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

WWE Vault Dark Matches

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Justin Credible vs. Kid Kash 9/18/01

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

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

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

 

Read more!

Found Footage Friday: ABBY~! KIMALA II~! MVC~! PUTSKI~! REX~! LAWLER~! DEAN(SIMON)~!

Ivan Putski vs. Moondog Rex WWF in Kuwait 1984

MD: We sort of have to watch all of this Kuwait stuff, just for the novelty. Thankfully q8wrestling reposted the Piper/Orton tag from Kuwait that's been offline for a few years and that we covered all the way back on October 26, 2018. Yes, 2018. We're a couple of weeks away from 5 straight years of doing this weekly, without missing a single week. More on that at the end of the month. 

Here, it's Putski and Rex, which is admittedly not as exciting, but did the Kuwait crowd ever love Putski. It made for some really beautiful minimalist stuff to start. A lock up and push off by Putski would pop the crowd huge. Putski slowly powering his arms down out of a full nelson as Rex's expression goes from confidence to terror to agony (as somehow Putski has was trapping and squeezing his hands under his armpits) made them elated, with the Putski chant starting after Rex made it to the ropes. The rest of the match goes how you'd think. Whenever Rex tries for a hold, Putski powers out. The most motion in the match is him scurrying out of the ring to regroup. He gets over with a cheapshot but never for long. If Rex gets a pin attempt, Putski pushes him off so that he goes flying (to a pop, of course). Putski comes back quickly to the crowd's delight and plants Rex in the end with the Hammer. It's simple and straightforward stuff, but with the body language of guys who really knew how to connect with a crowd, and when they have an appreciative crowd, it's an enjoyable way to spend ten minutes. 

ER: This is so great. This is why we write about this dumb shit. Ivan Putski getting a superstar reaction in Kuwait, every single man in attendance (there are only men allowed to attend WWF Kuwait tour wrestling, sooo...) reacting to Putski like he was Hogan, and every one of them fully bought into Putski's strength. This man was treated like a mythological character and Moondog Rex knew how to play into all of it perfectly. I loved all of this. I have zero clue what the Kuwaiti peoples' relationship with WWF or pro wrestling would have been in 1982. I don't know if they were getting WWF TV, I don't know what kind of pro wrestling they were consuming, I don't know their relationship with combat sports, I know nothing. But they had a special connection to Ivan Putski, and I thought it made this match incredible. 

As importantly, Randy Colley made this match incredible. The Moondogs' WWF run is one of the more neglected runs in WWF history, based on what's been written about it after the fact. The WWF DVDVR 80s set was the first one of those 80s sets that we did, and every subsequent version of those sets (Memphis, Mid-South, New Japan, WCCW, AWA, etc.) had a much more vast and comprehensive selection process for what was included as the true best of their respective territories. The WWF set was the only one that was not comprehensive. There was no Terry Funk, not enough Andre, not enough Valentine, etc. There were zero Moondogs matches and since those sets, every time I've seen Larry Latham and Randy Colley I thought they were both among the best workers on the roster of their specific era. This match is a great illustration of that. As Moondog Rex, Colley sells Putski's strength so realistically and so believably that he perfectly feeds into the Kuwaiti frenzy surrounding this short and absolutely JACKED Polish man. It goes beyond Rex getting thrown far across the ring on every lock-up, and goes all the way into Rex selling everything Putski did as if he was facing the strongest man in pro wrestling history. 

We got an incredible full nelson escape, where Putski slowly broke the hold while the crowd swelled, ending when Putski clamped Rex's arms down to his sides, trapping the poor panicking Moondog in a dick to ass position, Rex running in place because of his hurt arms pinned to Putski's side by his World's Strongest Arms, causing only more friction between his dick and Putski's ass. Every single man in Kuwait BELIEVES in Polish Power and so every single slow squeeze knucklelock gets a huge slow burn reaction until people are losing their minds when Putski is squeezing Rex's shoulder. Rex sells his shoulder like it got run over by a truck tire, and if this was broadcast across the country in any way, every child watching would fully buy into Putski as the strongest God, all due to Rex's impeccable selling of every single show of strength.  

When Rex is in control, he has to believably muscle around the World's Strongest Man, who is also the World's Most Inflexible Man. He throws great full arm extension punches with his good arm, incredible aim for such a long release point, knocking Putski down to a knee in the corner. Ivan Putski takes a snapmare even worse than Scott Putski, and until know I thought Scott Putski took a snapmare worse than any man I'd seen. Ivan Putski's body is so rigid taking a snapmare, that it looked like Rex accidentally knocked down an expensive vase at a museum and was trying to slow its landing. Rex has to do all the lifting on a back breaker, and just the act of maneuvering Putski into a neckbreaker looked like Rex had to move an extremely large, cumbersome rolled up rug all by himself, up stairs. Moondog Rex went to Kuwait and moved mountains. For the finish, he made Putski's punches look actually good, better than they really were, bouncing and recoiling off the ropes into them. He runs into the Polish Hammer and gets stopped dead by it, making it really look like a guy getting hit in the chest with a big hammer. As Matt said, we've been finding and writing about unseen matches for 5 years now, and 5 years in we're still getting surprised by everything that exists. Randy Colley went to Kuwait and helped a man become a local legend. That's a sentence we get to write now. 

Abdullah the Butcher/Giant Kimala II vs. Steve Williams/Terry Gordy AJPW RWTL 11/20/90

MD: You never knew that you wanted face-in-peril Abby having the ring cut off on him, with these amazing king-sized hope spots (neckbreaker drop, all time block and throat shot, etc.), and the fans chanting "Butch-ahh." That's what we get, followed up by hot tag Richard Morton Giant Kimala II hitting a World's Strongest Slam. When you look at how Baba dealt with the loss of Tenryu (and Yatsu and Kabuki and Takano and Fuyuki and), everyone thinks about the pillars, and yeah, they got there. Before that, however, we had the 1990 superheavyweight division around the Triple Crown and the Tag Titles. Doc, Gordy, and Hansen ruled the roost during the back half of 1990 and you got your share of larger than life matches. That was true with this RWTL too, where you had teams of Baba/Andre, Hansen/Spivey, and Jumbo/Taue on top of these two. 

The first few minutes of this were exactly that, with Gordy and Doc being super giving and stooging big for Abby. That meant Gordy falling all over the place for repeated throat shots or Doc selling his own head after headbutting Abby. It all lead to a huge Doc no-sell of one of Abby's headbutts to a huge Road Warrior Hawk style pop as he just stared him down. All great stuff. until Doc leaned into the illegal double-teaming and they were able to isolate Abby on the outside and clobber him. That's when the full on southern style face-in-peril stuff started. After a lot of clobbering, some woundwork, and a couple of unlikely hope spots, cutoffs, and a beautiful almost-tag, they veered towards the finishing stretch. Even though Kimala came in strong, Abby was hurt and MVC knew how to press the numbers advantage. While we didn't get the stampede, we did get a huge power slam and Doc and Gordy racking up a few more points on their way to topping the rankings. Post match? An awesome brawl as fans run around in a panic and I Love It Loud plays over the speakers. Wrestling perfection right there.

ER: We wrote about an incredible match from this same show, and Andre/Baba vs. JumboTaue tag that was one of the truly wondrous 1990s Andre performances. It's the biggest bumping 90s Andre match I have seen and we would have no idea had some man not gone to Nagoya that day and made sure he had enough camcorder battery. This match is not as great as the Andre/Baba match, but it's its own very important documentation of something else entirely, which is the absolute longest face in peril Abdullah performance I've ever seen. Now, before the match began I could have told you Kimala II would be the one getting pinned. That doesn't take an All Japan expert to figure out. But I would have never guessed how they actually got to that pinfall, because I don't think "Doc and Gordy getting 6 minutes of heat on Abby" would have made a lot of sense as an answer. 

It took a bit to get there, as Abby got to wreck Doc and Gordy with throat thrusts. Terry Gordy sold those hits to the throat as well as any selling I've seen, and Abby made them look really easy to sell (because they all looked violent). Every shot to the throat would send Gordy into a big hair whip recoil, and he's got that virgin never-been-dyed-in-his-life hair that just flows differently when whipped. Terry Gordy - somehow not yet 30 - has the hair of a 16 year old, and his full arm swing into Abdullah's neck is just a wicked clothesline. Doc staggering himself with his own headbutt was beautiful, and the no sell that followed was even better. I loved their face off, their stare down, revealing that Abdullah the Butcher and Dr. Death are the literal exact same height without a centimeter of difference, and when Doc decides to run off the ropes to collide, Abby throws a railroad spike of a thrust into his throat that bumps Doc like Psicosis. The heat on Abby comes when they drag him to the floor and start wailing on him, and Terry Gordy throws a dozen of the most perfectly aimed boot soles directly into Abby's bleeding forehead. I loved hearing the crowd chant for Kee-Ma-La to make the save, and I love the way they built this heat around Abby. 

Abby took a bump in such a weird Specifically Abdullah way that I am positive I've never seen anyone take it. It starts off super silly but then gets super cool, with Doc doing a low dropkick to roll Abby out of the ring. Well, the dropkick doesn't totally hit and Abby is positioned over halfway across the ring from where he's actually rolling out, so Doc kinda hits him and then Abby steamrolls his way all the way out to the floor. Silly. But when he gets to the floor, he does this trust fall bump backwards into the guardrail, his body rigid, and it ends with him falling into the rail like someone tipped a table on its end. Abby looked like Homer getting punched over the fire hydrant, just falling back diagonally into the railing. Abdullah's flash nearfall on his diving clothesline was excellent, like a real version of a Fast & Furious spot where Vin Diesel flies through the air to catch someone into a windshield. His Almost Tag out is legendary, perfectly timed and perfectly executed, with Doc baaaaarely grabbing Abby by the hooked boot, just in time to swing him around inches away from the reaching tag of Kimala. I wish we got more from Kimala's hot tag. It felt like he went down really easily, and it didn't need to go down that way. However, Doc's powerslam on Kimala was incredible. No cheapie in any way whatsoever, getting him up overhead really really high and actually controlling his weight on the way down! Who has the strength to control Kimala II's weight on a full rotation powerslam!?

Jerry Lawler vs. Simon Dean NEW 3/25/2006

MD:  Pre-match promos (sort of a necessity for a Lawler indy match) are here. I sort of wish there had been a throwaway Lawler vs Nova match in the late 90s. That would have been more conceptually interesting with Lawler having to constrain a guy who thought his path to the top was having a section on his website about all of the moves he created. By this point, Dean had already gone through the phase of deciding his path to the big time was by working on his body instead, followed by realizing that his limit was going to be as a stooging heel. Of course Lawler can work with a stooging heel and Dean wasn't afraid to stooge here, throwing his head back for punches, running out of the ring, slamming his hands on the apron, kicking the steps and then selling it, etc. In 2023, it'd probably be pretty refreshing. In 2006, it felt a little rote and by the books maybe. On second thought, even though Dean was committed to the act, it came off as a guy playing a character as opposed to something more natural and organic. They went through the right steps (wrestling as a balanced equation; Dean armdragging Lawler and slamming him leads to Lawler one upping him by doing the same, etc), but the immersion wasn't quite there. I'd love to know what the best Lawler stunner ever was, because it always ends up looking terrible, an amazing fact for a move almost entirely dependent on the guy taking it. The finish (a missed fistdrop but Dean walking right into the pile driver) worked for me, but the rest topped out at fun.

Read more!

Shinya Hashimoto Saw Me Standing Alone Without A Dream in My Heart

Shinya Hashimoto/Masa Saito/Koji Kitao vs. Bam Bam Bigelow/Steve Williams/Big Van Vader NJPW 5/24/90 - EPIC

PAS: Look at this absolutely murderers row of badasses. I mean who is the softest dude in this match, Bigelow? Maybe Kitao? This is worked like you wanted it to be worked, just big beast dudes throwing escalating hard shots at each other. I loved Saito in this. He seemed to inch up the intensity with every interaction, and the gaijin seemed shocked at how hard this little teapot looking guy was hitting them, and there is nothing Steve Williams loves more than escalation. Kitao is green but legit, and was right there looking like he belonged in this fight. There were a couple of great Williams and Hash exchanges, including Shinya hitting a weird high bodypress and Williams breaking up a pin with a headscissors. Post match has a big Vader vs. Kitao face off, which really makes me want to search for that singles match. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SHINYA HASHIMOTO

Read more!

On Brand Segunda Caida: Shootstyle All Japan!

Tamon Honda vs. Gary Albright AJPW 12/16/95

PAS: Not a completely put together match, but it was fun to watch two badass amateur wrestlers chuck each other around the ring. Albright was such a great suplexer he would pop his hips and send Honda flying. Albright was so big that Honda couldn't hurl him but he got off a couple of throws as well. There was a cool spot with Honda struggling to take Albright's back and finally riding him down with a choke. I wanted this to be some hidden classic, and it wasn't that, but it was fun stuff overall.

ER: I thought this kicked ass. The whole thing was two absolute tendon strength beasts throwing each other in impossible arcs, and filling all of the in between time with headbutts and limb ripping. The whole match was both guys trying to finish, and not bothering with any kind of plan other than "set him up to finish him". Both go for takedowns, but the headbutts start early, and less than two minutes in Honda drops Albright with a back suplex and Albright throws Honda with two belly to belly suplexes that have the most gorgeous arc to them. Albright is the greatest suplex thrower in wrestling, never looking like he needs an ounce of help from his opponent, just throwing around 250 lb. bags of sand. Honda scrambles for armbars, Albright locks in his always great heel hook (my favorite heel hook in wrestling, the way he would cross his arms around the ankle and lean his weight into it like a calf crusher), and there are hardly any strikes, just headbutts! Honda wasn't really winning singles matches at this point in his career, he was the guy putting in 8 minute losses to that tour's new gaijin and/or being competitive with Satoru Asako or Kentaro Shiga.

But the more he hammers away at Albright the more the fans start getting behind him, and when he locks in a great sleeper choke you had a loud and full Budokan crowd thinking they were seeing Honda's first big win. He really looked like he exhausted Albright with that sleeper, and after Albright gets to the ropes and gathers himself he really starts going in for the kill, getting the crowd buzzing by maneuvering into a dragon suplex that Honda barely escapes, then tossing him with a heavy head and arm suplex. Honda senses he's losing it and keeps going for hastier and hastier armbar attempts, leading to Albright breaking one and raining down a nasty downward palm strike on a prone Honda. The nearfall after that big head and arm suplex was great, totally looked like Honda was done for, while the two low angle Germans made sure of it. This is a rare singles pairing, the kind of showdown I would have loved to see run back. Shoot, I wish we got a team of these two, unassuming yet freakishly strong, just suplexing and headbutting everything in sight. They had to go out there and do their thing directly before the big 4 Pillars RWTL Finals, and they did that thing.


Tamon Honda vs. Toshiaki Kawada AJPW 1/12/96

PAS: This was a minor key mid 90s Kawada singles match, but it was really joyful. I loved the opening with Honda tooling Kawada on the mat, and Kawada responding by offering par terre position. Honda smashes him in the back with headbutts and tosses him with a German suplex. There was a basic story of Kawada winning the striking exchanges and Honda taking him down, until finally Kawada just grabbed a heel hook from the mat to tap him. Honda wasn't fully developed yet as a wrestler, but it was really fun to see him as this takedown machine.

ER: This was cool in a totally different way, a match that really didn't feel like an All Japan match in many ways. I can't recall too many All Japan matches with this much submission work that actually ends with a submission. The match also starts with very non-All Japan matwork, with Honda muscling Kawada to the mat and really tries to grind him into the mat, tying up limbs and trying to jam his head down. Kawada getting into par terre is such a colossal dick swing to do to a literal THREE TIME OLYMPIC WRESTLER. "Oh, you want to wrestle? Sure, let me give you the first shot, man who represented his entire country in front of the world for over a decade." Kawada knows this clearly - obviously - needles Honda, and does it a second time, and I loved Honda dropping a headbutt into Kawada's back and then hoisting him into a Dead End, the only suplex and really the only bump of the match, with Kawada able to hit a kick before slumping into the corner. And then this whole thing becomes a weird and neat battle of Honda spamming all kinds of headbutts and all parts of Kawada's body while Kawada tries to kick him away. Seriously, Honda headbutts Kawada in the legs, stomach, back, head, even goes up to the top rope for a diving headbutt (I don't think I've ever seen Honda go off the top and it's weird!). Kawada ate a real sick flash dragon screw (Kawada took dragon screws better than any wrestler ever, always went down with those bent ass Reggie Jackson legs) and that slowed him down for awhile, but he kept dragging at Honda and picking away, turning this into a real cool competitive oddball match.


Steve Williams/Gary Albright vs. Yoshihiro Takayama/Masahito Kakihara AJPW 5/1/98

PAS: This was really fun, sort of a chance to see how Dr. Death would have looked as a shootstyle wrestler, he feels like he would have been the world's best Billy Scott. The match was focused on Williams vs. Takayama which seemed like an all time rivalry that never happened. They open up going nose to nose and start pounding on each other. Takayama hits a dropkick to the orbital bone and Williams pops up, smashes him with a shoulder block, then Takayama tries to throw him and Williams sandbags him so they just roll around on the ground punching each other. Williams is bad ass in this match, at one point Kakihara thows his fast slaps and Williams just drops him with a potato right hand.  We get a fun finishing run with Williams hitting a nasty backdrop suplex to beat Takayama. Those two just had amazing chemistry, too bad they never had a singles match.

ER: This match was on one of the very first All Japan tapes I bought, that 5/1/98 Tokyo Dome show. I read about Misawa vs. Kawada in PWI and it sounded like something I needed to see. I'm sure I still have that tape somewhere. And I actually remembered a couple things about this match, even though I'm sure I haven't seen it in 20+ years. What a kickass piece of - not really uncooperative, more uncommunicative - business. Takayama and Kakihara had barely worked All Japan at this point, so they come off like an unknown shootstyle invading team who come out to Mannish Boy like total badass weirdos. Albright and Doc look stoic and massive, and the table is set. This was a massive All Japan show, just a huge crowd, and I cannot imagine how bizarre it would be to be standing opposite two native shootstyle workers with nearly 60,000 fans buzzing. Doc clearly wants to put on a show and decides to take a ton of stiff strikes from both men to show how Not Bothered he is by any of them, ends up completely sandbagging Takayama on a belly to belly and has a straight up Frye/Takayama exchange 4 years before that was a thing. Doc also opts to take a ton of nasty leg kicks from Kakihara (man's thighs must have been seriously knotted up from all that Dome Toughness) and then run into both with some brutal shoulderblocks. Doc hoists Kakihara up for a spinebuster, and lets Kakihara bump it without going down, then just muscles him up hardway and runs over to set him on the top turnbuckle. Seriously Doc is just showing off here and it's always wild to see a gaijin getting springy in front of a massive crowd. And you can bet that he later plants Kakihara with that spinebuster.

Albright is a UWFI guy as much as an All Japan guy, and I like him bridging the gap here and working a little more respectfully, working some UWFI style takedowns and strike exchanges with both. Later on in All Japan the three of them would form a cool UWFI ex-pat team. I love Albright so much. He's such a force, but has a body that doesn't look like he'd be able to do specifically what he's a master at. He has smaller arms that guys his size and his legs don't look as big as they should, and he's got that big granite boulder of a stomach. He doesn't look to me like someone with crazy throwing strength, but his throws are majestic and violent. You've never seen a quicker belly to belly than the one he surprises Kakihara with, whipping him at a 3/4 angle into the mat. I dug how Takayama baited him into catching a leg kick so he could pop him with a straight knee to the forehead, and loved Albright's selling of that knee. The miscommunications in this one played strong, because these are all hard hitters with legit backgrounds, so when a guy wouldn't quite go up for something it just made it look extremely hard fought, like Albright lifting Takayama up for a powerbomb that it didn't even look like the huge Takayama could have stopped. Loved Doc's big superfly splash on Takayama, and that match ending backdrop driver was sick. Sadly, I didn't get to find out what the hell Albright would have done off the top, as Kakihara intercepted him as Doc was hitting his splash. I needed to see that big ol' Galapagos tortoise up on the top rope, no idea how it got there and no idea what to do now that he was there. Thanks a lot Kakihara.

Read more!