Found Footage Friday: WAR GAMES~! DUSTIN~! GOLDUST~! CW~! BUNDY~! CORINO~! A BALDWIN BROTHER~! HOGAN~!

Hulk Hogan vs. King Kong Bundy WWF 1/20/86

MD: Lost Minneapolis house show footage from the Vault. We get glimpses of Harts vs Bees and the full Bundy vs Hogan match, including Heenan laying into a very familiar crowd. "You know, you people..." It's about thirty words and it's perfect. Hogan's out with the bandana in his mouth. That's the era we're in.

Interesting structure here as Bundy attacked Hogan first with the bandana and then with the belt with some pretty nasty shots before the bell. Hogan hulked up early, hit the axe bomber, and tossed Bundy out, nailing him with a chair. Bundy came back with an avalanche for the transition. I don't usually think of that of a transition move but it worked here. Then Hogan had to fight from underneath. He hulked up again, did more brawling on the floor (at some point Bundy started bleeding), hit the legdrop and actually pulled him up at two so Heenan could interfere and they could keep the feud going. 

Post match, Heenan held Hogan's leg so Bundy could hit the splashes and Steamboat made the save with the most over the top kung fu poses possible. He took his shoe off as a weapon. Heenan came back with HIS boot off, and Hogan got to make the save on the guy making the save for him before they both posed. We only have so much of the Hogan/Steamboat pairing but it is a lot of fun, especially post-match when Hogan cut a backstage promo about the energy of the universe and the ninja showing him the dark side while Steamboat made funny noises. 

ER: I'm glad they gave us a couple minutes of Hart Foundation/Killer Bees even if the most revelatory thing about it was how fucking cool beard Jim Brunzell looks in HD. Bearded Brunzell looks like a tanned stud who would beat James Brolin's ass and replace him on Hotel without anybody saying shit. He usually looks like an orthodontist. It also offers us some long crowd shots, beautiful crowd shots that offer us people we've never seen, a deep range of winter Minnesotans with great tight fitting 50/50 blend t-shirts no matter the body side, and a pornographic amount of snap front caps. 

The main was real good, a violent brawl in front of an off route arena crowd. One of the best things about any newly released WWE Vault match has been the sound quality. The sound is incredible on those Omni shows, and it makes house shows pop like the hottest 80s territory wrestling. The ways the sound highlights what's happening in the ring adds to every strike and every weapon crash. Bundy fucking murders Hogan with an early match belt shot, stripping it from his waist and swinging it as hard as he could at the back of Hogan's neck. It sounded like a Hogan getting brained with a slapjack. Beyond Bundy hitting a 1999 level weapon shot, he had a lot of really impressive worked offense. It's one thing for Bret to pull his weight and never hurt anyone on his elbowdrop, but Bundy has so much more weight to pull. He protects Hogan on everything - smart time to tighten up your work and secure the biggest monthly paydays of your life - but all of it looks really great. Precise worked kneedrops always amaze me, the distribution of weight that goes into the best of them. Bundy's is so tight that I'd love to see footage of him testing it out on and not breaking eggs. Is Yokozuna's legdrop our Fattest great worked "drop"? 

I was surprised when the legdrop came so early and exclaimed aloud when Hogan pulled him up at 2 and started punching him. But I appreciate that Hogan's two best punches were thrown at Heenan standing on the apron, short targeted staccato rights to Heenan's forehead before Bundy pulled him off and Heenan held Hogan's legs down for the splash. Even with Tito and Steamboat on the card I'm sure nobody else sold two punches better than Heenan sold Hogan's two. 

WAR GAMES! Team JBL (CW Anderson/Elix Skipper/Hernandez/Homicide/Steve Corino) (w/John Bradshaw Layfield) vs. Team Slaughter (Dustin Rhodes/Kirby Mack/Rick Steiner/Scott Steiner/TJ Mack) (w/Sgt. Slaughter) Sadler UWF 9/21/07

MD: Speaking of things we've somehow never covered. The KrisPLettuce Patreon got its hands on all these Sadler UWF shows. Certainly worth a look. This has Slaughter out to Born in the USA which is not something I remember him coming out to often. Hebner does the coin toss and jaws with the fans about Bret. The one liners between Slaughter and JBL are not great. Obviously JBL wins. Someone in the crowd shouts out "the heel always wins" long before the toss. Best not to overthink it. 

This is honestly a pretty good Indie War Games. You start with Dustin and CW Anderson for the five minute period, playing up Dusty and Arn in the classic, obviously. Dustin is in the midst of his Black Reign gimmick at his heaviest but he's going to be in there for 25+ and damn it if he doesn't make a showing of it. People point to this as a disqualifying period and this match certainly seems like a counterargument to that.  They worked a nice little mini-match here with CW feeding for Dustin's strikes (all looked great) and Dustin running into the spinebuster, having to fight his way back. 

Just when he had things under control, it was Corino's time to come in, and they worked a comedy spot or two before taking over. In general, I thought the balance was really good with this one. You had a lot of unique elements, like Hernandez who could just come in and throw people around or Rick Steiner who in his mid-40s could make a believable impact without seeming overly gimmicky (Scott was a bit more so). The Macks were quite adept at getting thrown around. And there was novelty in having Homicide in there teaming with Corino or facing off against Dustin. Skipper was the only guy who felt a little out of place to me. 

It was ultimately pretty chaotic and hard to follow at times, as you'd expect, but that had its own wealth of riches, like looking away from one side of the ring only to see Dustin slamming Corino's head between the rings like a plunger over and over. Finish was silly, with JBL and Slaughter getting involved, even if they did cover it with a simultaneous submission, and it never quite went as bloody as you might have wanted, but overall, it was a pretty well put together War Games with a lot of talent interacting in interesting and unique ways. 

ER: We were all so convinced that we had already covered this match that we had multiple text threads across multiple apps trying to figure out why we hadn't already covered it. I assumed Phil had already covered every single War Games match, but somehow this is THE ONE WAR GAMES that has not been written about by any Segunda Caida member. When Dustin watched our DEAN~! 2 show with us, I wish I had known about this match when the discussion turned to what our favorite War Games matches were. He was obviously proud of his daddy's match concept and was in three straight years of them. I had no clue he was ever in a non-WCW War Games, or that it was one of the three best War Games he'd been involved in. 

Before Slaughter and JBL do the coin toss, some "smart" fan yells out that "the heel always wins the coin toss". Yeah smart guy, you showed 'em all. Nobody wants to see a fucking War Games where the babyfaces have a constant advantage, but there will always be wrestling fans who think they cracked the code about how basic storytelling works. It's like how my dad will turn to my mom and say "Told ya" when a TV/movie character who is clearly the bad guy turns out to be a bad guy. Some people will always seek mysteries to solve while others have long moved past the need to search for mysteries than never pretended to be mysterious. 

I typically hate modern applications of "lore" but I love that this match started with Rhodes and Anderson. It's the best possible throwback to the original classic but also two guys who make logical sense to start a War Games and be in the entire match. I love that heel CW has a manager who needs to be pushed in a wheelchair. This is clearly not a heel manager faking injury that will lead to his chair being tipped over, our heel enforcer just has an actual invalid as a manager and that will sadly never present us with a difficult "wouldn't hit someone with glasses" scenario. Anyway, the whole War Games is shockingly good. I knew the floor would be high just from seeing half of the people involved, but it hit a high note in the first five minutes and I thought maintained that level through all new entries. Some entries were less than others: Rick Steiner accidentally got in the middle of other people's sequences 3x more often than he actively did anything, Kirby Mack looks like the clear worst of the Mack brothers, and Elix Skipper does a couple moves so convoluted that nobody - including Brad Stutts on commentary - could have guessed that it was actual offense he was delivering rather than taking. 

Everyone else though? Everyone else showed up. CW lights Dustin up with elbows during their 5 minutes and goes on to work smart sequences with everyone all match, great at taking TJ's offense, great at stooging when necessary. Dustin works insanely hard all match. I remember watching the Black Reign era and always thinking there were occasional glimpses of Dustin in there but assumed they put him in super short matches because he could no longer go. Nope. Here he is smack dab in the middle of Black Reign and he's breaking out offense I've never otherwise seen from him. He comes off the top rope multiple time, with diving elbow attacks and I can't recall any time past age 25 when Dustin even went to the top rope. TJ Mack is a Hardys trainee but wrestles like a Marufuji acolyte. The thing is he does Marufuji spots with more snap and sounder physics, like the Billy Kidman of Marufujis. He's great at being the guy every heel goes straight after when they enter the match. Homicide murders him with a quick series of strikes and suplexes, Hernandez comes in and press slams him from one ring to the other, he takes a Border Toss from one ring to the other, I'm kind of shocked he wasn't the one to take the Clothesline from Hell. 

There wasn't going to be blood, but the action was strong and the energy level being kept high the whole time elevated things. I expected a lot more lying around time, but these men were here to work. Far exceeded expectations, fits in nicely within the War Games pantheon. I don't think WWE has done one better. 

Goldust vs. Dean (Shark Boy) Baldwin Tribute Championship Wrestling 3/2/13

MD: Somehow this escaped our gaze for years and years, but better late than never. Dean Baldwin is Shark Boy... with a Baldwin brother gimmick, including someone from "hollywood" hyping him up and three valets and a tracksuit. There is a fake Shark Boy as the ref. Dustin is Goldust in between runs. A scene has been set for you.

This was, unsurprisingly, a ton of fun. Match was straightforward. Baldwin would run spots with Goldust, running into a shoulder block or arm drags, then head out to complain and stall and whine. Goldust eventually went out after him. He got over with a banana peel and stayed over with cheapshots even though Dustin did pretty well with his comebacks. He was working this crowd hard, skidding his feet on a backslide or really kicking the leg to get the fans going for a chinlock, just working huge for the back row even though he was also working small from underneath given that Baldwin was tiny compared to him.  

He hit a bunch of his signature stuff on the comeback but it came to the ref losing the mask (beats me who it was) to hit the stunner setting up the final reckoning. Post match they did all the bs you'd want: the shattered dreams, a kid posing with dustin and the ref (re-masked), the valets leaving with Dustin, Baldwin throwing a tantrum, Dustin paying attention to every individual kid in the place. No idea how we'd never seen this one before.

ER: Dean Baldwin looks more like an unsuccessful Jamie Kennedy brother than an unsuccessful Baldwin brother, but he perfectly understands what it's like to be a phony Hollywood douchebag. Coming out to Weezer's "Beverly Hills", a song so bad that it might be the only song that has ever made me spit out my drink the first time I heard it. We got it into our college radio station one Friday afternoon, threw on track one, and I don't think any of us could have possibly expected music this putrid. I sprayed my water out in a fine mist. Had "We Are All on Drugs" been track 1, I may have choked to death. 

This was several months before Goldust was triumphantly brought back to WWE, on his comeback trail to show he was in shape and ready to have TV classics again. In 2013 he was healed up, trimmed up, tapping back into the things that always made him a great babyface. This is pure indy wrestling, a former star on the mend or on the spiral, working in a middle school gym in a small Midwest village that's close enough to major civilization. This is was indy wrestling always was before the 2001 boom, gymnasium shows giving people a chance to see someone that had been on TV for years, filled with kids who likely have no idea who the big TV star even was. Knowledge or no, everyone recognizes Goldust's effective babyface beats, and he works hard to remain underdog and make the smaller Baldwin seem like someone who could control. 

While I would have preferred seeing him work someone with size, like Daniel Baldwin, I thought Dean's punches played as great heel punches (helps when you have a babyface this good at reacting to punches) and Goldust knew how to bump to make him more effective. My favorite Goldust bump was the way he took Baldwin's kitchen sink knee, tumbling painfully and leaning into the bottom rope as he came up holding his stomach. My favorite part was the early match magic show, where Goldust punched and slapped Baldwin around ringside, letting all the kids see up close and personal how good he was smacking this guy around. I can only imagine how much I would have lost my mind if my middle school's gym ever hosted a wrestling show, and Goldust knew exactly how that must have felt. 

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2021 Ongoing MOTY List: Corino Family Feud

12. Steve Corino vs. Colby Corino PWF 8/27

PAS:  This is Corino's return the the ring after five years, to fight his son on Colby's 25th birthday. There have been a handful of father vs. son matches over the years and it is a really great way to insert real emotion into a match. This wasn't an overblown NXT emotional tour de force, the acting was relatively subdued but you could feel the history. It started mostly on the mat, but got much more personal with Steve throwing some really nasty overhand slaps and Colby getting more desperate, focusing on his father's bad neck (after agreeing not to attack it). Steve had some really great looking punches, including some of the nastier mounted corner punches I can remember. He really looked like he was going to knock divots off of his son's forehead. I really dug Steve barely being able to stand at the end and egging his son on to hit him more, and the brainbuster Colby hit was really beautiful (and really should have ended the match instead of whatever Nova looking thing Colby actually used to pin him). I did think some of Colby's offense was a little indy wrestling for this kind of generational war, but when he kept it simple it was great. This was a hell of an old man last stand from Steve Corino, who adds one last classic to his pretty impressive resume.

MD: This told a unique story in a unique way with a ton of emotion and a narrative throughline, without seeming rote or stereotypical in any way. If anything, it reminded me of the last few big Regal matches against Cesaro and Hero, except for the emotional connective tissue in those were symbolic and this was thoroughly and deeply real. Instead of developmental polish it had earnest indy grime. I enjoyed Colby's cocky enjoyment early on and I appreciated the wirey sea of hair that ran down Steve's face, a mask of age and seasoning even if not of blood, shielding us from his wrought emotion and forcing us to imagine the feelings that lay underneath. They worked this match with the crowd but never quite for it. When working from underneath, Steve would hear clapping but never lean into it. When firing back on Colby later in the match, Steve would keep his mounted top rope punches slow and measured, uneven so that the fans couldn't count along, though you could feel the sheer effort in each shot. 

Maybe Colby's offense got a little too cutesy at times, but Steve leaned hard into each leg lariat or what not and made it all look far better than it ought to have. They didn't turn up the speed often, but every time they did, it absolutely worked. And then they brought it back down to the grinding, groaning elemental battle between father and son. As the match went on and Colby survived Steve's second and third winds, it seemed somehow more inevitable than it should have (this helped along by Steve's own words that he only had a good fifteen minutes of wind in him), but even that inevitability felt satisfying because of the sheer heights of oppressive and yet still somehow triumphant emotion that they were channeling. Steve said it himself after the match: the chance to do this in this way and with this freedom was so unique and so unlikely, and they took advantage of the opportunity for all it was worth.

ER: I think I liked the build, the fact that the match happened, and the narratives they built from within the match a lot more than the actual match proper. And I thought this match had some of the same problems as the NXT main event 30+ minute epics. But it had a lot more hard and unique story than those matches had, so some of the melodramatic moments were going to come off better here, where you can more easily buy into the emotional stress of the match. A father physically fighting his own son is a weird thing, even within pro wrestling, and for me that gave it more of a freakshow appeal than an emotional family drama typically has. I played catch with my dad, but we've never worked a collar and elbow, I've never ground my boot across his face, and I've never been potatoed by him. The whole thing is strange and fascinating to me, working a violent interpretative dance with your father. 

Part of me thinks this could have better as a babyface/babyface Bryan/Cesaro structured match, as the opening matwork was snug enough that they could have kept things professional that a straight 20 minute match with less emotional drama would have worked. I knew it wasn't staying in that realm but I think they had the skill to do it. Colby's twisting headscissors on his dad's hurt neck was way more interesting to me than a lot of Colby's actual "moves" offense down the stretch, and Colby was at his best when he went with more of a Finlay-type approach of being active in negative space. I liked the guise of keeping this professional (knowing it wouldn't stay that way) and how Colby edged into that with double stomps to his downed dad and later scraping his boot in his dad's face and holding his boot on his dad's neck. Steve was in awesome shape for a guy who hadn't worked a match in 5 years, and I appreciated Brad Stutts on commentary pointing out details such as Steve losing 28 pounds in the six weeks since the match was signed. Stutts got over strong points of strategy, like how Colby was leaving for St. Louis right after this show, but Steve has been training ONLY for this one match. Those things elevate a big family feud. 

I thought the match was a tremendous Steve performance, one of his great singles matches. Colby is a guy I thought got really really good during his Evolve run, but I thought most of his Evolve performances were better than this one. None of those matches had as much personally at stake, and he was more of an interesting New Jimmy Jacobs in Evolve. Steve is really great at working Jacobs-types, and I wish Colby had leaned more into that style. I bought into Steve's dramatic heft, and loved whenever the 48 year old would fire back at his progeny. Steve's corner punches were excellent, and he saved a light Colby boxing exchange down the stretch by fighting back off rhythm with some thud. I thought a few of the transitions were weak, as they kept leaning on Steve doing things he wouldn't have otherwise done (including twice going up top for the sole purpose of getting knocked off by his son), and the match seemed to blow past several different good endings before landing on the weakest of the bunch. I would have liked this more had Colby gone into kill mode when the ref was giving Steve recovery time and Steve begged his son to keep going. The brainbuster would have been ideal as the final coffin nail, but at minimum I loved how Steve sold during all the kickouts. Still, some melodrama is expected and encouraged in a once in a lifetime match like this, and what they did was a net positive. I'll always get excited for unique pairings like this, even though most won't have the same kind of built-in quality story as they pulled off here. 

2021 MOTY MASTER LIST

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New Footage Friday: RED! BALLARD! BASHAMS! SATO! ISO! WATANABE! KONAKA PALE ONE!

Joan Ballard vs. Jean Noble 9/14/56

MD: We sat on this for half a year, but when the Chicago archive posts something, we have to watch it eventually. This has no sound but you guys have been watching empty arena matches with jump cuts for the last year so that shouldn't slow you down too much. If I have them figured out right, Noble's the heel here and she'd eventually have the Yulie Brynner bald gimmick. Honestly, I think this could have been a 20 minute attraction match in 1956 France and it would have gotten over with no one blinking an eye. That's a testament to how hard they were hitting and the sort of stuff they were doing. Noble snuck in the cheap shots when the ref was out of position and had those leg dives off the ropes on breaks that we've seen a lot out of desperate French heels. Ballard had a lot of revenge holds, most especially a rolling leg nelson, though worked as more of a nelson and less of a face-grinder. They hit hard, though it's interesting that they went down on almost every blow. No being staggered or stand up striking. Every shot led to a bump and I need to go back and look at other women's matches from this period to see if that was a conscious difference in how they were trained to work. The crowd seemed fairly reserved, though it's hard to tell without sound, but they definitely deserved some heat and adulation, whether they got it or not. 

Red/Steve Corino vs. Damaja/Doug Basham PCW 8/31/02

MD: This was the second round of the Russ Haas memorial tournament. Stryker (Teacher/Commentator Matt Striker, I think, in this case) had "suffered an injury" in the first round and Corino was a surprise partner. This was structured exactly how you'd want a ten minute tag in a middle of a one night tournament to be. The Corino surprise, though it didn't get a huge pop or anything, created almost an artificial addition to the shine, which combined with how good Red's stuff looked meant it didn't need to be so long. That meant they could lean into a double heat. Red's size made all of the heels' power moves look all the more potent, which again added value per time to the first half of the heat. At one point I almost thought this was setting up Corino refusing the tag and going heel on Red, even though there was nothing in the match itself other than how long a couple of minutes of beating on Red felt to make me feel that way. It wasn't usually the role he was cast in but Corino, once he got in, really understood the timing of working from underneath and the proto-Bashams worked well as a unit with blind tags and cut offs. The comeback was crowd-pleasing and didn't wear out its welcome before the Bashams again utilized Red's size to dramatic effect for the finish. Nice compact package here.

ER: The more Bashams I go back and watch, the more they feel like one of the best tag teams of the last 20 years. They really didn't get widespread hype during their WWF run, but watching them now while comparing them to literally any current WWF team and they feel so far ahead of the pack. Here I thought their tightness as a team shone because Corino looked pretty bad (until the final 30 seconds of the match). Basham has the great thinning tight curls mullet and beard, which gives him a cool late 80s Terry Funk vibe, and I loved his delivery of big clotheslines and his corner hip check. He's smart about when to stay out of the way (like when he saw Corino was behind on timing, so Basham did this sudden weak kneed sell so he wasn't just standing there like a goon waiting for Corino), and his timing with Damaja is strong. Red is a great guy to showcase their offense, getting wasted by clotheslines and flying high on a flapjack, and they're strong at selling Red's offense. Damaja threw an awesome right hand that seemed to wake Corino up for the finishing stretch, with he and Red both running wild, Red landing a great tope con giro, Corino throwing two really great overhand rights before being taken out, and Damaja laying Red out with an awesome Baldo bomb. Basham and Damaja had only teamed a dozen or two times at this point, and they already looked like a perfect pairing. A reevaluation of their WWF run would be a really fun project.

 
Hiroshi Watanabe/Hideya Iso vs. Yasushi Sato/Konaka Pale One Mumejuku Pro 2/5/17

SR:  Hiroshi Watanabe is a PWC guy who has been around since at least 1995, along with Sanshiro Takagi. He was a talented wrestler but way too short to ever receive a push. Thankfully, he stayed around long enough until a tiny offshoot indy arose that would give him the opportunity to shine in long matches. Mumejuku is as if a bunch of aging geeky wrestlers who all agreed that matwork and 70s style moves are way better than 2.9999s and elbow exchanges, all got together and started a promotion. This was a really stretched out match with everyone involved hitting the mat for a good 15 or so minutes. You don’t see this kind of extended pro style matwork much outside of lucha anymore and it was very refreshing. It basically felt like MUGA mixed with llaves. Watanabe was the standout by far, going from doing holds to bald head comedy to unexpected bridge ups and escapes, hitting a really nice dropkick and awesome well-timed Robinson backbreaker. He is one of the few guys who can pull that kind of throwback style of and not feel phony. Konaka Pale One is an indy guy doing a yoga gimmick meaning he does some freaky contortions, and he has a wonderful little matwork section with Watanabe. Hideya Iso is the guy who looks like a mini-Yatsu and he is solid. Yasushi Sato is apparently in his 50s, but he looks good here. The finishing run was built around Sato throwing cool suplexes and doing leg grapevine moves. There are some really intelligent spots, and Sato is actually able to make me give a shit about things like a russian leg sweep, and the constant build to his finishing hold was really cool. Whole match felt very antithetical to the current landscape which is very welcome, and I hope this channel drops more stuff like this on us. 

MD: Long, tricked out, hard worked Japanese indy tag. It more or less worked in a three act structure, the first being matwork and pairings where each guy got to bring something to the table: Konaka Pale One (despite neither acting or working like a ghost) carried a lot of this and looked great throughout, including a nice rolling arm scissors early and more elaborate things later on. Iso and Sato weren't as smooth but the former used his weight advantage well and the latter brought a lot of energy. Watanabe had a bunch of well-received comedy bits with his bald head. The second act had Konaka and Sato fed up by said comedy and while it was still worked mostly back and forth to start, they took more and more liberties and ultimately seized an advantage. The third act was Watanabe and Iso coming back with some huge bombs and then Sato returning the favor, with Konaka doing damage around the margins. It all led to a series of grinding stretch attempts turned into modified Russian leg sweeps until Sato was finally able to lock in the hold he wanted for the win. I can't tell you much more about this one except for that it was good and you should watch it.

PAS: Man Sebastian can dig them up. Never heard of any of these guys, and I am in all on all four. They open with nearly ten minutes of mat wrestling and they keep it interesting, which is a total unicorn for 21st century wrestling. The finishing run had cool moves without overkill and a sensible build to a sensible finish. Watanabe hits a great backbreaker, Sato has a Hondaish delayed German and I loved how Sato worked the whole match to set up that trapped arm abdominal stretch, including hitting trapped arm Russian leg sweeps. I don't know why all Japanese wrestling stopped being stuff like this and to find it we have to dig deep deep into the internet.

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New Footage Friday: TANK! SE7EN! WAR GAMES! CORINO! TEDDY HART! BRAZO DE PLATA! CASAS! HEADHUNTERS!!

Brazo de Plata/El Dandy/Negro Casas vs. Head Hunter I/Head Hunter II/Mocho Cota CMLL 8/12/94

ER: This was one of those matches I knew I was going to write up the second I saw the listing. How could I not watch a match with the Headhunters opposite Super Porky? Oh sure I guess it also had Negro Casas, El Dandy, and some guy named Mocho Cota (who we definitely don't dive into every new match we come across), but this was always going to be about some legendary fatness for me. I wanted to see bodies smoosh together, and smooshing was what I got. Porky was a beast in this, really putting some strain on his shoulder by hitting at least a dozen western lariats on both Headhunters. My shoulder was killing me just watching him run his arm into these unmoving human boulders. I loved how relentless Porky was throughout, just running into these beasts with lariats, spectacularly sending them over the top to the floor a couple of times. I loved all the build up to the Headhunters getting knocked to the floor, with Porky getting bigger and bigger heads of steam, Casas helping him on one of them, and then a big triumphant moment in the tercera where he not only finally bodyslammed a Headhunter (something he tried a couple times in the primera to no avail), hit a big backdrop (I wish I knew the difference between Headhunter A and B, because the bigger one was taking some real huge bumps here), smashed one over the top to the floor with a lariat by himself, then leveled him with a tope en reversa off the apron. Porky even had the most impactful big splash of the match, which I was not expecting considering how much larger the Headhunters are.

Casas and Cota mostly stuck to each other, cheapshotting each other the whole time, Cota taking his spectacular quick exits to the floor (one of the finest wrestlers ever at quickly bumping from the ring to the floor) and culminating with Casas faking a nut shot while the skinny furball flips out in protest. The Headhunters were awesome, twin towers who made it count every time they left their feet. They built to back bumps well, letting Porky and Dandy knock them down with lariats, but always needing 4 or 5 to finally do the job. I loved their Doomsday Device to win the primera, a heavy ass clothesline/crossbody that looked like it flattened Dandy. We got an incredible spot where a Headhunter went up to the top for a ring punishing splash, but Casas started shaking the ropes until the Headhunter took this amazing bump onto the ropes, down to the apron and thudding on the floor below. I wish he hadn't just appeared on the apron again 20 seconds later, because the bump looked like something that would have taken him out of action the rest of the match. But whatever, this was everything I wanted, some of my all time favorite luchadors and some all time favorite fatsos. Of course you want to see this.

MD: What a line-up! I love the Cota vs Casas feud even if the final match doesn't quite live up to what you want it to be. True of the greatest characters in lucha history, maybe wrestling history. This has them with quite the cast of supporting players. Porky! Dandy! The Headhunters. All four lucha mainstays 100% know how to maximize who and what they are and who and what they have in the Headhunters. I love how Dandy and Casas use Porky a a weapon. It's so fun seeing them as partners in general. I love how Porky builds recoil into all of his spots against the Headhunters. There's such vile intent and attitude in everything Cota does. All of the press slams and power moves here by Porky and the Headhunters really hit too, including those surrounding the finishes, especially that in the tercera where everyone's so distracted by the big spot, including the refs and the cameramen that Casas is able to fake a foul and lie his way to victory. They still had a number of weeks to milk before the apuestas match here and this was a great way to do it.

PAS: Total murderers row of entertaining guys. Headhunters were really at their insane peak in 1994, and break out some crazy agile stuff for two blobs. One of the Headhunters climbs to the top and gets shaken off and takes a crazy bump on the top rope and to the floor, and they hit this incredible powerbomb top rope STO combo which should be stolen by every big guy tag team. Porky is so much fun against other big guys, he has to be the biggest chubster on the block and has a bunch of fun ways to attempt, fail and succeed to reign supreme. I loved his apron dive, it looked like the kind of thing an 8 year old kid would try on his bed. Cota is a scheming cretin and he and Casas are always magic together.

Steve Corino vs. Teddy Hart PWX 9/13/06

MD: The sort of match that launched a hundred indies. I'm pretty sure this was the PXW debut show, and it's certainly the feud they tried to carry forward. That, and the facts that Jack Victory and Ruckus were both out as seconds and that the original ref was chummy with Corino, meant you were going to end up with a lot of BS and no clean finish. What we got was good, and even some of the BS worked towards the narrative, a step up over what a lot of people would offered. There had been heated promos setting all of this up so they were ready to go from the bell. Hart pushed Corino. Corino slapped Hart. Hart bled from the mouth and shot bloody mist at Corino which was an insane visual. There was a visceral sense that despite that, Corino had goaded Hart off his game early on (though even pissed, he'd still do a backflip for no reason because that's how Teddy Hart expressed his emotions). He hit an amazing corner clothesline/punch and a dropkick through the ropes, but the latter didn't quite slam Corino into the guardrail and he was able to capitalize by pulling Hart off the apron. What followed was some high quality bullying control work and cut offs by Corino, right up until a too early ref bump. The BS that followed had a few too many moments of everyone waiting around for a dive but otherwise served quite effectively as Hart's transition into a comeback. After that came a bunch of pulling out of refs and a dubious submission (to a seated crossface style cobra clutch which is one of those things someone should steal), before Hart threw a temper tantrum and they set up more matches to come. The violence, blood, dives, and clever bits of structure in the midst of it all, probably led this to be pretty satisfying to the people watching, despite the BS surrounding it. And they were able to plug the website for the real result. Obviously, that only got PXW so far, but hey, this accomplished what it set out to do. 

PAS: I thought this was excellent. I really enjoy Teddy Hart spectacles (too bad he seems to be a monstrous person), and this had all of the horseshit and weirdness you would expect from Teddy at his Teddiest. The opening slap by Corino was super nasty and I assume the mouth full of blood was a work somehow, but damn was that whole section nasty. There were definitely moments that felt uncooperative, both guys were throwing back elbows like they were trying to crack cheekbones. I also loved Corino pulling out the fork and stabbing Hart with it, obvious shades of the Homicide feud and this may be the only time I have ever wanted a match to be a three-way dance. I could have done without the 500th iteration of the Montreal Screwjob in the finish, but this was a great start to what should have been a wild feud, if this fed didn't go under.

Team UNWA (Adam Jacobs/Tank/Adam Roberts/Will Owens) vs The Devil's Rejects (Shaun Tempers/Patrick Bentley/Se7en/Rufus Black) UNWA 12/11/10 - GREAT

PAS: Yet another Devil's Reject's War Games shows up on the internet. This one isn't tip top tier Reject's War Games, but these matches have super high floors. Tank is normally a Reject, but was on the face team for this match and just hits the ring stabbing everyone. I really liked his couple of big man face off's with Rufus Black and Se7en and he really added some flavor to a face team which was otherwise a bit samey. The big spots weren't as big as they are in other War Games matches, but I am here for the asskicking and stabbing and we had that in spades.  

MD: Phil and Eric have seen a few more indy War Games than I have, but it's really hard to get it too wrong. Heels get the advantage. Babyfaces start off strong and fiery. Then it alternates with logical transitions until it breaks into the big spots at the end. That's exactly what happens here and mostly everything worked how it was supposed to. I had questioned why Tank wasn't batting cleanup for the faces, but The fans were totally into Owens who did exactly what he ought to. The heels were able take over with weapons as much as anything else, which worked for me. There was good use of the cage right at the beginning (and the only other big spot being a Canadian Destroyer once the heels got the first advantage which honestly felt more like an insult than anything else) and then it didn't really come back into play until the end when people leaped off of it. The big dive was really to clear the center of the ring for the finish, which is a great use of it. Then the post match was everything you want from an indy, just a triumph that respected the stipulation instead of trying to screw the fans and milk out more. Good stuff.

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ZERO-ONE Truth Century Creation 3/2/02

KENTA vs. Tatsuhito Takaiwa

ER: Weird match as it gets almost 20 minutes, but rarely feels like anything more than a Takaiwa squash. KENTA had some mighty ineffective juniors offense and no strikes to go along with his awful frosted tips mushroom 'do. No strikes in a match against Takaiwa means you're going to get beat up. So Takaiwa beat him up, and Takaiwa is just a guy I totally blocked out really really liking, mistakenly mentally lumping him in with guys like Kanemaru and other late 90s/early 00s meh juniors. Wait do I also actually like Kanemaru!? MY MEMORY IS SHOT AND NOTHING MAKES SENSE ANYMORE! But Takaiwa is definitely now a guy I'm correctly re-evaluating. He has a lot of offense and hits it really hard, and KENTA and his dumb haircut is a fun guy to see get clotheslined and powerbombed a bunch. Match structure is all wonky as we basically get Takaiwa beating KENTA up for 15 mintues, then KENTA gets some flimsy roll ups and ranas before inevitably succumbing. KENTA had this annoying habit of kicking out of his every single one of his pinfalls (outside of the schoolboy that opened the match which was a real nice schoolboy). He would get a roll up and then after a 2 count he would act like Takaiwa was suddenly made of hot lava, just scrambling away from him before Takaiwa would kick out. Annoying.

PAS: I remember really digging this period of Takiawa, there is a ton all over the early 20s Schneider Comps. He was basically a juniors Kurisu, a balding little prick who wasn't afraid to be completely unprofessional. This match would have been really good if it had about five minutes shaved off. The idea of a young guy getting mauled, and getting some hope spots is a great match type, but the mauling here dragged. Takiawa is just stomping KENTA in the back of his head and trying to break small bones in his neck with clotheslines, but at some point around the 10 minute moment it stops mattering, I mean if the brainbuster on the floor doesn't end it, why will this suplex. I did like KENTA 's crazy dive into the crowd, and it is really surreal to see a kickless KENTA match.

Kohei Sato vs. Yoshiaki Fujiwara

ER: The title card actually bills Fujiwara as "The Wrestle Master" which....yep, that math checks out. And this was a match that would fit right in on a modern Evolve show, with the first 8 minutes being mat rolling. And now I'm just drooling at the prospect of Fujiwara as elder Catch Point statesman. There was some good rolling though it could have leaned further one way or the other. There were nice reversals though neither seemed to have an advantage and it didn't always seem spirited. Fujiwara has some sick transitions and I especially loved him planting a forearm on Sato's throat as he moved into mount. On their feet and Fujiwara starts dishing headbutts and getting that gleeful old man gleam in his eye. But he goes down for the count pretty quickly to a soft kick behind the ear. I wasn't expecting him to stay down for a 10 count after it. We've all seen him take far worse strikes, and this was essentially the only strike he took in the match so it really should have looked better if it was meant to be the finish.

PAS: Awesome grappling match, in the style of the classic PWFG and UWF Fujiwara matches. Pretty much all on the mat with both guys desperately fighting for counters and reversals. Sato is very comfortable in this relm and does a lot of cool shit. You don't often see someone who looks comfortable rolling with Fujiwara in this way. Most guys even if the action is worked even, appear carried, while Sato looks like he has his own ideas. Sato uses his height well on the mat, sort in the way someone liked Kendall Grove does in shoots, he has long legs and uses their length to extricate himself and get advantages. Of course no one in wrestling history is as comfortable on the mat as Yoshiaki Fujiwara and all of his attacks are very fluid too. Finish was slightly abrupt, Fujiwara has done good KO finishes in the past, this one didn't feel as much like a finish, the kick didn't land as solidly as it needed to, and I think it dropped the match a bit.

Sean McCully vs. Wataru Sakata

PAS: Ok Sean McCully is the hidden star of this Zero-One revisit. He looks like a Jersey City nightclub bouncer, and has this great "COME AT ME BRO" charisma. Sakata is an ex RINGS and Pride guy who ended up in Zero-One for some reason. This starts out as a shootstyle match, and McCully is surprisingly adept at basic shootstyle mat work. McCully ends up getting flipped to the floor and then they start brawling on the floor with McCully posting Sakata, and it almost turns into a Murakami match. Finish is awesome, McCully is in the ring taunting Sakata "YOU WANT TO RUMBLE BRO, YO THE PULSE IS WHERE I WORK DUDE, YOU DON'T FUCKING DISRESPECT ME A MY CLUB BRO." Sakata gets into the ring, and McCully claps his gloves together in anticipation, and Sakata hits a jumping knee and KO's him. Totally would have been a viral video if it had happened outside of a bar, I wanted to start chanting WORLD STAR.

Samoa Joe/Tom Howard vs. Steve Corino/Gary Steele

PAS: This was a super entertaining NWA v. UPW tag. A nice mix of Corino's horseshit and more indy ROHish tag work. Joe is in full super indy mode, chaining together suplexes, hitting tope con hilos, wasting people with lariats. Meanwhile Corino is hitting hard, but also talking mad loud shit, and doing the MX/Delfin armwringer spot. While a lot of the match was Cornio v. Joe, I think Howard may have been the under the radar star of the match. He hits all these weird takedowns and has these cool punch combos, just a totally unique wrestler. He also had the spot of the match, where he used a Joe suplex bridge to springboard himself into a nasty dropkick on Steele. Whole thing was pretty great, I could easily see this main eventing a alternate universe ROH show and being really well regarded.

Yoko Takahashi vs. Yuki Kubota

PAS: This was either a worked shoot, or a sloppy MMA fight. One of the ladies gets her nose busted open, and they throw pretty recklessly. Sort of entertaining because they eschewed defense, hard to rate something like this though.

Josh Dempsey vs. The Predator

PAS: Man the hits keep coming with this show, this is another killer match. Dempsey is a boxer and Predator is an ex NCAA champion wrestler, but this was a nutso brawl. Dempsey jumps Predator at the bell and throws a bunch of nasty bodyshots. Predator hurls Dempsey out of the ring and he basically falls head first to the floor. Rick Bassman jumps on the Predator and gets thrown. The whole thing is completely out of control, Dempsey is throwing spuds, Predator swings around his Brody chain, and tries to hang Dempsey with it. I honestly thought this was as good as the best Brody brawls, maybe the Predator was an improvement on the original.

Kazuhiko Ogasawara vs. Ryouji Sai

PAS: This was also nuts. Ogasawara is a fun karate guy and Sai is a shootstyle Zero One young guy. First move of the match is Sai going in for a shot and eating a knee square on his nose. It looked for a second like they were going to end the match immediately. Sai passes concussion protocol and comes back and we get another heated brawl, with Sai going for takedowns and submissions and Ogasawara winging hard punches and kicks. At one point Ogasawara tosses off the Gi and busts up Sai's nose. Finishing spin kick I think legit KO's Sai, as you can see his eyes roll up into the back of his head and someone pull out smelling salts.

Naomichi Marufuji vs. Naohiro Hoshikawa

PAS: Marufuji juniors matches aren't really my bag, I am always going to prefer crazy karate guys,  but this one moved along and had enough fun moves that I ended up enjoying it. Hoshikawa throws hard stomach kicks which makes him a perfect junior for a Hashimoto fed. Marufuji doesn't have great offense, but in the age of Okada and Tanahashi it doesn't stand out as much, and he does really connect with his superkicks. I actually liked how he worked his submissions which isn't something I remember him doing. These guys had a pretty well regarded match on the first Zero One show, and they appear to be a pair of guys who worked really well together.

Shinya Hashimoto vs. Masato Tanaka

PAS: One of the all time greatest bear maulings in wrestling history. After this beating I imagine Tanaka wished he was back getting unprotected chairshots and thrown into barbed wire. It is a great kind of semi-squash match because Tanaka is always coming forward and attacking even as he gets mutilated. He even does some pretty nasty knee work, throwing some hard forearms right into the side of Hashimoto's knee, you know that guys knees weren't great. He even gets a great near fall, when he wiggles out of the brainbuster and smashes Hashimoto with a big rolling elbow. Still this was all about Hash as an absolute stalking killer. Not only does he throw those windmill over hand chops to the neck and his baseball bat wheel kicks, but at one point he jumps off the ring apron and lands full weight right on the side of Tanaka's ribs, I have no idea how they didn't crack like wishbones. There is this great spot late in the match where Tanaka backs Hash into the corner and slaps him, Hash gives this great wry grin and just full force punches Tanaka in the jaw. What a fucking rockstar Hashimoto was.

Shinjiro Ohtani vs. Naoya Ogawa

PAS: Another super heated scrap, what a fucking show. I guess Murakami was feuding with Ogawa at this point as he consistently needs to be held back from going after him. Murakami is such a superstar, when he throws off his shirt he is like Steve Austin. Ohtani uses Murakami's distraction to get an early edge, hitting his great missile dropkick and german suplex, Ogawa is too much thought and he eventually STO's Ohtani into a ref stoppage, Murakami tries to after him again and we have a great pull apart. Checking Cagematch, Murakami doesn't show up again until 2006, what a dropped ball, Ogawa v. Murakami looked like it would have been awesome

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Pro Wrestling Zero-One "Vast Energy" 1/6/02

1. Sean McCully vs. Tatsuhito Takaiwa

ER: On paper, McCully and Takaiwa matches did not factor into my decision to by the 2002 Z-1 set...but man did I love this. I now need to see all of the Sean McCully pro wrestling matches. McCully is a short MMA never was who brings an awesome cocky douche aura to Japanese pro wrestling, with his baggy shorts and smirk and bare feet (not even ankle tape!). Takaiwa seems vaguely uncooperative throughout, but shows too much ass to actually be uncooperative. It's a weird vibe. Takaiwa rushes him with a lariat and McCully ducks it and throws a spin kick, then a couple high kicks. Takaiwa bails to the floor and McCully jumps over the top after him, looking like he couldn't decide to land on the apron or the floor and just kinda ended up flying down onto the apron and Tak. McCully takes a mean bump into the rail and then gets blasted with a lariat that sends him sprawling wildly ass over elbow into the crowd. Holy shit. And then McCully calmly gets up and  WALKS UP THE RING ROPES to get back in the ring. Complete & Accurate Sean McCully arriving shortly. Takaiwa really seemed like he wanted to make an example of McCully...but also took plenty of hard kicks and throws from McCully. For a guy I've never thought about much I'll have to give credit to Takaiwa for making it seem like a dangerous atmosphere. Takaiwa is a guy who I kind of forgot about and might really need to seriously reevaluate. He looked really zoned in here. At one point he goes up top for an elbow that seems like a bad idea, and McCully moves as Tak just wrecks his elbow into the mat. McCully is always throwing body kicks and starts doing some great takedown suplexes, dumping Tak a couple times on his shoulder. Tak plants him with a powerbomb and dumps him with a stiff DVD. Man this was cool. What an unexpectedly great start to the Z-1 project.

PAS: Yeah this was a blast McCully was clearly not Pro-Wrestling trained, but Takiawa is the perfect guy to come in and potato shot an untrained guy. Those lariats by Takiawa seemed like they were trying to teach McCully some kind of lesson, just wound up smashes to the jaw and neck. I also have a feeling I will enjoy a Takiaea revisit.


2. Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Ryouji Sai

ER: This was a pretty basic Fujiwara match. Fun, because it's a Fujiwara match doing his thing, but not very substantial. He attacks Sai to start with a couple of brutal headbutts to the temple, and Sai eventually fights back with kicks. Fujiwara tends to absorb some kicks before going in for the kill, and that all happens here with one kick in particular flooring him and sending him rolling for the apron. Finish was odd with Fujiwara eventually just imposing his will on Sai, forcing him to the mat and bending his arm until he can get it into the armbar bearing his name. This was Fujiwara vs. a rookie.

PAS: I don't really disagree with anything Eric wrote but a Fujiwara squash is always something I am going to find awesome. I loved those vicious headbutts to the temple, they were very much of the Fujiwara shoot variety rather then the big worked ones, and they looked super nasty. I also loved the finish, Sai unloads with really fast multiple strike combo in the corner, great looking handspeed which isn't something you see a ton of in wrestling, Fujiwara gives him this little shrug, like "good job kid" and then just grabs and wrenches his arm down for the submission. Like he saw what the youngster had to offer and decided he was finished for the day.

3. Kohei Sato vs. Steve Corino

ER: I loved this period Corino. He was absolutely one of the best in the world at this point, for at least the year surrounding. And this is weird because he and Sato are kind of bizarro mirror image with their bleached blonde hair, black trunks and even remarkably similar body shape, height, everything. It's weird. Corino worked a southern cheating heel schtick here, but the schtick felt a bit too schticky after awhile. I loved it when Sato was throwing kicks and Corino was tossing punches at Sato's forehead, headbutting him and lobbing back elbows, but Corino would always revert to getting the feet on the ropes, choking with wrist tape, low blows, etc. It was amusing to a degree, but never as good as the actual ass beating, which I'd rather have more of. Sato had a nice takedown into an armbar and I liked him going after Corino's arm. This was overall good, but could have been really damn good.

PAS: I think I liked this a little more then Eric, I liked Corino trying to go toe to toe with Sato and failing, and having to resort to cheap shit to get an advantage. He gets caught in a triangle and tries to counter, fails and has to get to the ropes. I remember loving Sato back in the day and am really looking forward to revisiting him, nasty kicks, cool takedowns a fun poor mans Takayama vibe.

4. Naohiro Hoshikawa vs. Tsuyoshi Kikuchi

ER: Wonder what the story was behind Kikuchi working this show. He didn't work any other Z-1. And the match was fucking weird and confusing and maybe if I was Japanese it would make more sense, embedded in the culture and interpersonal relationships? Because I don't know man. This was weird. It was essentially 10 minutes of Hoshikawa being asked to kick Kikuchi as hard as he could, while Kikuchi showed boredom at just how little damage Hoshikawa was doing. It starts good with Kikuchi jumping him at the bell with a kick, but Hosh kicking him to the floor, Kikuchi taking a tough bump into the rail, and Hosh hitting an out of control dive that sees him fly way to fast headfirst into the rail. And then back in the ring Kikuchi plops down on his butt like a kid playing with blocks, and Hoshikawa starts kicking him. Kicks him in the back, the chest, stiff low soccer kicks. And Kikuchi just sits there, unfazed, acting like nothing is actually touching him. Hoshikawa starts bouncing off the opposite ropes and throwing stiff low dropkicks, which kind of knock Kikuchi momentarily onto his back, but he always just pops back up showing no facial emotion. More sitting, more kicking. At one point Kikuchi makes Hoshikawa look like even more of a jackass by dodging one of the dropkicks, with Hoshikawa clearly not expecting him to move as he thigh slaps a missed dropkick. What the fuck is happening. The whole match goes like this. Kikuchi takes a furious beating, but most of the time acts like he's dreamily sitting in a field, not getting his chest and back kicked in. We get a couple nice German suplexes, but they don't matter as neither guy is going to give the other the satisfaction of acting like they hurt at all. The only time Kikuchi even sells an eensy bit is late in the match after getting dropkicked in the face, and Hoshikawa starts teeing off with kicks to a grounded Kikuchi. The rest of the time is spent with Hosh trying to get a reaction, dropping an elbow on the throat, anything. Eventually Kikuchi just decided the match was over and locked on a nasty kimura for the tap, and then held onto it for several seconds after the tap and Hoshikawa flips out and tries attacking him after the bell, but Kikuchi acts like nobody is even touching him and looks right past him. What in the actual fuck. I have no idea what any of this was. Was Kikuchi sent by NOAH just to show what pussies all the Z-1 guys are? I've never seen no selling to this degree before. Kikuchi was like a guy whose sexual fetish was getting kicked as hard as possible, but at the same time he is numb to his own fetish. He took what looked like some brutal shots and he just showed boredom the whole time. Clearly more to this, but I have no idea if we'll ever know. Hoshikawa worked a couple NOAH tags opposite Kikuchi the year before this, could be worth investigation (plus Taue/Kikuchi vs. Hoshikawa/Takaiwa just sounds like something I would want to watch anyway).

PAS: Really weird match, it was a couple of degrees away from being an awesome match. First minute or so was great, the match had big heat and a lot of violence. Kikuchi's gimmick was a guy who could take a hell of a beating, so I guess that was why he was no selling everything in such a weird way. He was actually selling fine during the final run, flying around for Hoshikawa's big kicks and I dug the Kimura finish, but the middle section with Kikuchi just sitting there was super weird and killed the match. Felt a little like the stinky Fujiwara v. Kawada match, where I am sure there was some Yakuza power play in the background of this match which explains everything.

5. The Predator vs. Josh Dempsey

ER: Oh man this was a blast. Dempsey is a former boxer and Terkay has yet to go full Brody, and they wisely kept it to 4 minutes. Dempsey is limited but willing to take some bumps (some unintentional, like when he clotheslines Terkay over the top and goes over with him) and doesn't hold back a lot when he's punching Terkay in his gigantic head. Predator keeps things to a lot of knees and slams and Dempsey just throws punches. But Dempsey had a lot of punch variety, like when you play as Balrog in SFII. Dempsey threw cool body shots (that Terkay could have sold better) and really blasted him with some hooks. Terkay had some big slams, loved his ring post wrap around and at one point he chucks Dempsey over the guard rail and into some chairs with a bodyslam. Dammmmmn. both men get counted out and there's a great pull apart after with both men spilling through chairs. Real fun mixed style bout.

PAS: For an ex-boxer Dempsey's boxing form was pretty terrible but his shots were pretty stiff especially his body shots, he also wasn't afraid to take some big bump, getting hurled over the rail and kneed in the head. I also thought Dempsey had a fun frat boy douchebag charisma. Totally fun nutso match and exactly the kind of thing we hope to excavate.

6. Shinjiro Otani & Masato Tanaka vs. Samoa Joe & Tom Howard

ER: Howard and Joe were two of the guys I was excited about seeing on this project, as I remember liking Howard a lot and was curious how good Joe was 14 years ago. And this was a fun tag, even though it was really an awesome first half combined with a kinda sloppy disjointed second half. Howard gassed hard at one point and the structure totally fell apart, so that everyone was just lying around and/or getting in everybody else's way for what felt like a long time. But for a lot of this I dug Howard and all his sliding and standing side kicks. Joe was also far better than I remember, laying in stiff strikes and breaking out all kinds of suplexes I don't remember him using. He was also really quick, and really he worked like the best possible Taz. Otani has tons of personality which makes up for that thing Tanaka does where he sells a suplex by just sorta standing back up and looking vacant. Otani was mostly tasked with holding this thing together and trying to get it to a logical conclusion, and he was good running around making saves and I liked him paying Joe back for an earlier face wash. But yeah things did fall apart, but overall the match had plenty of charm. These teams should have a real good match in them.

PAS: I liked this a bit more then Eric too, I loved the UPW team as heel, Howard had so much fun nasty offense, I loved his brainbuster and his boot camp crawl to break a submission, I thought he did gas a bit, but Joe made up for it by being a total dynamo. You forget what an explosive athlete young Samoa Joe was, crazy hip strength on all of his suplexes and big nasty elbows and clotheslines. Finish run was a puro tag finish run, but the big moves were pretty huge and I didn't have a huge problem with any of the kickouts. I think I am going to like the weird Josh Howard matches more then the Ohtani/Tanaka workrate tags on this rewatch, but this was really good workrate tag.

7. Shinya Hashimoto vs. Nathan Jones

ER: So ummmmmm I kinda loved his. How was Jones so much better here, over a year before he was in WWE? Yeah, he was wooden in this, and yeah he had Hash staggering around setting stuff up, but he looked far more workable here than in any of his WWE stuff (outside of that awesome 4 on 2 match from Smackdown with Benoit/Angle vs. Lesnar/Jones/Matt Morgan/A-Train where Jones looked like everything was really starting to click), and he looked far more workable here than Khali did at any point in his WWE tenure, and Khali had a gig for practically a decade! But damn I really loved this. Hash was so damn good, at everything. Loved him getting bullied around by Jones, loved some of the weird situations they ended up in (Jones holding him in an over shoulder backbreaker, leading to Hash pushing off the tope rope and flipping back over Jones), and by the time we got to Hash beatdown I was flipping out. Hash launched all sorts of brutal kicks to Jones' thigh, chest and back (Jones leaned into all of these shots like a psycho), started tossing out his DDTs (which Jones took shockingly well), suplexed him over the top with Jones taking a wild "Vince MacMahon has no idea how to bump over the top rope" bump, and this was just all sorts of awesome. Jones certainly looked like a wooden stiff at times, but most of the time he was breaking out offense you didn't know he had (where did his high jump elbow drop come from??) or getting murdered by an arguably best wrestler in the world at this point Hashimoto, and this thing was just laid out flawlessly for max effect. I'm sure there is going to be tons of awful Jones throughout this project, but this wasn't that. This was killer.

PAS: Yeah this was totally dope, I remember loving this match back in 2002 and it totally held up. Jones should have been a bigger star, he is a crazy looking guy, cut like a bag of dope, 7ft tall and really athletic in a weird way. He isn't afraid to lean into big shots and Hashimoto lays in huge shots. He is far from a good wrestler, but has a set of tools. Hash shows his greatness, because he takes a guy with some very limited assets and builds a compelling match around those assets. Hash gets bloodied up with nasty slaps to his face and really looks like he can't solve this monster. Really impressive entry on Hashimoto's resume.

ER: Well I couldn't have asked for a better show to start out with. All the non-wrestling guys were fun, their native stable is diverse and also fun, the gaijin are unique and clearly busting ass, just a real satisfying roster that makes me excited for tons of different match-ups. No way the promotion keeps things at this high a level throughout 2002, but I'm excited for what's to come.

PAS: Yeah this was a really fun show I am very excited about checking out what this roster will do.

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Lawler and Me We're Free

Jerry Lawler vs. Steve Corino JAPW 8/10/02 - EPIC

ER: Man Lawler had quite a run in early 2000s JAPW. The unreal Kamala match, Funk match, inexplicably great 3 way with Maff/Shane Douglas, and now we can add this Corino match (we'll pretend the Slyck Wagner Brown match happened somewhere else). I assume a match like this must have been a huge treat for Corino, as he gets to work a hide the chain match with the master of hide the chain. Corino spends the pre-chain portions bumping all over for Lawler (including a big one over the top from a perfect Lawler dropkick). Lawler was also throwing these cool left hooks that he really doesn't do anymore. He usually sticks to the left jab to set up his right hook or uppercut these days, so the boss left hooks stood out as being especially awesome. The chain stuff is all fun. I've said before that Lawler gets choked in the ring better than most. He really puffs up his face and sputters. I actually bought the finish when Corino hit his piledriver. I thought Lawler was too far from the ropes, but him barely draping the leg at the last second was a great moment. It all builds to the strap drop which makes Corino instinctively panic and drop the chain. And after that you can't ask for more of a finish than Lawler braining Corino with a piledriver ON the chain.

PAS: I liked how this was worked more violently then a lot of the Lawler 2000s matches. Parts of this were worked like a nasty fight. The chain choking wasn't a stoogish spot it felt like a mean fucker choking a guy. I also loved Corino's stomps to the head. Lawler was great as well and his comeback was a fist fight, Lawler's flying fist drop was like Dr J, flying from the free throw line. That piledriver by Corino was totally badass and I also kind of bought the near fall even though in my mind I knew Lawler wasn't losing. Man I wish Lawler worked other JAPW guys during this run I can imagine how great 02 Homicide v. Lawler would have been.


Batman vs. Dr. Frank vs. Wolfman vs. Bill Clinton vs. Bulldog Rains vs. Killer Klown vs. Popeye vs. Grave Digger Memphis Power Pro 10/31/98 - FUN

PAS: This is a studio elimination match where everyone is dressed up in costume. Has some amusing nonsense with guys wrestling in goofy costumes, but no one seemed to work the gimmick particularly. Finish was kind of fun with Popeye (Brian Christopher) trying to brain Batman (Lawler) with the can of spinach, before smashing him with a pumpkin. Still mostly weak stuff, only misses skippable because of all the goofiness.

ER: Boy...this happened. This was a goofy, only-in-Memphis, studio elimination match that happened on a Halloween morning. Part match, part advertisement for a local costume shop. Not a joke. Most of the guys in this looked bad and until they started getting unmasked upon elimination I assumed most of them were not even wrestlers but perhaps maybe employees of the costume shop. But, no, these were actual workers. Kid Wikkid was Killer Klown, and he had downy soft Petey Williams offense. Dr. Frank wore Zubaz pants. Wolfman didn't even howl (and I also can't figure out if he sold a DDT really nicely or was just trying to keep his mask from falling off). Clinton's pants split up the backside. Spellbinder/Streak was shockingly much better than I remember him being. He was Grave Digger and actually knew what he was doing in there. You know a match is really something when Spellbinder is the guy I'm playing up out of all the participants. Christopher's pumpkin shot looked like it hurt. Likely won't have to type that sentence too many more times in my life. The real winner of the match was probably Stacy Carter decked out in her vinyl Catwoman suit. Most of the workers here couldn't really pull off their look, but I can't imagine too many viewers having a problem with her costume.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE KING

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Yoshiaki Fujiwara Sustains the Humble, But Casts the Wicked To The Ground

Yoshiaki Fujiawara v. Joe Malenko PWFG 6/1/93-EPIC

PAS: This was so much fun, just a pair of true maestros pulling pushing and twisting each other until someone gives. This wasn't an exchange of holds, it was a constant battle by both men to find some advantage or defense. This was really a Malenko show, as he controlled with great takedowns, and constant attacking, with Fujiwara really focused on defense. Of course Fujiwara is the greatest defensive pro-wrestler of all time, so the defense stuff ruled.

TKG: This was a Malenko show. My favorite thing that he did was use his knee and shin as simple machine, constantly pushing it against stuff to act as a lever, inclined plane or wedge to force Fujiwara to move one body part or another, worlds most violent physics demonstration.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Daisuke Ikeda v. Ricky Fuji/Hitsakatsu Ooya FMW 5/5/95-FUN

This is for the FMW tag belts, and was on the undercard of one of the big FMW 5/5 shows. There was a bunch of stuff I enjoyed here, Fujiwara and Ikeda are both bleeding and do a good job of getting the crowd behind them. We get to see Ikeda kick some folks really hard, including a spin kick right to Fuji's face which looked like it chicleted his teeth. The finish had Fujiwara whipping out flash armbars, including catching Fuji off the top. Still lots of the match had the FMW team beating on Fujiwara and Ikeda, and there was nothing compelling about it. Lots of weak forearms and stomps, you are going to have to hit both guys way harder then that to have me buy into it.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Shinya Hashimoto/Naoya Ogawa v. Tom Howard/The Predator/Steve Corino Zero-One 5/19/02-GREAT

A match which ends up on the low side of great, but had enough stuff I enjoyed to push it over the top. This is part of the big UPW/NWA v. Zero One feud which lots of times came off as a giant money mark fantasy for Fred Rubenstien and Rick Bassman. This did have heel ref shit and a post match brawl with Mr. Fred throwing powder, but for the most part it was focused in the ring. Fujiwara had some cool flash submissions and got in his ring bolt comedy spot, but the star of this match was Hashimoto. The gaijin team is pretty limited, but Hash had some excellent battle of the titans spots with all of them. I especially love his work with Howard, who is someone I am really starting to dig while watching all of this Zero One. I loved how he wasted Hashimoto with a superkick after suckering him in with his hands behind the back gimmick. Finish had some cool OH Gun combo moves including a nasty STO/German Suplex. Cool stuff.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FUJIWARA

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ROH TV Workrate Report: 12/20/10

Holiday Gauntlet!!!!! This could be really fun. $10,000 is on the line, baby! 16 names are entered, 8 will be drawn!!

1. Jay Briscoe vs. Steve Corino starts us off and this is about as good a way to start it off as I can think of and they start with about a million shoulderblocks that hit hard and look great. Corino hits a running chop into the corner and Briscoe no sells and Corino begs off and we are fully into this. Corino just plants Jay with a great STO, then locks on an abdominal stretch and I'm pretty sure he tried to thumb Jay's asshole and Jay was like "Nuh Uh" and then Jay reverses and tries to do the same to Corino and Todd Sinclair tells them to knock off the assplay. Jay goes on a run of offense including a nice big boot, Corino goes for a lariat and gets it blocked, then gets rolled up. Would've liked more out of this, but this is a gauntlet so you kinda know each match is gonna go 5-6 minutes.

2. Now we got Briscoe vs. Christopher Daniels which is infinitely less interesting. Daniels is like an old luchador where the older he gets, the higher the tights get. He's like Villano III now with a more hygienic forehead, but really really boring. Briscoe hits a nice rana but Daniels takes over with a chest breaker. He keeps holding Jay down and Briscoe transitions back to control with a superkick! Jay goes on a run of nice looking offense with a big lariat and a death valley driver, then hits a real cool STO into the turnbuckles but only gets two. Then Daniels just kinda gets the Angels Wings for the win. Lame. This is headed on a collision course for Davey vs. Daniels which sounds like the worst possible match up.

3. Rhett Titus vs. Daniels is next and they are losing me fast. Daniels is awesome selling Titus' music "Aw fuck!" he says, completely concerned about his chances. He sold it like the Undertaker was coming out, which is great so Daniels deserves some credit for that. Titus is a lot like Edge in that he looks like Edge facially, and has a whole different set of problematic offense. Both these guys are real bland to me, but they both try and masquerade as being interesting by doing overdone "whoooaaaa" facials. Rhett does a backrake to try and win me over, but for all the trying to be over-the-top, he just comes off so vanilla. Boring dropkicks and weak powerslam and rote heeling. And Daniels himself knows a thing or two about mechanically going through the motions. He wins with the Best Moonsault Ever which he still overshoots after all these years. Dominos realized it's pizza was shitty and changed it. What will it take to get Daniels to move his opponent 6" farther from the corner?

4. Oh fuck me we get Davey Richards vs. Daniels. Good lord. Davey comes out and he looks super pensive, not intense in the least. I know a thing about being pensive and this guy is pensive. We start with a super shitty shoulderblock and Davey howls afterwards. Oh jeez. Daniels and Davey are having a "Who can do a shittier side headlock" contest. Davey hits a ridiculous handspring enziguiri that Daniels deserves some credit for not making look incredibly retarded. This is a whole bunch of "fast action" with no real rhyme or reason, with tons of reversals that don't mean too much, just there to have a bunch of back-and-forth. Of course Davey wins this.

Todd Sinclair is STILL working every match of the gauntlet and he is starting to look like Chris Farley when he would do a bunch of cartwheels and his face would get all red and you would be like "Oh man he might die" and then he did.

5. Davey is probably going to go all the way through this now, isn't he. Good grief. Davey vs. Claudio is up and next and Davey starts with a nice tope and a missile dropkick, Claudio kicks out and gets a nice clothesline. He gets a rad press slam on Davey, followed with a gut wrench suplex and a big powerslam. Davey is already selling every fucking move like he's breathing his last breath, making those shitty John McClane faces that make way more sense when you have to walk barefoot over glass and you're trying to spend the holidays with your deteriorating family. It also makes it look beyond stupid whenever he sells death, then pops up to get a superplex, or sells death only to do a handspring enziguiri. Just using....eveeerrrry.....last breath....to struggle....to..your feet.....only to bouncy bounce handspring off the ropes wheeeee!!! Was the result ever in doubt?

6. Chris Hero vs. Davey could be alright, right? I love Hero, so fingers crossed. Hero starts with some awesome yakuza kicks but it doesn't matter because Davey is still alternating between deathbed impaled on a stake selling, and running-and-bouncing. The Davey kickouts get ridiculous the longer this goes on, as Hero nails every possible cool elbow smash and Davey keeps laughably and goofily fighting back, making tons of angry faces and is just impossible to take seriously. I get suckered in as I think the rolling elbow into the corner followed by a sitout powerbomb might win it for Hero, but of course it doesn't as Davey throws some more 2.9s into the match (I hope we get more next match!!!!) and wins with an inside cradle.

7. BUT Hero had loaded his elbow pad and blasts Davey in the back of the head with an elbow, so Davey does all this hilarious concussion selling that is not quite as good as Matt Mitrione's and pretty much just means bugged out eyes and thousand yard stares with an open mouth. Roderick Strong vs. Davey is our last match and we get a few silly Davey conquers all odds with overblown offense (I know if I had no strength and was seeing double and was near death, I would do a flapjack into a kick and try to lock on a ankle lock). Roddy chops the shit out of him and does a nice fireman's carry gutbuster and gets the running flying kick to finish.

I really don't mind guys coming back from unbeatable odds and using every last ounce of strength angles, but Davey was doing that from the Daniels match on through the whole show and it was just way too silly by the end. I really don't even mind superman characters, as I can get behind John Cena's selling. Davey just comes off too desperate at times, not in a "desperation move" kind of way, but a "I wish people liked me" kind of way. There were many many moments where the crowd could not be bothered to care during this gauntlet, but Davey seems so set in his ways during his matches that he can't respond to genuine emotion from fans. Sometimes fans want someone to fight the odds, sometimes they don't. They only decent responses were when he was playing off a legit good heel like Hero, and even then the reactions seemed to be entirely due to Hero.

I just got less and less interested in this show the longer it went on. Individual spots worked for me, but the overarching story didn't interest me since it was made painfully obvious what was going to happen - which is not necessarily a bad thing - just poorly done with the main man Davey involved.

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Yoshiaki Fujiwara Comes Around the Bend

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v. Yusuke Fuke PWFG 2/24/92 - EPIC

TKG: WOW. Ok this here is the match. Fujiwara goes with an early kick to the shin that just takes Fuke down in the first moments. Fuke clutches his ankle. Fujiwara makes a couple attempts at throws with Fuke reversing to the mat, and here you have this match all about Fuke being a guy with multiple cool ways to sprawl for stuff on the ground. When they stand back up Fujiwara is going to go right back at the ankle. Just a ton of different things going on in this. Fujiwara is caught in a triangle that has to be broken because they''re in the ropes... but post triangle Fujiwara just sells grogginess that leaves him open for one thing after another. This match just rules.

PAS: This was really great, and may have been the best Fujiwara, Fujiwara-Gumi match. The matwork was super here, as both guys were breaking out multiple counters to counters. My favorite is when Fuke was attempting a Boston Crab, Fujiwara tries to break out his signature crab counter, and Fuke counters it, then he tries it again and Fuke goes right for a cross armbreaker. I also loved all the fighting for holds, Fujiwara was going for the ankle and Fuke is just laying in bodyshots and headbutts, but Fujiwara refuses to let go. The shots to the knee were brutal, and I loved Fujiwara's viciousness.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara/Shinya Hashimoto v. Steve Corino/C.W. Anderson Zero-One 4/29/02 - SKIPPABLE

Lots of horseshit in and around this match, you have Corino and Anderson mostly stooging and goofing around and most of the match was based around Mr. Fred as the heel ref. Hashimoto laid in a nasty beating, and I always dig Fujiwara doing comedy, but I can imagine this would have been pretty good in a straight match, and this wasn't that.

The Complete and Accurate List of All of the Yoshiaki Fujiwara

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