peppers things in. Night and day. Wahoo comes back, does the war dance, hits the chops, but Garvin kicks out at one and runs away to the draw a count out and fight for another day. 

ER: I don't think I ever thought Cincinnati was a place Crockett even toured but I'm also old enough now that a lot of information sounds like new information. I know they ran Cleveland frequently but maybe I didn't ever think about Cincinnati as Crockett Country because we didn't have footage until some guy who loves awful chili that tastes like pumpkin pie brought a camera to document it. I'm glad he did. He wanted the match bad enough to record it as fully as he could while editing on the fly to save battery for the bigger matches. This man, who smelled of raw onion, knew Flair and Garvin had worked broadways in the Carolinas. He couldn't risk it. So we got this clipped, but it's house show perfection. The crowd is so entertained by professional house show Wahoo, not murdering Garvin but doing all his same painful strikes and Native Stooges chops. Wahoo hits Garvin hard and forces Garvin to work up to him. Garvin had excellent worked stomps and the way Wahoo sold being punched in the corner could teach every wrestler today. Watch Wahoo flinch away from a shot under the ribs, reflexively rear back for a punch, before taking another. The best punches and strikers are almost always the best at selling punches. 

Baron von Raschke/Ivan Koloff vs. Manny Fernandez/Hector Guerrero

MD: This was probably a rough 20 minute draw that turned into a good 13 minute clipped draw. Though there was nothing we saw in those 13 minutes to really make me think the full 20 would have been that much of a slog. They went with a double heat structure with a long shine that consisted of Raschke being a pole in the center of the ring that Hector got to roll around and Ivan's arm getting worked over as he bumped, stooged, and fed more. First heat was on Manny and had some good assisted holds that drew in Hector and got heat. Then Hector got to make a big house of fire entrance with rapid punches until he got swept under. The idea was that once he got the hot tag (again rolling all over the place) there just wasn't enough time for Manny to get the win, though he came real close. I don't remember too many draws being worked quite this and it's a solid structure on paper. 

Most fascinating thing to me is just watching the Baron. He lost the offense once by goose stepping and setting up the claw. He had a way of both hitting offense (even stomps) and bumping that he'd move his waist but not his abdomen. He's like an old action figure without enough points of articulation. You can make him sit up in the middle, but then you can't bend his knees or waist. And he still takes bumps and hits offense, but it's amazingly stilted. I've seen plenty of Baron matches but maybe it was just worse by 86? Anyway, maybe this was helped by the clipping, maybe not, but it worked for me.

ER: We love guys who move weird and nobody moves around a ring weirder than 1986 Baron, who is my exact age but he moves like someone re-animated a 75 year old monster from memory. His bumps are terrible, taken only one way, rolling back to his seat waving his arms like he's Accredited Giant Gonzalez. I like how Manny works like Chavo when he teams with Hector. I wonder how he worked when he teamed with Chavo. Probably like an asskicker. Manny hits like a rock and pulls off a flying headscissors, Hector brings energy and the crowd loves his evasive tumbling. Koloff works like the best Haruka Eigen. He did an All Japan tour in 1990 when he was in his late 50s and I need to see every match we have from that tour. I loved how he bumped for Hector's late match hot tag, Korakuen would have gone wild for the ways he ran into the turnbuckles and bounced his way halfway back across the ring. While I'm curious how Baron worked his bearhug, I respect the camera's choice to edit. 

Dusty Rhodes vs. Arn Anderson + Magnum TA vs. Nikita Koloff [Cage]

MD: This is still a bit clipped but you get the sense of what's going on and I loved the Dusty vs Arn portion until the finish. This being a house show, there was such freedom for Dusty to absolutely demolish Arn. Arn sold the cage at first, not the danger of it but the fact he couldn't get away. Then he managed to run himself knee first into the cage. Dusty took over on it with such one-of-a-kind timing on seizing the foot, taking him down, holding it, looking to the crowd, stomping, stomping again. If a conductor of an orchestra is primarily worried about controlling the time and volume, Dusty was the best conductor of a crowd I've ever seen. Just a virtuoso. 

After smashing and rubbing Arn's head against the cage a bit, Arn actually came back with these beautiful low kicks from the ground, just sweeping his leg against Dusty's as if he was dance fighting. He honed in and then, once he had a real advantage, the Russains came out with the chain. I would have probably liked it more if Dusty mounted a comeback and then they came in? But there was also the sense that this was the plan all along if Arn got even the smallest bit of advantage. 

I suppose it worked either way as Magnum rushed in to break it up and start his match with Nikita. This had a totally different feel. Magnum did control early including a goofy atomic drop that sent Nikita in (and justified the blading) and using the cage to help himself bound up to the top turnbuckle for a double axe handle.Nikita lawn darted himself head first into Magnum's gut to take over and Magnum worked well from underneath. At one point he ate a backbreaker and crawled on his knees across the ring and it really worked for me.

Great transition, maybe even an all time one honestly, as Nikita went for the sickle, Magnum moved, and he went arm first into the cage. Things opened up from there with Magnum throwing all sorts of punches and a great sweeping dropkick. I loved the finish too, as Magnum went to toss Nikita head first into the cage, but Nikita grabbed Magnum's head at the last second and they both went in at equal speed. Just a real symbolic sense of them being equals/rivals/fated. That led to a ten count where it seemed like Nikita might beat it but he collapsed and Magnum shot up at the last second to a huge pop. Lots to love here.

ER: I appreciate that we got a little handheld ambiance before the match, our documentarian filming the people at the Cincinnati Gardens, reminding us that Miller Lite tastes great and is less filling, giving us a too brief glimpse of the ringside guardrails getting moved around before the cage goes up. As Dusty goes after Arn's ankle, I appreciate that everything you hear yelled by the crowd sounds like create-a-crowd ADR. "Do it again, Dusty!" "Give it to him!" "Stomp that ankle, Dusty!" It's clipped up, but I'm glad we get Arn's killer missed knee strike into the cage, Dusty seated on the middle rope but dodging, Arn's knee going into the cage, Arn throwing the knee to actually connect with Dusty and thus hitting the cage just as his knee would have connected with Dusty's stomach. After getting his face ground into the cage, Arn misses a wild swing and takes perhaps the fastest faceplant I've seen from a miss, a reaction to a Dusty elbow that swings him into the mat faster than anything Dusty could have done to him. 

TA vs. Nikita portion is a real hot fight. Koloff was great at taking punches and Magnum was great at throwing them. Koloff took an axe handle better than most I've seen, really selling the impact in how he let it drive him spinning to the mat. Koloff is great at taking Magnum's punches, none better than in the aftermath of him missing the sickle into the cage. Magnum lands a jab to Koloff's nose and Nikita winces up like he's prematurely stopping a gush of blood. Wahoo hit this great swinging axe handle to Garvin's chest in the opener, and I thought that was the coolest strike of the night, until Magnum threw the same swinging axe handle at Nikita's face. It's funny that the "first man to his feet, Wins" finish came after both ran each other into the cage, which was treated much more seriously than Magnum straight up murdering Nikita with a piledriver moments before. I still loved the drama around both men getting to their feet. 

Ric Flair vs. Ron Garvin

MD: Opening few minutes of this were great. Flair would press Garvin into the corner, try to take a liberty, smack him, immediately get smacked back, sell it with shock. It was a lovely bit of vaudeville. I'm torn on parts of this one overall. Flair's narratives just don't come together how I'd like. What happens in minute 17 doesn't necessarily stem logically from what happens in minute 6 like with other greatest-of-all-time wrestlers. But that doesn't necessarily mean that what happens in minute 17 isn't good and that it doesn't fit the moment or the characters. But it leaves me wondering if something was left on the table sometimes. But maybe I'm wrong and this is better and more organic somehow. 

Here, when Flair did take over, it felt clear like he was fed up from all the shots he took from Garvin and that he just wanted to lay shots in, not worried about winning or any sort of strategy. It was raw and human and effective, and I think the issue isn't it necessarily, but when he went into the finish and started to target the leg. I preferred him punching Garvin in the face to being just as mean about the leg, but then when things had to slip into some sort of finishing sequence, it wasn't one that matched the rest of the contest. My favorite shot he did was when he had Garvin draped over the top rope like Sheamus (or like he was setting him up for Eigen's spit spot) and instead of just whacking him in the chest, he punched him in the cheek. 

Maybe I'm wrong though. Maybe the narrative is that Flair was angry and he was mean and cruel but in the face of Garvin constantly firing back, maybe he was a coward and maybe he blinked first, and he went to the knee out of desperation and then tried to cover it with bluster like it was his plan all along. Maybe it's my fault for just not having enough faith in Flair. Maybe I'm not fair to Flair. Regardless, the finish did hit, with Garvin, leg torn up, eating a second shinbreaker anyway to punch Flair in the face. Both guys went sprawling to the floor and got counted out. You can't say the fans didn't get their money here at least.

ER: Love the guy in the crowd who, as Tommy Young is holding up Flair's title, keeps saying, "Garvin's leaving with it! Garvin's leaving with it!" Super physical match, which I greatly respect, and if we had it in full I'd say it's one of my favorite Flair matches of the era. We don't know how long the actual match may have gone, but we have 21+ minutes of it here and it's easy to think they went past 30, and they were fighting the whole time. Garvin unsurprisingly throws the hardest punches of the night while Flair takes the hardest bumps, but it's so much more than that. Unless edited out entirely, they don't hit the mat at all. No long builds out of headscissors, no wear down holds, just pure physicality in every exchange. Even though it had several staples of Every Town Paid to See My Shit Flair, this feels paced differently from a lot of Flair touring champ matches. The schtick blended into the fight a lot better than I've seen it in many highly acclaimed Flair matches, and his cumulative selling felt like a guy who really had been battered and beaten for 30 minutes. There were no moments where he was taking bigger bumps for Tommy Young or running ropes after selling fatigue, this was always fought like two men getting progressively worn down and hurt from their fight. 

When Flair goes into his own personal Showstopper mode, many things can feel disconnected from everything else in the match. This never felt that way, every blur of fighting felt like a part of their larger war, and every exchange had such physical power that by the time we were 30 in and both men were limping around the ring after each other, artistry out the window, scrambling and crawling over each other for any advantage, it felt like a righteous culmination to their war. Some of my favorite moments include Garvin popping Flair right in the forehead for a nearfall and shaking out his fist while still lying across Flair's body, fanning his fingers while still pressing Flair to the mat. It's no secret that Garvin has amazing punches, but you could randomly step into any minute of this match and see a perfect example of some all timers. Garvin's punches all look sped up, like the punch is sped up at the point of impact to make them look harder than they are, but Garvin is just that good. When he throws three perfect punches before rolling smoothly into a jackknife pin, I thought it was an honest to god real finish. 

Flair getting pressed off the top actually served the match, wasn't just an excuse for Flair to take one of his bumps. It leads immediately to Garvin dropping an elbow for 2, and the punches he rains down on Flair after the kickout are incredible, standing over him punching down at Flair, Flair groggily trying to sit up but just getting punched over and over, like he's being punished for kicking out. Garvin also does this beautiful thing where he takes a knee breaker and fucking decks Flair upon landing, before falling in a heap himself. Wrestling needs more guys who lash out instinctively upon feeling pain, before the pain consumes them and they are forced to sell. Garvin definitely sold the damage of that knee breaker, but he reacted like someone who stubs their toe and foolishly lashes out and attacks the bed frame he stubbed it on. It makes much more sense to have that reaction to a man trying to hurt you, and once you see Garvin deck Flair you wonder why it's something we don't see more. This is the most boiled down raw version of Misawa popping up to hit an elbow and it's beautiful. Great match, great war. 

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Found Footage Friday: OMNI 83~! ZBYSZKO~! ORNDORFF~! ARN~! BORNE~! WILDFIRE~! ROOP~! GARVIN~!

GCW Omni 5/15/83

MD: Unfortunately, we're missing the six man which had Hansen and Murdoch teaming, plus a random Killer Brooks vs. Brian Blair match apparently, a testament to how the territory was a bit down and some guys were doing double duty, but we're going to be thankful we got this at all. 

Brett Wayne vs. Joe Lightfoot 

MD: It feels a little much that Lightfoot is a "Chief" too. Not everyone can be a chief. This started as a babyface match and the first thing we hear at the bell is someone shout from the crowd "Now don't you do any bodily harm to one another." which is some beautiful Georgia wrestling right there. And this was a pretty solid babyface exhibition for the first five minutes, headlocks into headscissors, that sort of thing. There was one nice moment where Lightfoot jammed a monkey flip in a way you don't usually see and there was a sense of struggle. That struggle boiled over and Lightfoot got more and more chippy, sneaking in a punch, hitting a chop, and then finally hitting a cheapshot from out of the corner. The fans did not like that. Wayne did not like that. They skidded into roll up exchanges before things could get too heated though and Wayne snuck one out with a jackknife. They more or less made up post match. If this had one or two more minutes for Lightfoot to lean harder heel and be in control, it would have been more memorable but it was a good opener. 

ER: Boy this really did end right when it was picking up steam. Brett Wayne has been one of my favorite "discoveries" of the Omni shows, and his talents admittedly shine brighter when he's in against a guy he won't be/shouldn't be beating. Underdog babyface fire and ability to take heavy thudding beatings are two things that won't be necessary in a face vs. face match with Joe Lightfoot. While I appreciated their work in the opening minutes, some snug headscissors and - importantly - always honest work, it got a lot better when Lightfoot started getting really bothered by someone in the crowd. I don't know exactly who it was but someone was getting under Lightfoot's skin - multiple times including post-match he flapped his hand at someone, telling them to Keep Yapping - and that little shove into being a heel made this temporarily catch fire. The honesty of the exchanges and the firmness of the contact suddenly meant a lot more. I like how they handled a blocked O'Connor roll, Lightfoot holding the ropes and Wayne not rolling back but splatting to his back, legs in the air for a kip up that never came. Lightfoot, picking up on Wayne's landing, pulls an inside cradle that looked like it could have won. The energy and weight for the actual finish was excellent, with Wayne kicking out of a sunset flip and pouncing into a jackknife pin. You watch enough Guerrero/Malenko roll ups sequences - and brother, that is a thing seared into my brain folds - and get used to the visual of the last 20+ years of Divas level copycat versions, and suddenly Brett Wayne shows what the sequence can look like when someone actually wants to win a match. 

Brian Blair vs. Chick Donovan 

MD: Blair came off as straightlaced and sound, a bit of a competent babyface bully on the mat. Chick preened and stalled to start. When they finally locked up, he tried to screw around with Blair. Blair showed him why that wasn't a good idea, clearly out wrestling him. He worked a hammerlock for a while and you got the sense he could do whatever he wanted with him. Eventually Chick got a few cheapshots in and took over. Blair was maybe a little less interesting working from underneath but his comeback was good with a leapfront, a huge forearm that knocked Chick into the ropes, and then catching him with a sleeper on the way back. Not only did he whack him to wake him up, but he did it with a second rope kneedrop to the back of his head as Chick was seated but unconscious, which was a great bit.

ER: Chick Donovan must have been poured into that coat OR bought it when he was less shredded because he is forced to enlist the referee just to help him out of it. Even with an extra man, it is still a full production. I've never seen a man take so long to get out of a jacket. Love the pack of women in the crowd screaming for Chick. Dude looks great, like the middle step of Jeff Jarrett evolving into Flair, and he wrestles like the best possible Jarrett. Chick was great bumping around for Blair and the bumping was made even better because Chick had no problem hitting a stiff back elbow or other stiff cheap shot, gain nothing from it, and then go back to bumping. I thought Joe Lightfoot had a nice kneedrop in the opener, but Blair had a gorgeous kneedrop that looked Harley Race level. I was still thinking about it when Blair smothered Chick with a sleeper to win, and was not expecting Blair to hit an even cooler kneedrop after the match. Matt's right, it's a great bit to put someone to sleep and then hit a move to wake them up, and I cannot say I have ever seen someone hit a kneedrop off the middle turnbuckle to a seated opponent. Blair's kneedrop has to be precise for the bit, but also seems insanely dangerous to even attempt. Blair leaps several feet away to perfectly place a pointed knee to Chick's cerebellum, snapping Donovan awake. 

Ron Garvin vs. Bob Roop 

MD: First time I caught this it was on a bus home from DC and I fell asleep a bunch. I don't think that's fair to the match but it's also not too surprising as a lot of this was Roop armwork and some of it was more compelling than others. Him actually chipping away at the arm was compelling because of how Garvin fought back. He was always threatening to throw a right hand and there were some bits, like Garvin having his foot caught and jumping over multiple trip attempts that I loved.

All of the hope spots were so good too. Garvin was fighting with one arm. Sometimes it meant he just got one punch and that was enough. Sometimes it meant he got Roop on the apron and could clubber until Roop draped his other arm over the top. Sometimes it meant a flurry of right handed punches followed up by a huge headbutt. The comeback was a headbutt to the groin and man did he ever thrash Roop after that, including the Garvin stomp. Fans were very much into all of it and it led to a fun finishing stretch where he tossed Roop off the top and when Roop tried it to him, he rolled him up. Maybe this got a little long in the tooth at times, but maybe they needed that for the comeback to work as well as it did? I don't fault the match for me being tired on a Thursday afternoon. 

ER: This was a slow burn that went up in hot flames the moment they wanted it to. For the first 12-13 minutes, Roop methodically worked over Garvin's arm in the kind of way that would potentially put you asleep after a long day at work, but was rewarding to someone watching with a fresh cup of coffee. Roop is Shooter Ned Beatty and all his arm work was honest and tough, jamming his shoulder into hard surfaces and not letting it go, working like Regal without the flash. Garvin endured and sold expertly throughout the long control, and the sudden payoff was incredible. Was the payoff even better because of the slow burn? I thought so, and loved how suddenly and explosively it came, with a Garvin headbutt that sends Roop backpedaling all the way to the other side of the ring, where Garvin stalks to meet him with a kick right to the face. Garvin's high kick is such a cool piece of offense that no other brawler used. When you had a great punching babyface - or any brawler outside of Takayama - they were never working kicks into their punching attacks. 

But if you want to talk about great punching wrestlers, we must discuss ALL of Roop's punches. How about his overhand right to back Garvin up, fanning out his hand after because he knew how fucking good it looked? His head movement to miss Garvin's response. His falling hammer fist into Garvin's throat, the punches in mount while holding onto the back of Garvin's head, every straight right to the head directly at the hard cam, busting Garvin open and leading to an even bigger comeback. Nobody talks about Roop as a great puncher but it's all here. He sets up the biggest comeback possible, the Garvin Stomp and big followup elbowdrop getting a big reaction, but nowhere near as big as Garvin biting Roop on the face after. Garvin is back raking and striking Roop all over the ring and we should all love how much Bob Roop absolutely refuses to fix his singlet after the left strap first falls, then is pulled down by Garvin. Roop works the rest of the match with his singlet falling off and I can't see that kind of stooging happening today. 

Tommy Rich/Ray Candy vs. Arn Anderson/Matt Borne (w/ Precious Paul Ellering)

MD: This was the one match on the card we had clipped already, but we did only have a few minutes of it and as best as I can tell this is our first full Anderson/Borne arena match.  Bleached Blonde Borne is a weird look for a guy who had so many looks. I really did love this though. It's a wonderful match. Rich's shine where he's ducking things and throwing fists and Arn and Borne are flying all over the place for him while the fans go nuts and "ooh!" for every punch is perfect pro wrestling.

It's amazing how good Arn was already, the way he moved his hands or looked at what was going on. He just got it so naturally. Such rich and vivid reactions to everything. None of it felt fabricated or overwrought. He had grown up a wrestling fan and I think he understood so intimately what connected with him and how not to play at a wrestler but to inhabit the character of one completely.

This had double heat on Candy where they were able to manage through quick switches and either riding him or clubbering away, tagging whenever he started to comeback. It was very effective because of the dissonance. You wouldn't think they'd be able to keep him down but they did it through hook or crook. Then there was a heat on Rich to finish it, with hope spots and all, before he got a roll up out of nowhere with Arn already celebrating on the apron since he thought they were doing great. Really good stuff all around and I like how unconventional the structure was overall. 

ER: Great stuff, great look at Destruction Inc, which happened when Borne was a better version of Arn than Arn. Young old man Arn and Borne working fully in sync, going after Candy and cutting him off, Wildfire raging on the apron for the hot tag, it's the perfect use of everyone. The Tommy stuff was a great way to start, Borne and Arn feeding perfectly for his wild fire, the way Arn and Borne moved into and fell away from Rich was electric. It's been said that wrestlers today are far better athletes but I don't understand that at all. The movement seen from ab-less 1983 wrestlers was such a better use of motion than anything in modern wrestling. Every strike led to a big recoil, selling happening constantly, everyone great at occupying themselves while feeding. 

When it's time for Destruction Inc to cut off Candy, Borne and Arn work the mat with him like they're specifically trying to gas Candy out, making him work through scrambles and pushing him to a pace he would never be able to handle. It's great psychology and a great way to use Candy, forcing him to be a tired monster swinging at two men who don't look like they'd be so fast. Paul is cheating from the floor, and I love how Candy falls when Paul grabs his leg from the floor, a real crashing wave that looked like a man actually thrown off balance by an unexpected full leg grab. Destruction are so good at keeping the ring cut off and the heat strong. Several moments stood out, but I loved one of Candy's big attempts to fight his way to Rich. Candy was punching at Borne while back elbowing Arn on the apron to escape their corner, and as Borne goes down from a punch he scissors Candy's leg as he's falling. When Rich finally tagged in it was a great as expected...but I did not expect them to then work a heat segment cutting off Rich! Great little twist, could have watched another 10 minutes of it. 

Paul Orndorff vs. Larry Zbyszko

MD: Larry's so great here. People complain about the stalling. People are, of course, fools. He doesn't do a lot of it here, but he does complain and grumble and get frustrated by everything. In college, my roommate, who did not like wrestling in the least, had to put up with us watching Nitro, and at one point Larry, on commentary, said "It hurts to live." and he loved that turn of phrase. Well, Larry sells life. He sells absolutely everything. And he's so damn active about it. If he takes a bump, he then flails his legs and slaps his arm against the mat and walks it off like he has ants in his pants. Early on he stumbles into so many different stooging scenarios. My favorite is him dropping down on his stomach, then on his back, which you never see, and then hitting a clunky front dropkick (Erik Watts level) as Orndorff catches himself on the rope, making Larry eat the bump. It's beautiful stuff.  

The transition has Larry sidestepping and Orndorff careening out. We don't see the bump into the guardrail but we hear it and it sounds nasty. Larry plays king of the mountain, of sorts, after that, heading out to the apron to lay shots in until Orndorff pulls the leg out. Larry gets up first and catches him on the way back in. He cuts him off one or two times like that but Orndorff is persistent and Larry is playing vulnerable. Orndorff has very stilted, staccato style attacks. Big sweeping stuff that doesn't really feel chained together. Drumbeat attacks so the last row can see (and hear). 

Larry, of course takes a beating. In the ring, out, onto the announce table, until he can shove Orndorff into the ref from the outside and then pin him with his foot stuck in the ropes.  That's a fake finish though as Tommy Rich comes out to tell the ref and they restart the match. Orndorff sells the leg from having had it caught in the ropes and Larry targets it, Orndorff fighting back on one leg really well. Larry keeps wanting the figure four but he wants it too badly and gets rolled up for his trouble. Fun match. Fascinating to watch both of these guys do their thing.

ER: I love these looks at Zbyszko, who looks and works almost like a normal size Buddy Rose in these environments. I love the way Larry moves, love how he feeds, love how he throws kicks and punches with similar to so many French Catch workers but perfectly distilled into a southern setting. Anytime the mics pick up Orndorff yelling about Zbyszko he sounds like Boomhauer because he hasn't yet had his New York Training. Zbyszko is so good at selling befuddlement while working out of holds. When he tries to push off and Orndorff holds onto a headlock, our Ordinary People couple in their same front row center seats actually have a rare small exchange, Jane Fonda pointing something out about the exchange while Donald Sutherland stares forward, emotionless. They are Georgia's two biggest wrestling fans and their demeanor never rises above that of a pair ordered to be there as part of some creative court mandated punishment. 

It's not always productive to view wrestling this way, but sometimes I watch a guy and think, "why doesn't anyone do this now?" I never actually know what those things might be, what things will get my attention. I don't always have a set criteria for Preferred Execution. It can be something simple or something complicated that someone makes look simple. Often it is concerning a common sequence done in a way that is so far removed from modern interpretations that it feels almost completely foreign. Here, it was the way Larry handled a dropdown/dropkick exchange, specifically the way he moved and got into position. He did two dropdowns then missed a dropkick, but it was this incredibly fast, incredibly tight work of clownery, and again I must compare Larry Zbyszko of all people to French Catch workers who he has surely never heard of in his life. His first dropdown was stomach down, but he took a back bump into his second one, and when he sprang up for the (missed) dropkick he did a flat back bump dropkick that made the whole sequence felt like it was evolving organically to the payoff of the specific way he fell.  

I loved the way he fought underneath, like trying to break a cravat with a hair pull that got him punished much worse, Orndorff dropping the hole and elbowing him in the nose before snapmaring him into a fistdrop. When it was Larry's time for control, he threw these great kicks while holding the ropes and keeping Orndorff in ring ropes purgatory, almost whipping his leg into Orndorff's body. Zbyszko does offense with his entire body, and that's the kind of thing I watch and think "athleticism". Using your whole body in the service of making all your actions more impactful. When I watch modern wrestling I predominately see athleticism used so frequently in the service of just getting into position for offense that all feels like wasted energy. No energy in this match felt wasted, even Larry reeling on his feet like a goofball for Orndorff's fire. 

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

GCW Omni 4/22/84

Tommy Rogers vs. Bob Roop

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jake Roberts vs. Brad Armstrong

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 
Ron Garvin vs. The Spoiler

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

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

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

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

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

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

Road Warriors vs. Masked Superstar/King Kong Bundy

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

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

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

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Found Footage Friday: OMNI 2/5/84~!

GCW Omni 2/5/84

Jesse Barr vs. Johnny Rich 

MD: Usually these shows have one long match early, either a draw in the first or second match. This went long with the first two and it was done purposefully. The second match went to a draw, but the crowd was primed by the first ending in a pinfall when it felt like they were working towards a draw (at least that's what it felt like to me). We can't know for certain what a 1984 crowd thought, but given it was booked this way, the idea was almost certainly to introduce the idea that a match can end at any point to keep the interest strong for a second match worked long in Thornton vs Armstrong. As much as the crowd liked Rich, and they really liked Rich on this night, Armstrong was the one going for Thornton's Jr. Heavyweight title, and because they wanted to keep Brad strong, that's the one that had to go to a draw. Did it work? I think, as best as we can tell from crowd noise, it did.

The matches were fairly similar. Long holds worked in and out of. Barr vs Rich had more shtick and I probably liked it more accordingly. They did a great bit early on where Rich worked out of a headlock, Barr did a dropdown, and Sawyer elbow dropped him, only to invert the sequence a minute later but have Barr miss the elbow drop. They did another bit where Barr tried to press Rich's hands down in a double knucklelock so he could step on them only for Rich to move his hands and punch him. Or they'd escalate to rope running and Rich would get one on Barr and then when Barr tried it a few minutes later, Rich would drop to his knees and punch him instead. Then a couple of minutes later, they'd have Barr stop short and try a falling punch only for Sawyer to move. Crowd-pleasing stuff. Barr finally had enough and roughed Rich up a bit, but Brett came back big and Barr stooged all over the place for him. Finish had Barr try to toss Rich off the top but get rolled up. 

ER: When I fired up a new Omni show I was not especially seeking out a Young Boys style opener where Jesse Barr works side headlocks while Rich gets kickier the longer he's in them, building to shoulderblocks and knucklelocks. New Japan Young Boys have much better timing on rope running spots but Rich and Barr's timing gets better the longer they do the shtick and it starts to get actively good by the time they're pushing to the finishing stretch. Our Donald Sutherland coffee drinking swinger who is fast becoming the Straw Hat Guy of the Omni is not impressed, chewing his gum the whole time, but it gets good when Barr works the knucklelock into a hand stomp, but Rich is a beat ahead of him and punches him from his knees. Rich has a lot of good working punching from his knees, and things get even better when they work a great fistdrop sequence into it, where Rich lands a nice one after stopping short, and when Barr tries the same thing he punches mat. Barr draws real heat when the 10 minute mark is announced, with only 5 minutes remaining, and he starts picking Rich up at 2 counts, smiling to the crowd like he doesn't give a damn if they go to a draw. A heel not actually interested in winning is hilarious and the crowd rejects his indifference. I love the trick of announcing the 5 minutes remaining, announcing each remaining minute, setting things up for a clear time limit draw, before the babyface escapes with a quick roll through win. I started this too dog tired to turn it off, and wound up completely into what they were doing. 

Les Thornton vs. Brad Armstrong

Thornton vs. Armstrong had much more of Thornton leaning on Brad, especially with a headscissors. Brad would find his way out with headstands and all sorts of other techniques but Thornton would get him right back into it. Eventually, after beating on Brad in the corner a bit with European Uppercuts, Thornton ended up into a hammerlock and they switched to having Brad control that way for the next part of the match. Thornton got him out and started playing king of the mountain, and following up with a headlock as Brad got back in. Brad was able to turn it around and get him out, getting some revenge on the floor. Then as the time was ticking down they wrestled fairly even, both going for opportunities where they could get it and fighting towards the draw. Thornton vs. Brad was harder hitting with meaner holds and maybe tighter work, and still had the crowd going, but I had more fun with the shtick in Rich vs. Barr.

ER: I'm so tired of Good Hand Brad. It's 15+ years of documentation of a guy who refused to take anything to the next level. Act like it means something to you. It has to mean more than how well you can execute a hammerlock, right Brad? Does it ever interest you to take a ring posting in a cool, memorable way, instead of "the right way"? I was born into pro wrestling. My daddy is a legend, my brothers all wrestle. I want to be a better version of Tony Garea. That's my pro wrestling dream. Les Thornton throws a ringpost bump into the aftereffect of an atomic drop, so even among great physique guys who couldn't break out of the undercard, Brad wasn't front of the line. Thornton's butterfly and back suplexes looked like they were trying to actually get the match to a finish as time expired - nice aggression after taking nothing but scenic routes - and I wish they had committed to getting Thornton that inside cradle win at 19:30. 

Ron Garvin vs. King Kong Bundy

MD: Not a ton to say here. We come in JIP. and maybe lose the first ten minutes or so of it actually. We come in with Bundy leaning on Garvin but they build towards these great, great Garvin flurries, first in the center of the ring and then in the corner. Bundy's able to push Garvin away but he keeps coming at him. Just as Bundy really has him in the corner, Ellering comes out and Bundy chases him to the back so Garvin wins it. I assume this was mid-turn for Bundy and Garvin was just sort of there as a babyface to fight along the way. The good stuff here was good but we didn't get quite enough of it.

ER: I was hoping for a big slug out as the only remaining footage, but we get instead a fun build to Garvin throwing punches, working his way closer to Krang with eye pokes and foot stomps and frustrated the largest man in town, before triumphantly teeing off on him. Bundy takes punches like he's being swarmed with bees, and what's even better is he gets his hands on Garvin instantly and beats the shit out of him. Paul Ellering is contractually obligated to appear in 75% of the matches so Bundy just chases him off after beating Garvin's ass. We deserve to see this as a real match. 

Jake Roberts vs. Jerry Brisco

MD: As always, 83-84 Jake is the Jake we were promised: a slinking, long-limbed psychological master. This doesn't go nearly long enough. Brisco outwrestles Jake early causing Jake to slither around the ring trying to escape. Jake uses his reach advantage to cut him off and control. Brisco starts outwrestling him again on the comeback. Jake takes a great corner bump as he runs in and gets tripped. As he's going for the figure-four, Ellering gets on the apron. Jake then gets the ref between them so he can hit a cheapshot and hit the DDT. It was stylistically different than the rest of the card but I would have liked a bit more. What we did get here was very good.

ER: I don't even need to write much about it, I just love the way Jake Roberts moves. This 1984 Omni has given us the slinkiest dirtbag Jake Roberts. He looks and moves like a giant spider version of my cool Little League coach Tom Menghini, who coached us to a title in 1991, smoked, and often wore no shirt. This is six minutes of Jake movement from what might have been his best year of moving. Jake moves so compellingly that Gerald Brisco may as well have been Les Thornton or Brad Armstrong. He could have drawn believable stories with near upsets with any of those men. His powers were larger than life. His is one of our great necessary wrestler looks, a nightmare drunk fan sitting in the cheap upper deck Candlestick seats. His sprawling upside down out of nowhere corner bump isn't enough to rouse a single emotion from our emotional black hole Ordinary People Omni front row regulars, but the cheap seats thunder. I love how Jake sells his annoyance at Brisco's tenaciousness with his entire body. Jake could have been John Tatum if he didn't look so dangerous and so cool. The dismissive way he shoves the ref into Brisco, kicking Brisco in the balls as he does it, is done with the precision of a prison hitman. We've seen a career of Jake giving long limbed perfect DDTs, and we may have just found the purest one. This is how it looks, how it moves. 

Mr. R (Tommy Rich) vs. the Spoiler

MD: Chaos from the get go. More often than not, when we get a new Spoiler match, it doesn't disappoint. He was well into his 40s here but he still moved incredibly well for his size. Very fluid and active. They brawled to start including, Spoiler tossing in the little wooden ring steps and then Rich threatening him while he was on the top. Spoiler was incessant, using the claw, pulling at the mask, teeter tottering Rich in the ropes. When Rich would come back, Spoiler would go high and come down upon him, including just casually walking up the ropes in the middle of the ring to hammer down. He took a huge bump in the corner as Rich got out of the way allowing Rich to come back and work the mask himself. That would happen a few times honestly. Spoiler must have taken three bumps in the corner. This had a crazy feel as they fought around ringside, with Spoiler going for the bell only for the ref to stop him. Towards the end Ellering ran in and Rich was about to tear him apart until Spoiler nailed him with a chair. Babyfaces made the save. Just a great high energy brawl with perfect chemistry. 

ER: We are so over the moon for The Spoiler. Where were we, as a blog, before we wrote about Spoiler matches? He's such an Our Guy kind of guy, a real weirdo, who wrestled as a man inspired by nobody. Tommy Rich is also Our Guy but this isn't a Mr. R match, this is a Spoiler match. Every second of this is a Spoiler match. Even when he's doing something you've seen before, he's doing it in a way that is truly his own. Jardine's rope work is an incredible trick. Nobody else was walking on the ropes like that. Why is such a large man climbing and walking around on the ropes like that, and how does he make it look so easy. He'll use the ropes like he's cornered in a cage, and exploiting a loophole by climbing the cage and still attacking from the top of the cage, as if he's thinking of the ring as a bowl shape and the top rope around the ring as the top of the bowl. But while his rope walking is a cool trick - leading Tommy around by the head as he takes way bigger strides than you'd think possible - I love it even more when he is standing still up there. There's a moment where he knocks Rich to the floor and quickly scales the turnbuckles, then just stands there on the top, lording over Rich on the floor, looking like he was primed to plancha to his death, but just keeps standing. The visual is so odd, he's facing away from the ring but leaning his weight back towards it, defying physics with no respect before leaping off with an elbow. 

He cheats in fun ways that must have been a joy to see live. I loved him throwing the wooden ring steps into the ring before the match even starts, felt like something Terry Funk would do on a northeast indy show in the 90s, just to get the crowd buzzing while he stalks the ringside. My favorite bit was also before the bell, when he pretended to adjust a weapon in his tights just to piss off one small corner of the arena, a small magic trick only meant to be seen by some. His bumping was so dangerous for an old man (one year younger than I am). The way he got hung up by the knee missing a corner charge was something that Chris Hamrick stole and used with a much smaller frame, but I gotta know...is Don Jardine our first flying ringpost bumper? The Great Ringpost Bump has been a thing for ages with several ways to do it, but is Jardine the first guy to fly through the turnbuckles and nail the ringpost? I've seen him do it earlier than here, but it wouldn't surprise me if Spoiler was the one to invent the Cassandro/Super Dragon wrap around ringpost bump. The man had a gift for taking something you thought you'd seen and presenting it in a whole new light. This is a 1984 Omni show so naturally Paul Ellering was required for the finish, but that doesn't take away from this gem of a performance. 

Road Warriors vs. Sweet Brown Sugar/Pez Whatley

MD: Fun first few minutes here as the Roadies stooged and bumped all over the place in a way that would have seemed ridiculous two years later. I enjoy seeing them early on because they feel so different but this was obviously the genesis of what would make them into what they were. Once the extended heat started, the match sort of slowed to a crawl. We've seen this crowd go up huge for Pez but it wasn't happening on this night and they weren't really going up for Young either. It wasn't the most compelling heat in the history of the world but usually that didn't matter so much. Not sure what was going on. Maybe they were just ready to get on to the next program. Sugar and Pez had gotten close with a double headbutt but Hawk broke up the pin and the ref had to toss the match out as it devolved into chaos. But the crowd got to go home happy as Sawyer and Bundy came in to clear house post-match. 

ER: This was worked completely differently than I was expecting and was so much fun in the way it defied expectations, until it just became very boring and lost all energy. This did not go the way you expected it to go on paper, in three different ways: You wouldn't expect Pez and Sugar to control for as long as they did, you wouldn't expect the Road Warriors to be so boring when they went in control, and you wouldn't expect Pez or Sugar to be so boring working from underneath. What an odd match. It's weird (but very fun!) when Pez is in control and Hawk is bumping around for him, and then it's as if everyone forgets how to work a crowd. Suddenly there is no underneath fire from Pez or Sugar, and there is no energy from Hawk or Animal. Some of the loud reactions for Pez in this Omni footage have been revelatory, but here it's like everyone forgot who he was. However, for several minutes, we got to see Pez Whatley smothering Hawk and not let him get any offense in, and that's hilarious. Hawk looks as intimidating as ever, and he just can't get anything going against Pistol Pez...until he does, and opts to do nothing. Such is life. This is the ONE match on this card where Don't Look Now Donald Sutherland fan in. a sad Ordinary People marriage had the correct, bored reaction. 

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El Deporte de las Mil Emociones: Strong Punch

Week 57: Strong Punch

We saw Carlos Colon get the win against the savage Polynesian Prince in a barbed wire match and TNT regain the TV title against the man who put him on the shelf, one King Kong. We do have one other match we need to mention from the June 1 house show in Bayamon. Invader #1 faced Ron Garvin in a special challenge match and the match ended up going to a draw. Throughout the match there were a couple of instances where both Invader and Garvin looked to have the match won but circumstances caused the match to restart and then the time limit ended without a winner. As a result of this challenge match having no winner, the two wrestlers agreed to a rematch at Aniversario 91. To make it official, a contract signing aired on TV and things got heated when each man brought up the moment they had the match in hand.. The back and forth got a bit heated and then talk turned to who had the better and stronger punch. Again, the back and forth got a bit heated, leading to both men standing up. At that moment, Garvin surprised Invader with a punch right to the face. Invader went down and his nose was injured from the blow. As a result, Invader will have a bandage around his nose as he recovers from the damage Garvin's punch did. This has only added more fuel to the newly signed match for Anviersari 91. And there’s one more stipulation that will be added as a result of all the arguing over who has the better punch. In order to prove who has the best punch, Invader will be allowed to show up with his fist taped for the Aniversario match. The taped fist heart punch is the most dangerous move in Puerto Rico wrestling, so the stakes are high for that encounter.

Do we have any other updates for Aniversario? Let’s go to what's either the June 8 or June 15 west coast version of Super Estrellas to find out.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SRMBHXeS91w

We join this episode in progress, as Eliud Gonzalez is in the Road to Aniversario control center. He’s just finished talking about Invader #1 (looks like he has a match for Aniversario) and then talks about the revenge match between Bronco and Skandor Akbar. They replay the fireball incident and aftermath. There’s also the match between Monster Ripper and El Profe, and we go to a recap of how this all started at Noche de Campeones. And if that’s not enough, we also have the feud between Billy Joe Travis and Hugo Savinovich, where we get the recap of the brief altercation and then Hugo getting Carlos Colon and Giant Warrior to agree to help him train for the match. Back in the control center, Eliud tells us that more matches will be announced soon and remember that you can get your tickets at Thom McAn (a shoe store chain) in the western region starting this Thursday. If you pay attention to the clips shown in the segment outro, you’ll see Ron Garvin decking Invader during the contract signing for their Aniversario match, which is what leads to Invader wearing a bandage around his nose for the next couple of weeks.

The control center is followed by an El Profe promo, where he again runs down Monster Ripper by saying that here in Latin America women are objects for men. We cut to a card rundown for the Aniversario show in San German and we can confirm that Invader #1 with his taped fist will face Ron Garvin. Also added to the card are the Caribbean Express defending the Caribbean tag titles against the Samoan Swat Team and Super Medico #3 defending the Caribbean title against Rod Price. Tomorrow (either June 9 or 16) they will be in Guanica with the following lineup: Invader #1 & TNT vs Polynesian Prince & Dick Murdoch; Giant Warrior vs. King Kong; Ricky Santana vs Rod Price; Miguelito Perez vs Action Jackson; minis in action; Huracan Castillo vs Billy Joe Travis; and Mr. Ito vs. Galan Mendoza.

Since this is the last we’ll hear of King Kong, I want to mention a memory I have that has to be from around this time period. It was a TV match taped in Miramar where Invader #1 faced King Kong. In a rarity, Invader #1 was wearing his mask in a singles match, so it's likely he was protecting his injured nose from further damage. The reason I remember this match is for the finishing stretch. Invader hit Kong with the heart punch, leaving him staggered but still on his feet. Invader then went to the middle turnbuckle and jumped off with another heart punch, knocking Kong down. Invader gets the pin and leaves the ring, but Kong remains down on the mat and you have the ref  and Akbar checking on Kong. The ref starts panicking and they have to revive Kong with chest compressions since he had sustained two heart punches. Kong is successfully revived and then leaves the ring normally under his own power, likely on his way out of the territory.  

MD: They start this episode recapping Akbar vs Bronco, Profe vs Ripper, and Hugo vs Travis. It’s wild that this is how they’re doing Aniversario this year. As we get there, I’m hoping Esteban can dig up some details about just how successful it was, because it is a bold strategy. It looks like, a month out, they’ve added Invader 1 vs Ron Garvin, Caribbean Express vs SST, Medico IV vs Rod Price, and Giant Warrior vs Murdoch. With Colon vs Bravo on top. It’s an interesting card to say the least. 

Meanwhile, the house show for the week had Invader/TNT vs Polynesian Prince/Murdoch, Warrior vs King Kong, Santana vs Price, Perez vs Jackson, Midgets, Castillo vs Travis, and Ito vs Mendoza, so that’s not really a bad card either all things considered. 

Invader IV vs. Ronnie Garvin

EB: We go to a JIP Ron Garvin vs. Invader #4 arena match and it wouldn't surprise me that this was signed after Garvin punched out Invader #1. If you'll recall, Invader #4 is the younger brother of Invader #1, so it stands to reason he is looking to get some revenge on Garvin. Hugo and Eliud on commentary say that you have to be very careful of Garvin’s punches. Invader #4 is the one in control when we join the match, having backed Garvin into a corner and getting some punches on him. It doesn’t last long and Garvin takes over with some punches of his own. A Garvin hip toss gets a two count, but Invader #4 quickly gets up and hits Garvin with some punches. Garvin is whipped into the ropes and is able to hold on to them, causing Invader #4 to miss a dropkick. Garvin immediately goes for the Garvin Stomp and then knocks Invader #4 out with a right hook to the face. Garvin gets the win and shows off his punching prowess in the process.

After the match, we go to taped promos from Garvin and Invader #1. Garvin wants it to be known that all he needs are his bare hands, he could probably kill a bear with his bare hands. Garvin promises that he will dismantle Invader in front of all the fans at Aniversario. Invader (with the bandage on his face) follows by saying that Garvin should be embarrassed for what he did at the contract signing. Invader understands why Garvin did it, Garvin was angry about the time limit draw and not being able to defeat Invader. Garvin asked for 5 more minutes, Invader gave it to him, and still Garvin could not beat Invader. When we signed the contract for Aniversario, you punched me and hurt my nose,but come Aniversario you'll have to show that you have the strongest punch. Remember, I'll have my fist taped and when I hit the heart punch on you Garvin, you will not get up.

MD: Despite being greyscale, I think this is new footage. Garvin doesn’t have a manager and Invader IV only showed up during the run of our footage, I think. At least with the gimmick. He pummels Garvin in the corner, really taking it to him. Garvin comes back with a headbutt but he can’t keep Invader IV from firing back on him. But Invader misses a dropkick, and it’s Garvin Stomp followed by Hand of Steel for the definitive and anti-climactic win.

Garvin cut a great promo about how while Invader will be coming for revenge (I have no idea what for but his nose is sure bandaged) and will have taped fists, Garvin will have bare knuckles and he could punch out a bear with his bare knuckles. Then Hugo translates while he shadow boxes and I am excited for this match already. 

EB: Hugo Savinovich is in training for his Aniversario match against Billy Joe Travis and here we have video of him being trained by Carlos Colon. At the end we get some words from an out of  breath Hugo where he thanks Carlos and promises to continue getting ready for Travis in order to teach him a lesson

MD: There are more than five minutes of this! Why is this so long! There’s a whole minute of just Hugo stretching. On the other hand, I can’t wait for part two of this if he’s being trained by Giant Warrior next.

Dino Bravo vs. Armandito Salgado

EB: Dino Bravo is taking on Armandito Salgado in Manati. Hugo apologizes for the black and white picture, this is how the match was filmed apparently. This goes as well as you would expect for Salgado, with Bravo making quick work of him and winning with the full nelson.

MD: Pretty effective squash here. He charged right in, punching him in the corner, pile driving him, hitting elbow drops. He was using the full nelson instead of the side slam so he couldn’t just finish him off. He instead tossed him out and had a nice entry point to the full nelson where he starts to whip Salgado out of the corner and put him right in it after a few steps. As effective as I can imagine from Bravo.

EB: Next is Billy Joe Travis with El Profe, and they just spend the time making fun of Hugo. It cuts to Profe’s closing remarks about how Dino Bravo will be the new Universal champion at Aniversario. Then Carlos Colon (from the track where he is training Hugo and with one of the Colon kids) has some comments, saying that his goal is having a convincing win against Bravo at Aniversario.

MD: Travis was sure having fun and Profe seemed to be having fun with him. He mocked Hugo, his training, his wife, all within the span of less than a minute. 

Rod Price & Action Jackson vs. Tito Carrion & El Corsario

EB: We go to another JIP match as Rod Price and Action Jackson are in the middle of facing Tito Carrion and El Corsario. Price and Jacksna are getting the better of Carrion and refusing to cover him for the pin, even after hitting a Doomsday Device. Price finally gets the merciful pin after a shoulder tackle. 

MD: I made the mistake of looking up Price and Jackson’s association because they were both GWF guys and they had this wild looking SPWF tour in 1996 against Yatsu, Teranishi and Poison Sawada. ANYWAY, this was brutal. A Price belly to belly (lifts up the opponent). A doomsday device (lifts up the opponent). A Price flying lariat (doesn’t lift up the opponent). 

EB: SkandorAkbar has some comments where he is incredulous that Bronco is daring to come back here after having been burned. Akbar warns Bronco to stay in Santo Domingo, because he has a plan to finish him off. We then get an interview from Bronco sent in from Santo Domingo, where he says he is recovering nicely although some burn marks still linger. Bronco urges the fans in the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico to see some of the burns still on his face, so he covers up with a towel to remove his mask. We then get a still shot of the burn marks Bronco wanted to show. Bronco says he is returning at Aniversario, even if he is not fully healed by them. And he warns the president of CSP to make sure he has medics and emergency services on hand, because they are going to need them for Akbar once he is done with him.

MD: Akbar tells Bronco not to come back to Puerto Rico and that he has a back up plan, as always. Bronco looks cool as always (whether he’s lounging here or running in from the back in a suit). They do a deal where he takes off his mask but shields his face with a towel so they can zoom in on the burn. 

EB: The Caribbean Express have some words about defending the Caribbean tag tiles at Aniversario against the Samoan Swat Team. Pretty standard comments where they say they are training hard and promise to keep the belts. They also have some comments about their singles matches for tomorrow in Guanica.Hugo says he cannot be unbiased and he hopes Castillo teaches Travis a lesson tomorrow. 

MD: They were theoretically able to get over both the Profe and the SST matches here but they seemed to focus on the SST match more as Ripper didn’t talk.

EB: The episode closes with video of the barbed wire match between Carlos Colon and the Polynesian Prince. Hugo closes the show by hyping up the Friday Aniversario card in San Germana and tomorrow’s house show in Guanica. 

Now let’s go to the June 15  episode of Campeones, it's a cut down version of the episode with some repeat matches but let's see if there is any new news about Aniversario.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rfCgFiiu8p8

Hugo and Profe welcome us to another edition of Campeones. Hugo immediately starts getting on Profe’s case about Anciersari saying Profe is going to lose against Monster Ripper. Profe plays it off saying that he will be the one doing the beating. Hugo says that women are to be respected, Profe responds with ‘What lady?’ Hugo mentions what we'll see on today's program, while also reminding viewers about the upcoming Aniversario 91 on July 6 in Bayamon. Tonight they will be in Carolina with a main event of Carlos Colon vs the Great Kokina (looks like they’ve brought in another monster to try to derail Carlos before Aniversario). Profe reinforces that point, saying he doesn't care if Kokina wins tonight, Kokina is here to destroy Carlos Colon. Profe warns Carlos to not show up tonight and laughs when Hugo says they better be careful, because El Ejercito de la Justicia is ready and may decide to send them to the hospital instead. Also tonight we have Dino Bravo vs. TNT and Invader #1 vs. Polynesian Prince. With that let’s get to our first match (courtesy of El Profe’s magic finger).

Rod Price vs. Mr. Ito

Rod Price is taking on the newcomer known as Mr. Ito, who you may better know as Akira Nogami. Mr. It looks good in the early going, hitting some nice dropkicks that send Price to the outside of the ring. Price tries an armbar and Ito works out of it. Price turns the tide by hotshotting Ito on the top rope, allowing Rod to control the next portion of the match. Ito is not easy to put away, and a missed change in the corner gives Ito an opening to come back with some nice kicks. Some mounted punches and a spin kick follow and it looks like Ito has momentum on his side. Akbar gets involved however by grabbing Ito’s leg when he’s coming off the ropes. The distraction is enough for Price to attack Ito from behind. One shoulder tackle later and Rod Price gets the win.

We then go to the Aniversario 91 control center, but it unfortunately is edited off the version we have video for.

MD: Ito is Akira Nogami of all people and this was a solid TV match. He’s babyface here and controlled early with dropkicks. Price stalled until he was able to take over with a cheapshot and as always has a lot of “stuff.” Belly to belly suplex, press slam, vertical suplex, with punches and occasionally cutting off hope chopping from underneath. Ito kept kicking out and was able to get out of the way of a corner charge to take over with kicks in the corner. Akbar caught his leg off the ropes though, letting Price hit a flying shoulder tackle for the win. A good way to spend five minutes or so.

EB: The rest of the episode’s matches are ones we do not need to cover since they are the Garvin vs. Flair cage match from JCP…

MD: I guess it’s nice we now have a version of this match commentated on by Hugo?

EB: And the Colon vs. Murdoch barbed wire match from early April. We also have a promo from Skandor Akbar with the Polynesian Prince, whose opponent tonight is Invader #1.

MD: Prince is definitely committed to the gimmick. You can’t say he’s not. He’s biting at the air and making faces as Akbar talks and it’s quite the scene. 

EB: We also get a brief clip of Eliud Gonzalez in the control center that is in between segments of the Colon vs. Murdoch match. Eliud runs down the matches signed for Aniversario 91 and mentions there is a change to one of the matches. The match in question is Giant Warrior vs. Dick Murdoch, it seems that TNT has asked Warrior if he would team up with him to face… and the clip cuts off there. Guess we’ll have to wait until next week to find out what the match is instead. The real reason the Warrior vs. Murdoch match was changed is due to Dick Murdoch having signed with WCW. Hugo and Profe close the show by hyping tonight's card in Carolina with a main event of Carlos Colon vs. Great Kokina.

We'll finish off this week’s post with footage of the Dino Bravo vs. TNT match from June 15.

TNT vs. Dino Bravo - June 15

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY8RsFYAYgE

It's only a short clip of the match since this is taken from a  TV episode that aired some months later. They show TNT hitting his shoulder on the post when missing a corner charge and Bravo takes advantage by working over TNT’s shoulder. TNT gets a hope spot with a sunset flip, but Bravo knocks TNT down with a clothesline and continues attacking the arm. TNT gets another comeback, but a missed spin kick allows Bravo to lock in the full nelson. TNT submitted due to the hurt shoulder and a big win for Bravo on his way to Aniversario 91. . 

MD: We get the last four minutes of this. TNT misses a corner charge and Bravo works over the arm. It’s not exactly impressive armwork but it’s fine. Varied even if none of the holds look great. TNT comes back and Bravo feeds well for it. He misses an elbow drop as well. But TNT misses the spin wheel kick and he gets a clean win with the full nelson. I get putting him over so strong going into Anversario but usually this would have a distraction or interference. That made me realize I don’t know who TNT is actually facing at Anversario.

EB: Next time on El Deporte de las Mil Emciones, we are in the final stretch of the road to Aniversario 91. Giant Warrior helps train Hugo, we’ll cover some matches that happened during the latter half of June such as Invader #1 teaming up with Mr. Ito and Carlos Colon vs Great Kokina in a steel cage, and the final hype for Aniversario 91 as we get some feud recaps to make sure we know how we got there.

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Found Footage Friday: OMNI 8/14/83~! PIPER~! BUZZ~! ZBYSZKO~! GARVIN~! SHEIK~! TOMMY~! IRWIN~! ROAD WARRIORS~!

GCW Omni 8/14/83

Arn Anderson vs. Joe Lightfoot

MD: Interesting to place this one. This was Arn's second to last match in the territory. Borne had flaked out before this leaving Arn on his own and aimless. He drifted over to the babyface side and was mainly used for putting over the Road Warriors in various ways before heading to Alabama as Super Olympia. So this was more or less a babyface match. Arn was the aggressor maybe and ate a whole bunch of chops leading up to the finish but this was really just on the mat for the most part. Anyway, Lightfoot was a solid hand, a guy I know mostly for being Youngblood's little buddy to set up a program in Portland. This was five minutes in and out, and certainly didn't wear out its welcome before the double pin finish and Arn getting his shoulder up. Post match he shook Lightfoot's hand and past one Tony Zane match a couple of weeks later, that was it for Arn in Georgia.

ER: This got really entertaining when they transitioned out of the ground work and Arn was staggering into Lightfoot's chops, and that was the last 10 seconds of the match. Arn was 23!!

Fake Mr. Wrestling I (Jesse Barr) vs. Rick Rood

MD: Yes, this was Barr. I'm not sure if he was trying to work like Woods or not. I do know that he'd feud with Mr. Wrestling II after this and Wrestling II would take his mask in October. This went ten minutes as a draw which may have been surprising but Wrestling was supposed to be a bit of a fraud and he got his heat back after the match by attacking Rood. He had pretty solid armwork throughout with some big comebacks and revenge armwork by Rood. Rood had good fire and it was funny to see him do things like a headstand to get out of a headscissors which was very not Rood. Ten minute draws are far more palatable than 20 minute ones and this made me wonder what a babyface Rood might have looked like later in the decade.

ER: This was among the earliest Rick Rude matches I've seen, and it's very early. This is like 30 matches into a 1,500 match career early. It's impressive how far along he was this early while also wrestling like a completely different guy. This early on he still had elements of who he would be a thousand matches from now, in how he moved and how he sold while feeding. He already had an honest use of physics in his basics like dropdowns and shoulderblocks. He was already delivering his offense in a way where you could tell he knew what the goal of his match was. He also of course did a few funny things I have never associated with Rude, like a headstand escape out of Mr. Wrestling's great headscissors. I didn't actually know it was Jesse Barr until after I watched this. I was real confused when he beat Rude's ass after the loss after working an entire 10 minute draw without ever trying to beat Rude's ass. The crowd was really pissed off and I thought there was this great 50 year old Tim Woods heel run. 

Brett Sawyer vs. The Iron Sheik

MD: Brett was really good. Obviously there was a ceiling to him as a drawing card (Flair match from Portland and teaming with his brother vs. the Road Warriors aside) but he was just a great mid-card presence, very down home and folksy in a way that would never make it to TV today, not without being more stylized like a Mark Briscoe. But he just came off as a guy down the street with a lot of fire in his heart. 

The first third of this (after getting under Sheik's skin with the patriotic chants) was all headlocks and rope running and Sheik really was pretty lithe stooging his way into these and keeping up off the ropes. Brett eventually got caught and then Sheik jammed his face into his boot (with his boot on the top rope, which was a nice bit that he may not have been flexible enough to pull off in later years). That started the blood and with it came the woundwork and it was pretty glorious. A bloody Brett would wave his fists and try to power up and fight from underneath and the crowd ate it up. Sheik cut him off and did more damage right until the banana peel finish where Brett fell on Sheik on a suplex attempt and the place became unglued. Post match Ellering and Sheik pounded on Brett until Rich and Buzz (certainly not aligned) ran out for the save. Pretty electric stuff. This was third match on the card and it inspired so much emotion. Beautiful pro wrestling.

ER: There were at least five other matches on this show I was more excited to see. I don't know if I even registered this match when my eyes skipped past the bottom of the card to where the Valentine, Tommy Rich, Buzz Sawyer, and Road Warriors matches. I'm so glad I didn't just skip to those other matches as this match is a condensed gem. The fans really like Sawyer, hate the Sheik, and you get to see a vicious quick Sheik that would be a completely different wrestler in less than two years. Sheik is one of our great weird body wrestlers, and it's not a coincidence that so many of our great weird body guys were high level amateur wrestlers. Gary Albright's small arms and hunched shoulders and powerful belly, Tamon Honda's full long upper torso with his short sturdy legs glued to the canvas, and Iron Sheik's shredded distended belly with small arms and close shoulders, all weird amateur grappler bodies and all great. Sheik moved so weird and here he moves really well...while still moving the weird way Sheik moves. He has the same stiff old man posture as he did when he was ruining indy cards in the late 90s, but he has this cool unexpected quickness. When Sheik did a hindu squat splits dropdown into a leapfrog to set up a fast Sawyer sunset flip, I yelled aloud. 

Putting your boot up on the top turnbuckle and slamming someone's face into your boot is a real Lost Great Spot. Think of the last time you saw it. I saw Barry Horowitz do it 20 years ago and maybe it was something FTR pulled when they were The Revival. Tag partners should also yell at their partner on the apron to give them a boot more often. The boot eyelet raking made a comeback at some point, somebody needs to bring back the boot smash. Sawyer gets busted open from biting and Sheik pushes it well past biting when he throws a gorgeous belly to belly that started with him picking up a bearhug. His missed cannonball that gave Sawyer some fight was so unexpected. It's so weird watching Iron Sheik do a huge front flip. I love how it didn't lead to Sawyer's actual comeback, it just gave him a little time to fight to his knees and get the crowd believing. The finish coming right after as its own surprise was a great way to triple that reaction just as it was dimming. 

The post match was great with Buzz Sawyer and Tommy Rich coming out to save Buzz's bro from one of seven or eight Paul Ellering fueled beatings. Tommy looked so loyal, standing over Sawyer wanting to fight anyone who got near, but Buzz had this unreal aura. It's so unmistakably bad ass, a guy you don't want to cross who keeps this dangerous cool composure. "I know people don't like me but I'm not a total asshole" big brother energy. The way he carries himself with his hands in his sweatpants pockets, that torso in a tight 50/50 blend blue t-shirt, the fucking bandana essential to the look, sending calm threats to Ellering as he walked up to him. An unemployed adult older brother who stays at home all day coming out to the front yard to tell his teen brother's bully how he's going to cut him. 

Larry Zbyszko vs. Ron Garvin

MD: The TV title was on the line for the first ten minutes here. I'll be honest that there are single matches i want more or less out of the Omni footage, but if we're talking a run, then I want as much as Larry's run as possible. We have bits and pieces but it's right down my alley on paper. I think it ages better than a lot of heel Dibiase footage for instance.  

Anyway, this was the panacea to Larry's usual tactics as he only had ten minutes to try to take Garvin's title. Yes, he got punched out of the ring early, but he couldn't linger. He had to be more aggressive than usual. Tons of great punches in this one, especially in the corners. There was one comeback by Garvin where he knocked Larry down and then held on to the arm after he fell and the crowd realized it, realized that he was going to pull Larry back up to hit him again, and were elated about it. Larry was able to fire back out of the corner using the ref as a distraction and took about half the match pretty soundly. He had an advantage at the end as Garvin missed a knee drop and it seemed like he might have a chance of taking the title with a pile driver but Garvin turned it into a pin and got the win. This was a nice subversion of the Rood match which did go to a ten minute draw. It seemed like it would here too or that Garvin was going to lose and then he snuck out the win at the last moment. 

ER: I love this era of Zbyszko. Yeah Garvin looks like a jacked up super tough brat pack era Judd Nelson and hits with his trademark up close short range power, but Zbyszko man. Zbyszko sells the impact of Garvin's strikes better than maybe anyone. I love the tough guy sturdy gravity Valentine sells them with but Zbyszko is so moveable, a wiggly guy who bounces off ropes and uses body movement the same way Tully did, recoiling fast but being punched and physically reacting to those punches exactly the way 9,000 people wanted to see. He knows exactly how I want to see Larry Zbyszko reacting to being hit. He also punches exactly how I want to see a man punch. All the punches were great for the whole match, but Zbyszko's tight, straight reared back rights looked perfect. The finish of this was incredibly done and I didn't see it coming. We had our 10 minute draw already and every single piece of wrestling language made this look like a frustrated Zbyszko unable to win within 10 minutes. I actually but when Larry pulled off a sweet and smooth inside cradle to block a bodyslam in its infancy, but the actual finish was a great surprise. Zbyszko looking like he was going to cave in Garvin's teen idol 'do, with all the execution of Zbyszko lifting up the way you do just before you sit down, Garvin shifting his weight at the peak of lift off to tip the weight. Great finish, great match. 

Road Warriors vs. Mr. Wrestling/Mr. Wrestling II

MD: I really enjoy 83 Roadies. They were raw but they hadn't quite settled into what they'd become a year or two later. They wrestled much more vulnerably, more stooging, more backpedaling, while still being monsters both aesthetically and when they were doing damage. We've been hearing it for the last few matches but it's so great to have the crowd make that primal guttural noise whenever a babyface threw a shot. It was chaos to begin and chaos to end with Mr Wrestling having to fight from underneath in the middle. Wrestling II came in hot and it was rousing stuff but Zbyszko nailed him from the apron out of nowhere after a couple of kneelifts. All of this felt larger than life especially to this crowd.

ER: Man I LOVE the way the Road Warriors sell for two 50 year old man throwing big arm swinging punches. The Road Warriors sell so well for the Wrestlings that I want to see 1983 Roadies against 1989 Baba/Rusher. I couldn't get enough for Wrestling's big swinging punches that are thrown like nobody else threw punches and the way Hawk perfectly knew to throw his head back for them, just enough. We know the Road Warriors were not yet the monsters they would become just a year or so later, but it's still wild seeing Hawk taking multiple back body drops. This had another spectacular finish, with action so good I had to keep rewinding to watch what each individual was doing. Wrestling II was fending off Animal in the top corner, Hawk was roughing up Wrestling in the foreground. Wrestling gets thrown over the top down onto a table and almost into a front row before charging back into the ring by stepping up onto that table and getting back into the fight. Animal keeps charging into Wrestling II in the corner and keeps catching knees, until he charges in and catches two boots shoved squarely into his chest and gets bumped back hard. Zbyszko sneaks in and bashes II in the back of the head and staggers him into the greatest This is the End powerslam from Animal. This was not the structure I expected going in but now I want more Hawk and Animal selling for great old man strikes.  

Greg Valentine vs. Pez Whatley

MD: Pretty remarkable Pez performance here. He came in hot, even while Greg still had the title in hand and had Valentine rocking and falling over the place with headbutts early. Greg took over with a nasty kneeling piledriver and started on the arm. Pez came back with one arm with some great silly in his hope spots, using the head when he could, really solid stuff. They dropped the arm selling for the most part as it went on but you almost didn't mind because Pez was so good at working from underneath on a chinlock, just constant motion fighting up and engaging the crowd. Transition was another pile driver attempt which was a little like the Garvin/Zbyszko match but they had Valentine go into the corner again. Things got out of hand and it ended up as a DQ with him using the belt repeatedly, but Pez drove him off so the crowd got at least some satisfaction out of it. Very good match overall though, even if the arm selling went nowhere. 

ER: Every heel in this territory knew exactly how to sell the strikes of every top babyface and it's all so beautiful. Valentine makes Pez Whatley a god and Pez wiggles his way up to it, and once again, this rules. Valentine is on the Found Footage Friday Mt. Rushmore as we've now been uncovering unseen classics of his for nearly a decade, every one of them broadening his case as one of our greatest workers. Here's another for the pile. I'm so used to seeing Valentine take strikes from fellow tough guys and hitting them back. I've seen that Valentine more than I've seen the Valentine who sells for smaller ethnic babyface, and this one is great. With Valentine's selling, his head whips and stunned cobweb shaking, Whatley's headbutts looked peerless, the culmination of decades of black wrestler headbutts. His perseverance and big time style and charisma through his comebacks were getting reactions louder than any part of the Dog Collar main event, and it was such infectious babyface energy that played incredibly off the tough guy champ. Whatley's reversal out of the piledriver was such a cool spot, upending Valentine into and off the turnbuckles. It's one of those spots where, no matter how much wrestling I've watched, there's always something like that waiting to show me something new. 

Bullwhip on a Pole: Tommy Rich vs. Bill Irwin

MD: I've always been pretty high on Irwin. Great body language. Big lanky guy who was willing to throw himself into everything he did, and there was so much to throw himself into here. Every time either guy went for the pole, the other was on top of him instantly. Really gripping stuff. People don't understand today just how compelling these pole matches could be when the wrestlers put forth so much care towards whatever was on top of the pole. 

Here they had to really incapacitate the other. Irwin kept escalating things, hitting a gut wrench suplex, tossing Rich out of the ring, knocking the head against the post. Rich on the other hand got out of the way for Irwin's corner charge and he bumped huge over the top knee first, etc. Just more and more until finally Irwin started working the leg, a necessity since Rich wouldn't stay down. Even that didn't quite do it but it allowed for a hotshot and Irwin to finally get up the pole. One thing I wish we had were more pole matches from the 70s when there probably WASN'T an inversion of the finish. By the 80s, whoever first got the weapon tended not to be the one who got to use it and to see that once could be satisfying but to see it in every pole match gets a little frustrating. Sometimes you just want that nice clean feeling of something happening how it's supposed to. Still, Rich grabbing it mid swing and firing off on Irwin was a greater level of enjoyment for the crowd and this was really good stuff overall.

Dog Collar Match: Roddy Piper vs Buzz Sawyer 

MD: Pull this back up. Just watch a minute of it, any minute. Watch Roddy. Watch him move. Nothing specific that he does, though if you catch a bump or some selling or a punch, that's all the better. But just the in-between. Did you see it? Go look out a window or down the street. Find a neighbor, a spouse. Hell, look in the mirror. Watch yourself move. Whatever you see, it's not as alive and vibrant and vivid as this forty year old footage of Roddy Piper.

The anticipation early here, both of them six feet apart, the chain between them, a rabid game of chess to decide which would rush first to strike. At the start it was Buzz but when it was Piper's time, he became a man possessed, cutting the distance with wide eyes and a wild snarl. Buzz scored first blood but Piper's comebacks on the floor were things of myth and legend.

Matches like these, from this era, often end shortly after that first huge comeback, after the turn of the tide, after revenge is grasped. This one, however, went around one more time, as Buzz was able to sneak in a low blow. Things spilled back out to the floor but Piper fired back once more, moving the guardrail and basically punching Buzz back into the ring. Gripping, satisfying, refreshing stuff. In some ways a prototype for what would come later in both of their careers and something that almost impossibly lived up to the picture we had in our heads.

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