Found Footage Friday: BREMEN 1981~! BRET~! WRIGHT~! CASWELL~! ROACH~! UFO~! DIETER~! MOROWSKI~! QUINN~! NEIDHART~!

Bremen 10/20/81

Bret Hart vs. Steve Wright

MD: This show starts with footage of the vending tables and other things which give a really nice slice of life for the time. This match, like the Roach one we covered last month, is amazing just to exist. Steve Wright and Bret Hart! Who knew. And it goes much like you'd expect, with Hart a real game opponent for Wright. The first round and a half has Bret getting little flashes (including dropkicking him out of the ring to start) but Wright mostly controlling and making Bret work his way out. There's a nice cravat exchange where Wright hangs on, for instance. Bret does get the better of him at the end of most of these though. Wright is definitely not clowning Bret like he does others and he goes out of his way to shake his hand between rounds. 

In the middle of the second round, he starts bullying with slams and big whips and Bret flies around for him. This ends with a bridge by Wright that Bret sneaks out of, leaving him there, the biggest comedy of the match but it was quite funny. Into the third round, they pick up the pace including a great bounding mirrored monkey flip sequence, before Wright gets a backslide out of nowhere. I could have used another round and a bit more clowning but this was very good stuff overall. (And for what it's worth Bret still comes out to "Some Girls" by Racey, look it up).

ER: It's weird that Bret only mentioned Steve Wright's hairline and skinny build in his book, and didn't praise his work style the way he praised similar (and arguably lesser) workers. He didn't have a ton of praise for many of the guys on these Germany tours, if I remember correctly, so either he had a bad time doing nightly tent shows or didn't like how Wright was throwing him 10 feet on hip tosses. I remember him saying that he worked so hard on night one that all the old guys got jealous and he was buried the rest of the tour. But Wright wasn't even 30, an old man by hairline only, and seems like the kind of worker Bret liked because their styles are a natural fit. 

This was exactly what I would have expected a 1981 Bret/Wright match to look like, and that's a good thing. It's just a wee taste, ending in the third when things felt like they were just heating up. There's a lot of mirror exchanges but done properly, with tight execution and a sense of monkey see, with big headlock takeovers, Bret getting flipped with tight headscissors. Bret's escape in the 2nd got a laugh out of me, leaving Wright in a neck bridge briefly unaware of Bret's absence. Wright's handshake when he got to his feet felt like a fun fourth wall break, different from his attitude the rest of the match. Bret wrecks him with an uppercut in the 3rd (a "lifter" as Bret called them) and it stood out extra because it was really the only big strike of the match. Maybe that's why Wright went to the finish so quickly...

Caswell Martin vs. Pat Roach

MD: Very, very good stuff. These two matched up so well. I like Martin against anyone really, but here there was contrast and basing and something for him to overcome. I think they may have even wrestled in the UK in footage we might have right around this point, but the familiarity is absolutely there. Roach would try to clubber or bully him and Martin would have to outslick him in multiple ways, whether it was taking a hold and just hanging on through everything or using a headbutt out of nowhere or just bounding about with interesting escapes. 

The two that stood out the most were one where Roach was slamming his head into the mat and Martin just rolled through which I've never seen before and another when he was going for a side backbreaker and Martin was able to take the upward momentum and just keep going around with it. Incredible stuff really. So much of what Martin does are things I've never seen anyone else do and he does it so effortlessly. The match ended sort of abruptly after Martin almost pinned Roach with multiple double leg nelsons over and over; Roach had enough and ground the leg in the ropes until he got DQed. Very good while it lasted though.

ER: I was shocked by how much this match was built around big bumps over the top rope. Many of them were Roach hurling Martin up and over, my favorite being a short shoulderblock that sent him flying backwards to the floor. The more Martin would get up, the harder Roach would throw him, and the more Martin endured the more he aimed to throw Roach over the top. Martin couldn't out-strike him, so Roach was able to bully him, always attacking after the bell, kicking him in the head any time Martin was down, and I loved how Martin had his big hard head as a weapon when the elbows weren't fazing Roach. Roach is good at selling strikes appropriately, not over the top, and doing simple things well, like really smashing his face into turnbuckles and taking Martin's tricks well. This is another one that felt like it had more story to tell, but the story we got was good fun. 

Sal Bellomo vs. Goro (Tsurumi) Tanaka

MD: Not a lot to say here. Tanaka came out to the Bridge Over the River Kwai whistle march which is kind of chilling when you think about it. Bellomo is always over. First two rounds were quite subdued with a lot of Tanaka holding an arm. They moved in and out of it a bit but only a bit. There was at least one great Bellomo dropkick. Things opened up in the third round and when they were slugging it out it was pretty good. Likewise the fourth until they both went sailing over the top and drew the countout. This had less of Tanaka being a showman but I suppose that's more when he's up against heels.

ER: I think it's good we are documenting this Germany footage, for little things like the Sal Bellomo footage. In the last decade plus we've gotten a lot of new footage of all time legends that only solidified their cases as all time greats. The Omni footage alone has helped the reputations of a dozen different guys. Seeing a bunch of new Greg Valentine or Buzz Sawyer and thinking they're even better than we thought is great, but I love how much I look forward to Brett Wayne Sawyer matches now. I didn't realize how much I connected to his work until finally seeing the right footage 40 years later. 

But not every wrestler needs to have A Case made for them. Not all new footage needs to give us a new overlooked wrestler to categorize a Favorite, we don't need to fall in love with everyone we see. No matter our opinion on someone as a worker, it's automatically good to see every worker we can At Their Best. I have so few opinions on Salvatore Bellomo. I have opinions on so many workers, and only so many can make the cut. Maybe I've seen a dozen Sal Bellomo matches, maybe I've seen 50. I don't know because I think about so many other wrestlers before I think about Sal Bellomo. I think of Tony Garea and Terry Daniels more than I think of Sal Bellomo, but that doesn't mean I think they are better workers. 

Bremen Bellomo feels like we're seeing Sal Bellomo at his best, loved by an energetic crowd in a language he doesn't speak. If we suddenly got several Puerto Rico Frankie Lancaster matches and Puerto Ricans a hundred feet away in a baseball stadium were going nuts for this jacked guy who always looked old it would be revelatory. If Goro Tsurumi was working this kind of snug basics loud chops wrestling but had the afro of 1984 Goro Tsurumi would he have been the surprise German cult favorite? I don't think Bellomo got over as well in the Bruno Italian markets as well as he got over in Germany, but maybe I need to watch more Bellomo and soon I'm thinking about his matches. 

Goro Tsurumi and Bellomo are guys who have never been reevaluated. Is Goro a great lost 90s worker? Could be. Do we have late 90s IWA Kokusai? Is his 1994 FMW run good? Sounds good. I watched plenty of Goro during the All Japan 80s Project and none of those matches made the cut. When does Goro start making the cut? 

Moose Morowski/Jim Neidhart vs. Gran Vladimir/John Quinn

MD: A bruising, entertaining heel vs. heel match here. The second fall came quickly after the first and there weren't really big momentum shifts. Morowski was throwing big shots throughout. Really, they all were. It broke down a few times. Neidhart's strength was played up as he ran through people and broke holds and won shoving matches. He got overly rambunctious at the end of both falls and got caught, first by an arm drag slam by Vladimir and then later by Quinn's boot. I can't imagine anyone being too disappointed by this because it was so hard hitting though.

ER: Matt's not wrong about Racey's "Some Girls" by the way. It sounds like a lesser Dave Edmunds track. Jim Neidhart is another guy I've seen a lot who I don't have much opinion on, but Neidhart as Moose Morowski's humongous 12 year old son, is perfect casting. It is such a perfect on paper fit that maybe this was the territory that would have given us out best Anvil. He's billed as American Football Champion Jim Neidhart and I wonder if Germany ever went through a Raiders Gear era or if that's not really a thing because I've just lived in California all my life. Being billed as American Football Champion is so cool it could be on the Survival Tobita shirt. Neidhart is a name that sounds insane when shouted by a German, feels like the place he would have become a legend. He would have eventually been turned into a beer pounding babyface like like Da Crusher, had he wanted to be an 80s German pop culture star instead of a guy pounding pitchers and placidyl at the Rockford Holiday Inn. More money, sure, but there's probably nothing like being an American star exclusively to Europeans. A man pounding a boot, leaning his weight into the ropes and using big stomach and broad keg hoisting shoulders to deliver full weight shoulder blocks. Another life. 

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10/23/81?

Bob Della Serra/Axel Dieter vs. Gran Vladimir/John Quinn

MD: I've been sitting on watching this match for a couple of months and it honestly seemed pretty special. I have no idea what's going on here or what this is for but the winners got wreaths and the crowd was going nuts. This is shot from ringside, underneath, as opposed to the almost hardcam handheld view from all the rest of the footage so far. We really don't miss any of the action but it's a little harder. 

And it's just very good. It's in three falls like most of these tags. It's really more about the babyfaces, I'd say. Dieter has a lot of tricks and stuff on the mat including a toupie headspin takeover. Eventually he does get swept under and they work him over well, only for UFO to come in super hot. The fans absolutely love him punching again and again and again. Just super spirited stuff. The babyfaces took the first fall but he got swept under in the second, a second round of heat even though he'd try to punch from literally underneath as he was getting back to his feet (which looked great from this angle). Quinn finally got him with the over the shoulder backbreaker. 

It's amazing how beloved UFO was. Dellaserra was just so over in this territory. A lot of the babyfaces were, to be fair. Dieter is too but UFO just had a special connection for this balding guy in red gear who doesn't otherwise stand out. Maybe it's just because they love chanting UFO but his fire and his punching probably had something to do with it too. He got the hot tag to Dieter here and they went into a finish where Quinn tried the backbreaker twice more but Dieter got out and was able to pick up the win as the place exploded. I'm not sure this is the best match we've seen in this but even with the camera angle it felt truly special to this crowd.

ER: I love the affinity Germans have for their balding boys, truly people of men. UFO looks and wrestles like a proto-Franz Schuhmann only without Schuhmann's quiff. Dieter is the guy who gets the loudest reactions from the German crowds and it's cool we got a babyface super squad to take on the Mighty Quinn and a big Russian. This was a smartly paced tag, with the babyfaces washing over everything in the first fall and the crowd laughing and singing, loving Dieter's snapmares and boot scrapes and headscissors and the way their balding boys kept foiling the larger heels. The second fall is where this really picked up. In the first, UFO looked like he has bottom 20 percentile uppercuts, but when he feels how hard Quinn is hitting him suddenly the uppercuts get better, and soon he's bouncing Vlad between his uppercut and the ropes, back and forth, until Vlad falls on his face. 

When UFO is swinging wide left and right punches into Quinn's ears during the 2nd fall, they're some of the best most unique punches I've seen. All of the punch exchanges between Quinn and UFO were great, real original stuff, switching up angle of attack and mixing combos, no exchange looked similar to another. UFO throws great punches to the body from his back, fighting to his feet, but it's those wild swinging shots to the side of Quinn's head that fired me up. In the third fall, Quinn and Vlad battered UFO with kneelifts and closed fists to the back and neck, and I was surprised the crowd wasn't even more alive to rally him. The OOOF-OH! chants seemed so much louder in the first fall when they were on top, now they seemed resigned to his loss. But when Dieter tags in they are fired up anew, and Dieter seems to beam with pride over the punishment UFO endured. Matt is right that this is not one of the greatest German matches we've seen, but it's a completely different view of the action than we've seen before and it gave everything a totally different feel, like you were right there with them. I don't know if I've ever seen any of their faces so clearly. 

Moose Morowski vs. Jim Neidhart

MD: There were moments of this, given the weird camera angle, how big these two were, and just how hard they were going at each other, that reminded me just a little of Andre vs. Hansen. But they didn't keep it up, and it's probably fine they didn't, because they couldn't, and that wouldn't have made for much of a match. Much of this was Morowski bullying Neidhart and Morowski containing Neidhart. Whenever they fought even it was way more interesting though, because Neidhart was an out of control fireplug.The first round was them trading holds (70/30 Morowski) but in the second they started to slug it out and for a few seconds, it was pretty glorious. They took it back down and Neidhart had to more or less work from underneath. Neither of these guys were beloved but Morowski was more unlikable and people wanted to see Neidhart unchained. He came in hot in the last round, charging in and doing well by it right until Morowski got out of the way and he crashed into the corner allowing Morowski to score a quick pin. Some of the footage in the margins here of people filing out at the end gave a real sense of a time and a place as well. 

ER: This doesn't build to the war it could have and should have been. Neidhart was still really new and Morowski was having a match with a new bull and that's still a cool match structure. I like the way Neidhart takes punches, and liked how Moose was dishing out 1-3 strikes for every forearm that Jim would fire off. Moose looked like he was holding Jim down and trying to make him get off the mat and an old vet challenging a new guy to "just get up" is a perfect match to work with a guy who got tortured in a Stu's Dungeon. There's somewhere on the timeline that is The Right Time for these two to cross paths, and maybe this wasn't it. 

Jim Neidhart vs. Moose Morowski from 1985 is the new Grail. Who was taping at the Vancouver Saddledome in '85? 

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10/21/81? 

Steve Wright vs. John Quinn

MD: These two certainly knew what they were doing. We come in mid-stream so no Mighty Quinn entrance for John. Wright would outwrestle him (making sure to make a show of it with multiple attempts before a headlock takeover, for instance) and then Quinn would get frustrated and clubber away. On the comebacks Wright took umbrage and laid in some kicks on the ground which the crowd loved but the ref did not. 

Unfortunately for Wright, Quinn was just as good at stomping away as he was, better even, and after Wright missed a charge into the ropes and ended up clotheslining himself on them, Quinn took over. He got carded for his trouble but stayed in charge even through rounds. He would miss an elbow drop and Wright had a big comeback but he went sailing towards those rope again, this time getting hung up in them. Wright couldn't just let things be though and went on the attack. That got him another card and drew the DQ. Anticlimactic finish but one way to get out of a match, I guess. Before that this was very good contrast.

ER: I loved all the struggle in this one, with Wright having to constantly fight to take down the Mighty Quinn. They did some struggle spots I've never seen and others that need to be brought back, and it always made it look like Wright had really earned every advantage he had. The best examples of this are Wright's headscissors and his headlock takeovers. I don't often see such fight over a flying headscissors. You see guys trying to escape grounded headscissors (well, not know, but when people fought over matwork you saw this) but rarely fight to escape a flying headscissors. Wright at one point was on Quinn's shoulders, legs wrapped around his head, for so long that Quinn was essentially wearing him as a hat. Quinn expended a lot of effort to stay upright and Wright stayed balled up on his shoulders to make himself heavier, finally taking him over. The spot someone should really steal is the headlock takeover, where Wright has the headlock in tight and keeps working to pull Quinn over his body, Wright expelling energy to get him over while Quinn fights to stay standing, only to finally get dragged over on the sixth or seventh attempt. This built beyond those things, as it should, but those are the things that really leapt out to me. 

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09/13/81?

Karl Dauberger vs. Klaus Kauroff

MD: This one threw me at first. Look, in watching this footage, I should have a better sense of Dieter vs. Dauberger vs. Chall, etc., and I'm getting there. What was striking here was that Kauroff was the heel. Kauroff had teamed with Dieter on this tour and the fans were behind him. Of course they were, because he'd have these big hammering shots on his comebacks. The first round here was wrestled even, with Dauberger opening things up in the second by stomping away and taking liberties. The crowd really went up for Kauroff's comeback shots and he won it in the third fairly easily with an armdrag slam. 

Caswell Martin vs. Steve Wright

MD: This was not on the listing and is a heck of a bonus. Unfortunately, it cuts off and we don't get to the full time limit draw but we still get ~3 rounds and 10+ minutes of these two going at it. It's like vs like, trickster vs trickster, skilled genius wrestler vs skilled genius wrestler, face vs face, and the crowd is absolutely delighted by it. Wright is more apt to rush at Martin (and even goes flying out of the ring at one point). Martin is more apt to throw a headbutt or strike. In general though, they're incredibly even with an answer to every question; no one gets an advantage for long. They just go in and out of holds and do sequences and bits. A couple of times they bring the ref into it and it's all highly entertaining. Maybe nothing I've never seen before here, but they're able to fire things off in such rapid succession and even incomplete as it is, it's very enjoyable. 

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Found Footage Friday: HANOVER 1981~! BRET~! ROACH~! MOROWSKI~! DIETER~! ZRNO~! STREET~!

Hanover 9/9/1981 

Moose Morowski vs. Axel Dieter

MD: Another batch of Richard Land found footage behind his patreon. Really great long draw here. I can't say enough good stuff about this one. Morowski ambushed right before the first bell and didn't look back for maybe fifteen minutes. Big shots, some big bombs like a shoulder breaker, tossing Dieter out, etc. The ref would try to intervene and Morowski first ripped his shirt and then tore it off completely. And later on, when he got a new one, he did some damage to that too. 

Dieter would get escalating bits of hope, arching Morowski over the top, blocking a posting and returning fire, eventually even outpunching him once, but he only really came back into it when Morowski tried charging in once again and he got his feet up. From there was a round or two of really glorious comeback. At one point he was so fiery he got carded for trying to use a chair. Then they worked towards the draw by throwing blows on their feet and knees til the bell rang. Morowski has maybe the only acceptable recoil shot in history as he uses it as a subtle little thing. Then after the match they slugged it out some more. Anyway, draws are almost never satisfying but this one was about as close as you can get. Great stuff. 

ER: This is one of the best matches we've seen out of these 1981 Hanover shows. This was excellent. Morowski is one of those wrestlers I don't think I even knew about a decade ago, and now he's a guy whose name always stands out on cards like this. He's a big burly Harley Race type who likes to slug it out, and that's what he does here. He ambushes Dieter (and the referee) and punches and claws his way through most of the match. Dieter is great at being the babyface who the crowd stays behind, repeatedly getting to his feet only to be punched to his back by Moose. Moose throws a variety of great punches, sometimes just using big swinging arms to knock Dieter around, other times throwing targeted left-rights to Dieter's chin. He hits a piledriver, a shoulderbreaker, and he wants at Dieter so bad that he gets into multiple collar and elbow tie ups with the ref, eventually ripping his shirt so much that the ref just removes it and works shirtless with the boys. That rules. When the ref gets a new shirt after the 2nd fall, the literal first thing Morowski does is rip the new shirt off him, and that rules even more. 

Dieter's survives Morowski's onslaught and Morowski gets tired out and then the real fun begins. The crowd gets louder than ever for Axel and Dieter starts landing more shots. Morowski isn't completely down, and can still land punches that knock Dieter down, but he is certainly exhausted and has to cheat even more to keep Dieter down. Morowski is landing several unanswered punches at the round bell, stomping his face, and they fight to the bell. I don't know that this match would have even benefitted from a definitive finish. Dieter standing alone in the ring after surviving cheap shot after cheap shot after cheap shot and coming out the other side more loved than ever. What a great showing from both, but more evidence of how cool a worker Moose Morowski was. I don't know where he stands in terms of territory draws or reputation among other peak workers, but he was completely off my personal radar even while we were diving into the thick of the 80s sets and more 70s footage became available. He's someone who everyone needs to see, and this match is as great a place as any to start. 

Pat Roach vs. Bret Hart

MD: Yes, this is a match that happened. I wish it was 93 Bret vs. 81 Roach but what can you do? This played out pretty much exactly like you'd expect. Almost exactly. There was about a round and a half of Roach beating Bret around the ring with mares and clubbers and running him into the turnbuckle. Bret got a bit of hope with a sunset flip or backslide only to get beaten down. Bret finally came back with some big shots and dropkicks only to eat the turnbuckle face first (as early as 81!) and then he got demolished by a big side backbreaker and press-slam gutbuster. Good effort and the crowd (generally always hot) was behind him, but this was more or less a mauling.

ER: I thought this was excellent, and I'm not sure it would have been better with a 1991 Bret. I loved the structure of this and felt it worked so perfectly with Young Bret, who was an absolute bump machine and ran into all of Roach's believably stiff work. Bret in 1991 would have worked this closer to equal and relied more on the big man's misses to capitalize on. Now, I love his 1991 work with Berzerker and Barbarian so put Roach in that framework and the match would be excellent. But I don't think Roach could bump as big as Barbarian and definitely couldn't bump as big as Nord, so Roach as the domineering grappler kicking a young worker in the bread basket and snapping his neck with cravat snapmares works really well. Bret was already such a polished bumper in 1981 and his work looked just as honest as it would a decade later. Roach had a lot of cool ways to slam Bret to the mat and Bret made such good use of his small comebacks and two nearfalls that I thought his backslide was legitimately the finish. Bret firing back with one big elbow smash surprised me and seemed to surprise Roach, and I came away extremely impressed by how well his flat back bumps (and huge face first bump running into the buckles) felt like responses to the exact offense Roach was giving him. His feel for everything felt so much more advanced than other early Bret I've seen. This was a must watch for me. 

Micha Nador/Gran Vladimir vs. Steve Wright/Kengo Kimura

MD: Steve Wright/Kengo Kimura is the most Lethal Lottery team I can imagine really. Of course this is a fairly young Kimura, just like Bret was fairly young in the previous match. I haven't seen much of Nador but early on he's in there, like Vladimir, to base for all of Wright's shtick, the cartwheels and bowing and a long cravat where he hung on through slams to the crowd's delight. Kimura got to join in a bit with some karate type strikes and some real fire stomping in the corner. The heels were able to beat down Wright for a bit and then Kimura, but never for too long. Wright came back with a body press mid match but when he tried to do it later, he got blocked by Nador grabbing his feet from the outside and forcing him down into a Vladimir pin which was a unique finish at least. This didn't wear out its welcome.

9/22/81

Manuel Lopez vs. Adrian Street

MD: Street was, of course, at the height of his power here in early 80s Germany, with the fans laughing again and again at every antic. He gave more here than in the last few matches we've seen him in, playing it just a bit more bumbling, where things either backfired or worked despite it all. He still got to get over on Lopez quite a bit, either rolling around like a top or poking him on the nose or just leaping into his arms and both of them sailing over because of it, but he was actually a little subdued relative to the other matches I've seen and Lopez controlled more. Maybe it was more grounded because of that but it wasn't the can't miss spectacle of the others. Still worth watching of course, but more as part of a card than something that is absolutely transcendent. 

Achaim Chall vs. Gran Vladimir

MD: These two had been wrestling off and on since the 60s. This started pretty low key, with some mares and holds out of a lockup. But Vladimir got under the fans' skin and someone threw a hat into the ring at him. At that point, Vladimir put it on and marched around the ring until Chall grabbed it, pulled it over his face and hit a jumping double knee before tossing it back out. You never know what you're going to find in these. Lots of fun bits with the ref as things went on too. Chall got frustrated as he got in his way and grabbed him, and then chopped him later, and finally, when he got in the way of the charge towards Vlad (who was tied up in the ropes), went careening into him, into Vlad, as the ref was blowing his whistle. He got carded for this but it wasn't the match.

Vlad ended up controlling for a while and he did vary up holds, but it wasn't with the same sort of brutal and vicious charm as Morowski. But the fans were very happy whenever Chall was in control and went up for all of his hope spots. He was in the midst of a comeback when the time ran out and this ended up as a draw.

Sal Bellomo vs. John Quinn

MD: I get such a kick of Quinn coming out to The Mighty Quinn. It's got a sort of chorus unlike almost any other pro wrestling theme you can imagine. I feel like it'd be super over today for instance. This was okay, they took it up and down. Quinn, despite a size advantage, would take over with hairpulls, eyerakes, and using the ref as a stalking horse in the corner. Bellomo would fire back. Eventually, Quinn tossed him and Bellomo grabbed him on the way back in and they brawled on the floor a bit. Finish had things picking up with rope running, but Bellomo ran into a foot and then a back elbow. 

9/6/81

Mile Zrno vs. Gran Vladimir

MD: Zrno is so much fun to watch. In some ways, the comparison point is Steve Wright, but where Wright has more flair and pomp to his counters, with Zrno, it's more about leverage and positioning. But nothing Vladimir puts him in works and it's all entertaining to see him get out of one thing after the next. There's a great bit where Zrno ties Vlad up in the ropes and in order to get the ref out of the way, he undoes the turnbuckle pad. The ref has to run to redo it and then Zrno charges in. Vlad does take over with clubbers eventually, but Zrno catches him with a knee off the ropes and then wins it with a body press. Very fun.

ER: Fantastic. This solidifies Vladimir as a great opponent for small fliers and acrobats, a role he seems to relish more than his work against other heavies. Against other heavyweights he can work like a spry Baron von Raschke, bumping like a tall man of size and nothing beyond, but against a fire starter like Zrno he's bumping constantly, feeding far quicker than I expected. It's not just Vlad going over for armdrags, it's that he knows how to bump and feed for all of Zrno's complicated unique unrelenting juniors offense and it feels like Akira Taue taking way too much Marufuji offense in the way he makes it look like none of this offense should work and this big man just keeps falling over. Now, Marufuji's offense was the shittiest offense on a roster of 40 men and Zrno's offense is revolutionary and moves like nobody else, but Vlad takes it the same way I would imagine Taue credibly selling really bad juniors offense. The stumble, the look of "this man shouldn't be taking most of this", the way it looks like he's not so much taking the moves as trying not to take the moves, like it's an issue of balance. 

Special note must be made about the incredible work of the referee trying to wrangle this confusing mess, specifically when he gets roped into a bump over the top to the floor when Vladimir is trapped in the ropes like Andre. Zrno is hitting crossbodies while Vlad is trapped, the ref is trying to untie him, and Zrno comes in hot with another crossbody, and the momentum send the ref over the top with it like a man getting hit with a wave while leaning out of a boat. I thought this match was great and worked in a way that I was not expecting. A match doesn't have to surprise me for me to like it, but I do like surprises. 

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Found Footage Friday: COLT~! WRIGHT~! MARTIN~! DUK~! SHAFT~! CHALL~! DIETER~!

9/12/80

MD: Here's the first two thirds of the Land Patreon Germany drop from last month. The last third has a few random matches that I'll hit later on. This was all from a show on the above date.

Steve Wright vs. Francisco Ramirez

MD: I've got a soft spot for Paco Ramirez because he was in the French Footage. There he was almost always a stylist and here he's a bad guy of the sort he'd often be up against in France with the big hat and all. This was almost the perfect Steve Wright match to show someone who'd never seen one. He absolutely ate up Ramirez to start, with cartwheels out of every throw attempt and jerk bowing to the crowd's delight. When Ramirez did get him over, he'd shoot back up and shoulder block him. When Ramirez got a shot in, he'd kip up and fire back. He'd pick Ramirez up out of a headlock, deposit him on the apron, and pat him before withdrawing. When Ramirez made a clever escape and went back into the ring, he'd kick up the rope on the way in, nailing him in the groin with it. That's Steve Wright for you. 

Ramirez did get the better of him mid match and leaned on him hard, lots of nasty European Uppercuts. They gave that part of the match enough time too, it spanning rounds as Ramirez charged in right at the bell. But eventually Wright fired back with these interesting sweeping shots, and got in a bridging roll up, keeping it not just for three but for six or seven, just because he could. So very technically sound and a nice example of Wright stretching his skills, beloved jerk that he was.

Takashi (Sumo) Ishikawa vs. Amet Chong

MD: Not much to this. Chong was (  think) Peruvian working a Chinese gimmick. His karate strikes looked fairly lame. They'd do a deal where Ishikawa would out wrestle him and he (bald) would go for the hair. That led to a series of indignities where his goatee got tweaked by Ishikawa or the ref. Then he got mad and fired off shots. Ishikawa would fire back with a shot out of nowhere. His stuff was both more theatrical AND looked better. Start of the second fall had Chong charge in but Ishikawa got him with a sumo shove out of the ring and caught him on the way back in for a fairly quick win. It wasn't NOT entertaining but so far as it was entertaining it was due to Ishikawa and his connection with the crowd. He felt like a star here, or at least an attraction.

Kim Duk vs. Axel Dieter

MD: I've seen rough Duk matches, even on this tour, ones that I'd call more boring than anything else, but he was a guy who clearly got it. Lots of size, a willingness to stooge and base and play the fool. And with this crowd, against this opponent, he had a really good match. Dieter had a lot of what I'd call "French Catch" stuff, the headscissors up and over, the armdrag slam, the headstand headscissors takeover, etc. And Duk fed into all of them well. He'd stall early and when he was in charge, do the count along with the ref and honestly got a lot of heat with the crowd chanting at him the whole way through (and him occasionally going out to the apron to yell at them).

The match opened up in the second round as Duk caught Dieter with a cheapshot and just went relentless at the skull with karate chops. Not all that different in theory than Chong's offense, but his looked so much better due to the rapid fire nature and how small and targeted the shots were. Dieter bled. He'd come back big at one point, even firing up through a tombstone, only to fall again to another series of woundwork shots. The time ran out on this one though and even though Dieter didn't have one last big comeback, you got the sense he had a moral victory just for surviving Duk's onslaught. It was good stuff.

Salvatore Bellomo vs. Chris Colt

MD: This is going up the weekend of DEAN 3 and I wish that I could have sent this to Dean. This would have been the perfect match buried in one of the DVDVRs. He would have done justice to Chris Colt here in a way I never could. Electric isn't the word. Itchy is closer to it? Sometimes people wrestle exactly as you'd expect them to. Ashura Hara always wrestles like a guy with a lot of gambling debt. I can't exactly explain it but the next time you watch a Hara/Tenryu tag, keep it in mind. You'll see what I mean.

Colt here wrestles like a guy who .. look, I don't want to do ill by the memory of Chris Colt but then I'm not sure you can. It's an amazing performance, so amazing that you're left wondering if it's a performance at all. He embodies this remarkable paranoia, and the crowd is certainly against him. Usually in a Bellomo match they're chanting for Sal but it felt more like they were chanting against Colt. He sold it. He sold everything. And there's just the way he moved. Abrupt, erratic. There's one spot where he went for a running big splash and ate Bellomo's feet where it feels like the tape skipped because he's in one spot and then another and I can't figure out the physics of it, but the tape, blurry as it is, was fine. It was Colt that somehow skipped. And pro wrestling was somehow all the better for it. 

Tom Shaft vs. Michael Schneider

MD: I haven't actually seen much Shaft. I don't think we have a ton of footage of him save for working prelims in Dallas in the 80s. I've read that he bested Watts in a fight once and gave Hayes the "last house on the block" line and that Thunderbolt Patterson may or may not have taken some of his shtick from him. His nickname was Boogaloo and here he did, in fact, come out to the Shaft theme. 

And he was ok. Lots of clubbering, some hiding of shots. Had presence, knew what he was doing and what would get a rise from the crowd. Aggressive, but nothing really stood out. At one point he was choking Schneider in the ropes and Scheinder did Franz Van Buyten's deal where he mares the guy over the top. But then Shaft came right back in and chucked Schenider way over the top in return. Finishing stretch was a bit rough as Schneider hit one of the worst "too close" dropkicks I've ever seen and slammed him for the win. On the one hand, this needed another round. On the other, I'm not sure if it would have mattered.

Achim Chall/Caswell Martin vs. Klaus Kauroff/Grand Vladimir

MD: Light, crowdpleasing stuff. This had none of the matwork that you'd want out of Martin though a few good headstand escapes and what not. He and Chall were more conducting the crowd in chants and turning Kauroff and Vladimir into fools. Lots of little comedy bits and moments of comeuppance, with the occasional high impact dropkick or rana thrown in (especially by Chall). Vladimir and (especially) Kauroff could turn things around in a moment, just by tossing their opponents to the ground, but they could never capitalize for long and eventually they just got frustrated and tossed them over the top for the red card DQ. Fun stuff but not exactly what I wanted here. If nothing else, it would have felt more substantial with the heels in charge for a while and a big comeback.

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Found Footage Friday: DESTROYER~! WISKOWSKI~! WRIGHT~! CASWELL~! CHALL~! DIETER~!

Hanover 9/10/80 

Le Grand Vladimir vs. Karl Dauberger

MD: The show itself started with a big AJPW Start Of Tour style celebration with everyone in the ring. This opener went to a draw over a number of rounds but it was good for what it was and the crowd was into it. For the first round and a half or so, Vladimir would control on the arm or with a cravat and Dauberger would counter with a similar hold and the crowd would go nuts for it. Eventually, Vlad got frustrated and started roughing him up. The round breaks and ref carding only offered so much succor as Vlad would keep up the onslaught after the bell or charge right in at the start of the round. 

Dauberger would, however, copy the formula of the holds and fire back to the crowd's delight. Then Vlad would get a cheapshot in and they'd repeat. Basic but incredibly effective wrestling and everything looked good. My favorite bit was Vlad picking up Dauberger by the back of his singlet and slamming him onto the mat repeatedly. It's the sort of thing you saw Andre do occasionally but rarely from anyone else. Things built to Dauberger knocking Vlad first out of the ring and then back in towards the end of the last round, but it was only a moral victory as they ran out of time. I was ok seeing this one go because I was eager to get to Martin, Destroyer, and Wright/Wiskowski but it's not as if it wore out its welcome on the way.

ER: What is this little game Karl Dauberger plays with the referee? This little hand game? What kind of bit are they working that I have, until now, not seen? When Dauberger enters the ring he goes to shake the ref's hand and the ref retreats like a germaphobe, and Karl gives him a little chin scrape gesture. When the ref is checking both men before the match, Karl keeps pulling his hands away from him, like he's forcing the ref into a game of hand slap. They don't show this kind of playfulness with each other during the match but I'm wondering what's going on with these two vets. You know this is some 1980 Hanover wrestling because two men are wrestling in single strap singlets that are holding in their midsections. This was simple stuff but amusing. Vladimir is a guy I've never see who has a way of getting big reactions with little movements. He draws yellow cards by kicking Dauberger in the knee more than once, kicks him across the ring well after the bell, and shoots in for a half assed post-round single leg after Dauberger was gentlemanly enough to set his foot back on the mat instead of wrenching it. Dauberger had a nice cravat and German energy. I too dug that spot where Dauberger, flat on his stomach, kept getting lifted up by a kneeling Vladimir and slammed back to the mat. I kept rewinding to see how they were doing it, as the physics weren't apparent. Vlad didn't seem to be lifting hard and Dauberger didn't seem to be obviously pushing off with his limbs. It made Vladimir look strong even though in reality he looked like a guy who was probably 6'5 and didn't lift a thing. There was some magic in that spot, and some other minimalist surprises. 

Achim Chall vs. Caswell Martin

MD: I get the sense that if we had just another twenty Martin matches, he'd be almost undeniable. He's one of the most interesting and enjoyable wrestlers to watch, one of those wrestlers where you look forward to every exchange because you know you're going to see something unique. Chall was more than game to "base" for him and keep him in holds and make escape attempts, etc. The first round was fairly even with a lot of tricked out escapes and ways to keep the holds on by Martin, including his bridging stutter step.

The second round was all about Martin working over the arm, including a long in and out hammerlock that was really good, but also some joint manipulation and just smacking the arm against the mat repeatedly. Then in the third, Chall controlled with a cravat almost the whole way through, using mares to get back into it, and other head related holds to bridge gaps when needed. Just super strong in and out stuff. In the fourth they went to rope running but almost immediately Martin suffered a face-saving arm injury off a sunset flip and had to forfeit. It was good while it lasted though.

ER: For those who aren't familiar with the always entertaining Caswell Martin, he's like Bob Backlund at his most playful combined with Norman Smiley at his most skilled. He escapes holds and pins with impressive neck bridges and almost challenges opponents to keep him pinned, popping arms off the mat and bridging as a way to escape and as a way to bait. Watched back to back with Le Grand Vladimir's match and this match seems like it took place in another decade. Martin's strong and crab walk-like escapes with a more-than-game Chall looked like a different sport than that first match. Chall was a guy who looked capable of working just as freaky as Martin as he knew the counters too well and kept getting pushed into freak territory by big Cas. I like how Martin isn't just a quirky oddball and can back it up with snug holds, like when he grabbed Chall's hand just to roll his wrist around in painful ways, showing he's more than escapes. I actually liked the injured arm finish. A few minutes before the finish I noticed how there was no give at all in the ring, how every flat back bump looked even flatter with an unmoving ring. When Martin tried a sunset flip and then got thrown with an armdrag, it really did look like he bounced off the ungiving ring on his elbow. His selling was good enough that I would have bought it even without noticing the ring, but since I had noticed I said "well of course an armdrag could do that!" 

Axel Dieter vs. The Destroyer

MD: It's great we're getting new Destroyer matches out of the blue, from Germany. Yes, these results were buried on wrestlingdata but they're not all on cagematch for instance, so I'm sure some people who even are big Destroyer fans weren't aware of these tours. I'm not sure there's any wrestler ever who was better at carrying himself with a sort of matter-of-fact dignity (as opposed to whatever Lord Steve Regal did for instance) but then walked right into indignities. The first round had slow ones, built around one hold where he'd get his comeuppance on the way out. The second round was rapid fire spot after spot, each one more humiliating with the last. For instance, he started the round off with an airplane spin, got two out of it, but then walked right into an upkick that sent him sprawling. The round was full of that sort of thing. 

He started the third with another airplane spin but both went toppling out. He'd open up on the leg after, but half the things he'd try would still end with him eating the mat. And ultimately, it sent him over the top and led to a countout. Post-match, things devolved a bit and some of the other wrestlers came out which led to a big UFO chant since they loved Della Serra over there. I wouldn't have minded if this went another round or two, but what we had was highly entertaining with Destroyer living his best mean mug stooging life.

ER: Destroyer was the one guy stirring things up during the pre-show in-ring introductions, walking slowly around the circle of men sizing everyone up (nobody else did this, they all just got in the ring) and lingered on the referee, as if warning him that there better be no issues with the rules. When he was announced (after everyone else) he again walked out to the center of the ring like he was above them all (nobody else did this), and you know he was the last to leave the ring. This man knew how to carry himself, and when he enters the ring for his match he's got this funny cocky, bouncy little strut, just getting under everyone's skin. Destroyer lands headbutts from the mount like Smashing Machine and goes on to run Dieter's head into the turnbuckle from one corner to the other, and when round 2 starts he headlock punches the already bleeding Dieter several times. I was thinking things were going to continue like this and was sad that they did not. What we got instead was two rounds of Destroyer constantly forgetting that Dieter has kicking legs and those legs just kept sneaking up and taking him out. Dieter hits four different upkicks in different ways, all knocking Destroyer flat to his back and ultimately over the top to his demise. Every hold Destroyer attempted to work, every pin he made, was thwarted by a late upkick. I thought the finish was going to be Destroyer's airplane spin, starting in the center and moving out towards the ropes, then over the ropes with a kind of rolling Samoan drop off the apron, picking Dieter up off the apron from the floor to continue the airplane spin drop. Instead, Beyer was humiliated by upkicks, and Cowboy Ed had to come out to cool things down while heating things up.   

Ed Wiskowski vs. Steve Wright 

MD: Very good one. Wright controlled early, cartwheeling out of holds and basically eating up Wiskowski as you'd expect him to, but Cowboy Ed had the size advantage and he started in on the back. Wright's selling, both acutely and broadly (when he was stomped and writhed all around for instance) was excellent and that's really not a part of his game we often see since he just mows through his opponents most of the time. Wiskowski had some nice stuff like a move where he grabbed Wright by the waist and jammed his back right into the ropes. 

They'd have Wright try to come back in clever or pointed ways; for instance, Wiskowski would hit a nice gutwrench suplex only for Wright to slip in and reverse it instantly the next time. But then Wiskowski would just lean on him some more or whip him into the corner, causing Wright to go sprawling. Wright would start on the gut to fire back but Wiskowski cut him off with gutshots of his own. It built to a big comeback but another banana peel finish, this time with Wright flying in for a headbutt but going through the ropes and crashing and burning instead. Wiskowski suplexed him back in for the win. I maybe wanted to see Wiskowski stooge about for Wright more, but if I had to choose, I'd much rather have a more balanced match where Wright had to work from underneath like this. 

ER: This was so damn good. Wiskowski is great at punishing Wright, Wright takes hard bumps that lead to harder bumps and learns from them, and Wright makes up the size difference with his own punishing strikes. I thought this started off good and kept ramping up. Wiskowski is a calculated ass kicker who is great at taking Wright's offense and making him look like a bigger heavyweight with his bumps. I thought this was going to be a lot of Wiskowski bumping for Wright, and when he was rolling for Wright's ankle snare headscissors it was exactly what I expected...until Wright went for a third and Wiskowski moved, sending Wright into a nasty Psicosis style miss in the ropes. After that, every single time Wright got sent into the buckles it looked devastating. Wright took four different Bret Hart level bumps into the buckles, making it looked dangerous just getting his face slammed into them, but making it look skeleton breaking when he would take a whip. 

They were so good at building spots into reversals, establishing actions and results and still making it feel like a surprise when the same action led to a different result. Wright's bumps into the buckles were so painful that I was surprised and delighted when it led to Wiskowski missing an avalanche, leaving him stomach down bridging the top ropes, and allowing wright to do leg pumps from his back to bounce Cowboy Ed up and down. This would have been a top 3 (at least) Santino comedy spot and it was done by a 6'5 Polish cowboy with incredible posture. Wright pays back all of Wiskowski's back punishment and swinging long arms by really kicking him hard several times in the back of the head and I think surely this is where it turns around. Wright is headbutting Wiskowski in the stomach and big Ed is on the ropes...and then those actions surprise me again with a different result. Wright runs in with another big headbutt and Ed sidesteps him again, just like the headscissors earlier, and Wright flies into a tope to nothing but abyss. Suplexing him into the ring for the finish is a great way to show that the fall did most of the damage and merely getting him back in was going to be enough to finish him off...but Wiskowski didn't need to gingerly hop over the ropes on his exit. That's just rubbing it in. 

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Found Footage Friday: PRE-KAMALA~! WRIGHT~! ONITA~! WISKOWSKI~! MOROWSKI~! UFO~!

9/13/80 Hanover, Germany

Big Jim Harris vs. Bob DellaSerra (UFO)

MD: Now and again someone will wax poetic about how wrestling today is better than it ever was and we have so many four+ star matches on TV every week and whatever else and what people seem to miss in that is what we've lost. A match like this is what we lost and no amount of choreographed counters and athletic spots and constant fast pace will ever get it back. The social contract between the crowd and wrestlers changed. It's not about people thinking it's real or kayfabe. It's about the way the crowd reacted.

I'm not saying it can never come back but it's going to be hard especially with the incentives all broken.
For instance, if you watch FTR vs Nigel/Garcia from Double Or Nothing, the fans don't pop for each of Nigel's comeback shots out of the corner. They may react overall, but they're not living and breathing with each move done on either side. They may react to momentum shifts, but generally they're only going to react to big spots and more often than not, the way they react is that they're just glad to be there, just glad to see a spot. They don't have a horse in the race anymore, except for that the race is as exciting as possible. 

It's amazing how over Della Serra is here. Just constant UFO chants. A real connection with the crowd that he then makes the most of. This was on the card but not on the tape label so it's a bit of a bonus match and I'm glad we have another look at Harris. I watch the way he moves here, his swagger, his confidence, and I think he could have had a run with Dusty as this character in the mid 80s. You say that there was Bad News Brown or Leroy Brown or a few others that fill that gap but I just think between his size and how he moved and how he carried himself, he could have done it without Kamala. I'm just not sure he would have been an always in demand top guy for those years like he was. 

This went the full draw, over twenty minutes, and it was pretty good the whole way through. They had Harris lean on UFO building to big, hot moments of comeback. Everything was pretty simple and straightforward but they kept it moving and everything Harris did was credible and when he missed a charge or a splash and UFO was able to fire up, he sold big enough to make it all seem believable and meaningful. And when UFO finally slammed him, the fans went nuts, even if it didn't lead to a finish. I'm kind of amazed that they filled the time as well as they did but it was just a case of the right guys doing the right stuff in front of the right crowd.

ER: I love what Matt had to say about losing wrestling like this. This is wrestling at its barest essentials presented to the exact people who wanted those essentials. Big Jim Harris was two years away from Kamala and maybe 50 matches into his whole career and working a crowd like this must have been a breakthrough for him. Yeah, just put me up against a beloved babyface and I will be a tall black guy who throws downward strikes all match and it will get nuclear reactions. It's just that easy. Was it that easy? It couldn't have been that easy. This wasn't about the fans having lowered expectations, it was about the fans believing in UFO and rooting him on against this large tri-hawked presence. The men in the ring also knew how to best make use of the rounds system. They were good at saving something big for the bell in every round, like a serial where something was just about to happen but you'll have to tune in after this musical interlude. 

The first round ends with Harris breaking a front face lock agreeably at the bell but then whipping down hard with a strike not unlike his Kamala/Baba chops a decade later, except this one looked like Finlay smacking someone in the back of the head. Kamala learned to lighten up on the chops but Big Jim Harris was still throwing those long arms full strength. He lands one big downward strike after breaking so genially, then walks away with his hands up like he did everything that was asked. He understood the assignment. Harris cannot run the ropes yet but when he tries he looks like any guy his size would look attempting to run the ropes. He barrels into UFO like a large man completely out of control and UFO falls back rigidly, as if the contact of the shoulderblock/full body block knocked him out before he hit the mat. 

We get a round that ends with UFO actually hoisting Harris up onto his back and Harris using physics to fall back into a crucifix just as the bells sounds. This was the best round ending and while nothing in this match was clean or any kind of revolutionary offense, when have you ever seen Kamala rolling up ANYBODY with a crucifix? This is something I have never even pictured, or thought possible. What man could even attempt to get Kamala up on their back like that? Who would want to? What situation would Big Him Harris ever find himself in where he was lifted up on another man's back. No fireman would be able to carry him out of a burning building, only UFO. UFO hitting an ugly bodyslam on Harris felt like such a big moment, even if it only got a one count, because every single shot that landed on the big man was treated by everyone in that room as the greatest thing that could be happening. This was 20 minutes of build to one messy bodyslam, which will sound like the absolute worst shit to people who I have no interest in watching wrestling with, but they weren't there. It wasn't for them, and it didn't have to be. It's a testament to a babyface a specific crowd wants to live for...and also probably the threat of a large black man. 

Sal Bellomo vs. Moose Morowski

MD: Long match but a pretty good one. Bellomo had a special connection with the crowd too but I'm not sure if it had as much to underpin it as UFO. I get why it made a lot of sense to try to push him as an Italian American star in the WWF in the early 80s but I also get why maybe it didn't work. Plenty of energy and pluck. But at this point some of his timing was just a little suspect now and again. Morowski is infinitely credible. Able to just smash someone into the corner or toss them from the ring or hit a cheapshot from his knees as at a moment's notice. When he leaned on someone, he really leaned on him but then he could backpedal and take as good as he could give.

He took more of this than Bellomo and a number of times when Bellomo came back it was either due to a round break (catching Morowski as he charged in) or due to the ref intervening. At one point he goes so far as to swipe with someone in the crowd (maybe another wrestler/official but it's hard to tell from the footage). It's pretty constantly entertaining because the fans go up for all of Bellomo's comebacks and the cutoffs are mean and believable even if I'm not sure I need quite so many rounds of it. Finish has Bellomo knock Morowski off the top to the floor with a big bump but then get posted as he goes after him and made short work of once he makes it back to the ring.

Steve Wright vs. Klaus Kauroff

MD: Every new Wright match is a blast. You look forward to every exchange because you have no idea what he'll do next. The downside generally is that he does tend to eat up his opponents. With Karoff, however, that wasn't going to happen. This was more like a three act play than you usually get in these German matches. 

Wright clowned him early including some ridiculously elaborate sequences where he bounded and cartwheeled and twisted and turned and then turtled up. Karoff leaned hard on him in the middle with lots of big shots and cutoffs whenever Wright tried to fire back. And then Wright fought his way back into the ring headfirst and really pressed Karoff until he tried that head first lunge one too many times and ended up clotheslining himself on the rope. Karoff followed with this great over the shoulder backbreaker where he pressed Wright's neck up onto the top rope from underneath. Only problem is that it was very illegal and he got DQed for it. Overall, though, it was a fun, complete match.

Takashi (Sumo) Ishikawa/Atsushi Onita vs. Kim Duk/Ed Wiskowski

MD: Pretty surreal match and a great early look at Onita. It's not our earliest match of his but it's pretty close. Wiskowki and Duk are a tall, tall team. Duk really towers over Onita and trolls him early with a test of strength tease. By 82 you can definitely see signs of Onita in Onita but I was wondering if they would show up here and they did, not just in a perfectly milked hot tag but also in the way he'd get knocked to the apron and hang off by his feet. Just hamming it up in a way that had visual impact.

Ishikawa knew how to get over with this crowd too. A lot of sumo charges that were almost more football tackles, one of which missed and had him sailing out of the ring. The Japanese team would get beaten down (Onita especially) and make big comebacks and Duk and Wiskowski would bump and stooge until they could take over again. Wiskowki willingly got carded by jumping off the top so that he could win the first  fall. That's always a clever bit. In the second, they were firing back on Duk until Onita got caught in a tombstone. Pretty good match overall and as noted, a great look at young Onita in an interesting setting.

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Found Footage Friday: FANCAM TAKADA~! STEVE WRIGHT~! TOMMY RICH~! STORM~! BABY CHILD KILLER~!

Steve Wright vs. Nobuhiko Takada NJPW 10/11/83

MD: I'm glad to see a new Takada handheld. I'm actively excited to see a new Steve Wright match. This was the first eight minutes of a really good French Catch match but I was missing the next twenty-five. It had all of the chain wrestling you'd want along those lines, including up and overs and complex twists into mares and headstands out of holds, just a bit more measured and a bit slower. It never escalated to the point of fisticuffs though. Takada had to fight for every tiny advantage he got and Wright just breezed through whatever he could throw his way with skill and aplomb. It made for a compelling exhibition, though you knew deep down that every minuscule victory Takada achieved, no matter how hard he fought for it, would be snatched away a few seconds later. While things didn't boil over, we got a few seconds of rope running at the end, and even a Takada armdrag. Unfortunately, it wasn't the start of anything but instead the end of everything, as Wright deftly floated through right into a pin. I wish we had gotten twenty Wright matches in the French collection

Nobuhiko Takada vs. Dynamite Chris NJPW 11/16/1987

MD: This is probably a me thing, but I had a hard time taking this one seriously, especially coming off the Wright match. Chris was very, very intense. Very intense. It wafted off him as he charged in to attack and threw his arms around in strikes, and tossed a headbutt. Takada would lock him in a hold. Chris would get out. More intensity would follow. There wasn't really any rhyme or reason to it, certainly no build. There was never a sense that it was doing any particular sort of damage or might lead him to a victory. He wasn't making a statement or a point. It felt like a simulation where Benoit's slider was set to high. I'd rather not extrapolate that. I don't really blame Takada for this one. What are you even going to do with this kid, right? I mean, I know what Steve Wright would have done...

Tommy Rich vs. James Storm USA Championship Wrestling 6/2/01

MD: There are a lot of similarities between 00s Tracy Smothers and Tommy Rich: both were best off when they started a match by getting heat on the mic. Both could lean on someone meanly and credibly after using a dirty tactic to take over. Both could throw their head back wildly as they were taking a babyface comeback. Rich maybe had a bit more weight behind his stuff because he had a bit more weight in general, but other than that, Smothers had quite a bit more fuel left in the tank. He was a few years younger and his hard living must not have been quite as hard as Tommy Rich's hard living. There was also a spark and a twinkle to him that Tommy couldn't quite match in his mid-40s. That doesn't mean that Tommy isn't entertaining here; he is, starting on the mic and running down the crowd, letting himself get outwrestled and eat early crow, sneaking in just a beautiful low blow headbutt with a bit of ref distraction to take over, beating Storm all over the ring, and then feeding with dramatic mannerisms in the place of motion. It's all good stuff. It's just not a whole lot of any of it. Still, you add it all up and you get a fun ten minutes from a guy who absolutely knew what he was doing and a young guy who was willing to be led. It's just that it would have been better if it was Tracy instead.

ER: I'm not so certain this would have been better had it been Smothers instead of Rich, even though the format is exactly the same. I thought this was a really impressive Tommy Rich performance, especially considering he wasn't working that often in his mid-40s. If I went to the Nashville Fairgrounds in 2001 and saw Tommy Rich was on the card, I don't think I ever would have guessed he would work a match as actively as he worked this one. I would have expected him getting on the mic to tell people to shut up, and beyond that I might not have expected a whole lot. And what he gave was a WHOLE lot more than that. Even if he hadn't, the mic work had a moment so great that it would have made this worth watching had Wildfire not gone in and worked like he was 10 years younger, and that was a woman in the front row with a toddler standing up and screaming and pointing at Rich with one arm, while holding this rigid and confused SMALL toddler under her other arm like she was holding a violin case. This tiny boy's body was straight and the woman was just holding him like a teen would tuck their skateboard under their arm, all because Tommy Rich was being an obnoxious fat guy in a leather vest. So, already a full rec. 

But the match was an awesome Tommy performance. I expected him to control the match and build to a Storm comeback, but I didn't expect him to take some big bumps to start the match, then control ACTIVELY for as long as he did. After going over big for some armdrags and a hiptoss, look at how excellently Tommy sold his arm after headbutting Storm in the balls. He has that left arm dead at his side, flexing that bicep (which has an extra great layer of cool heel bullshit since he's a guy who clearly does not lift), rolling his shoulder like a pitcher after an offday bullpen session. Tommy takes over for most of the rest of the match, and he doesn't do an ounce of resting. He's incredibly active, dropping knees into Storm, throwing suplexes (he does a cool deadlift back suplex and follows it up with a rolling kneedrop), and keeps fighting back against Storm's very green urge to bump every move earlier than he should have (buddy, just go with the flow on those DDTs and neckbreakers, just wait for your cue), really getting to show off a 45 year old fat man's offense toolbag. And in between it all he had this great fat body flex, purposely squishing up his torso and flexing with no effort, so that no single muscle accidentally showed through the flab. When Storm finally makes his comeback, Rich takes a big bump off some punches, then gets backed into the ropes for an Irish whip and simply yanks Storm over the top instead, drawing the DQ and not caring a lick. 

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Found Footage Friday: FUJIWARA~! ROBERTS~! WRIGHT~! LAWLER~! VALIANT~! SAITO~! KHAN~!

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Pete Roberts NJPW 9/19/82 - GREAT

MD: We covered a 1983 handheld between these two previously and that was solid but unexciting. This was solid and absolutely exciting, top notch wrestling the whole way through. The first half of this was the two of them chaining hold after hold and counter after counter, hanging on whenever possible. That was exciting when we saw it in the French footage, but here it was Fujiwara, one of the best defensive wrestlers of all time having to escape again and again. He had a couple of absolutely breathtaking ones, bridging and flipping, or even doing his own version of the French Catch up and over escape which we almost never see outside of France. Roberts was more than game in hanging on and whenever it was time for Fujiwara to take him over it was with electric decisiveness. Halfway through, Fujiwara started in with a short arm scissors and Roberts' limp-wristed selling for the rest of the match really put it over, even when there was a lull or a switch in momentum and he didn't have to. It helped that first Fujiwara and then later on Roberts in revenge were escalating things to these nasty whips across the ring where they put a twist on the wrist at the last second to force a flip bump and the illusion of grisly damage to the arm. Things picked up towards the finish with an escape that sent Roberts soaring out of the ring, his jumping kick back in, and some rope running before he got an unsatisfactory win given that Fujiwara's arm was under the ropes. Great stuff here and clear and crisp enough for an 82 handheld that we could see every detail. 

PAS: This was awesome, just a pair of maestros grabbing and twisting at each others arms and wrists and finding cool ways to reverse and escape. Those whips on the arm were sick stuff but really the only aggressive part of the match, everything else was pure craft and really great to watch. The seemingly botched finish was the only thing that kept this from an EPIC rating, and it felt more like an awesome Primera Caida then a full match, but it was an awesome Primera Caida.

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs. Steve Wright NJPW 10/7/83

MD: This didn't have the sharp angles of Fujiwara vs Roberts but it ended up more strike heavy and maybe more imaginative as well. Interestingly, Wright drove the action here which was the opposite of the Roberts match, staying on top for most of it and even doing some of the specific moves that Fujiwara had done in the 82 match above. For instance, it was Wright that utilized a headstand escape right into a sliding grounded side headlock or that locked in the short arm scissors. In the Roberts match, there was the promise of a potential Gotch Lift. Here, there was the actuality of it as Fujiwara hefted him up and they went half tumbling over the ropes. Overall, this was a good look at Wright, a legendary figure, against a game opponent than anything else. After that Gotch Lift spot, he clapped and appealed to the crowd to show appreciation for what they had just seen. He laid his shots in with high low combos of forearms followed by a headbutt to the guts. He went to the top twice, once for a jumping kick; the second time, Fujiwara, ever the defensive wrestler, decided to defend by putting the ref between himself and Wright until he got down. Fujiwara came back primarily with a few strikes of his own and a huge headbutt that Wright sold like a falling tree, but this was a relatively one-sided affair all the way to Wright's very nice snap gutwrench suplex out of the corner to end it.

Jerry Lawler/Jimmy Valiant vs. Killer Khan/Masa Saito AJPW 2/1/85

MD: Not pretty. Lawler took a beating right from the get go, and he was savvy enough to know that he had to fire up quick and not take and take. He did and started firing his punches at Khan, but despite the punches looking as good as ever, the magic just wasn't there in Japan. I don't know if that was the crowd being used to a different sort of strike from guys like Jumbo or just a lack of head-snapping selling, but nothing was registering. Then Valiant came in, gave his sweeping but very light looking clubbers, and stumbled immediately on his first attempt to whip Khan, drawing laughter (and not for the first time). The match never really recovered and later on, when Valiant missed an elbow drop, the reaction was even more uproarious laughter. In between Lawler fought from underneath, but the crowd just wasn't buying what he was selling. Unless I'm mistaken, this was Lawler's third match ever in Japan and he'd only get this tour (tagging with Valiant the whole way) and then a New Japan tour in 89. It's Jerry Lawler, so I'm convinced that if he had enough time and maybe wasn't tied to Valiant here, he would have solved the puzzle eventually, but he never really got the chance.

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New Footage Friday: Finlay, Steve Wright, Piper, Rude, Savage, Duggan

Roddy Piper vs. Rick Rude WWF 11/1/89

ER: This is the kind of house show bullshit that would leave me driving home from a wrestling show in ecstasy. It has a long Rude headlock in the middle that maybe could have been shorter, but it built to such a hot comeback and finishing run that it felt appropriate. This had it all: Classic bullshit, perfect house show schtick, a couple unique moments I don't remember seeing before, exciting babyface sequences, big heel stooging, big heel bump, just a total checklist of "satisfying damn match". We get the kind of Rude sells we want, going to the atomic drop early, Piper following behind Rude mocking his butt out tippy toes perfect sell, looking like Bald Bull when you catch him during his Bull Charge. Rude goes down with quick bumps off lariats and punches, sells his balls after a gnarly inverted atomic drop, and works some awesome timing sequences with Piper. Piper is fiery as hell, attacking Rude at the bell with a kilted matador routine, throwing clothing in Rude's face and punching him through it. They worked this sequence that I don't ever recall seeing Piper do, where he practically works a karate sequence with Rude, Rude blocking a series of punches and slapping down Piper's arms almost Three Stooges style, with Piper spinning around and hitting Rude with a freaking spinning backfist to the neck! Holy cow. Rude has some great worked right hands, and they also do some actual clever ref involvement where Piper is dragging Rude while Rude clutches Hebner's leg for dear life and they're both dragged around. Very impressive seamless ref bump timing when Hebner gets backed into a corner and squished as well. The finish was a dumb confusing house show finish but we got a big Rude bump to the floor out of it, and the kind of match that I would love to see live in any year of my wrestling fandom.

MD: These two had been going at it for two months around the loop and you could absolutely tell. I absolutely loved how outlandish this was. It felt like Piper spent half the match just following Rude around as he walked funny mocking the swivel. These two against other opponents always brought a sense of heightened reality, but against one another, everything was blurry and askew as each seemed to try to top the other. Ultimately, Rude was a great stooge, but Piper was a human firework and you couldn't look away as he abused physics and violence to keep the world entertained.

PAS: I saw a live cage match between these two around this time, which was my all time favorite live match right up until seeing one of the early Flair vs. Hogan matches a couple of years later. This had such satisfying layers of BS in it. Rude taking an atomic drop is one of the great signature sells in wrestling history and that gets a couple of fun variations. Piper is great on offense too, his babyface fired up routine had him unloading like a 25 punch combination and even a backfist. Finish was some grade A house show BS which I appreciated. Piper grabbing the concussed ref's hand to count out Rude was a blast even with the overturning of the decision.


Randy Savage vs. Jim Duggan WWF 11/1/89

ER: This was a fine Coliseum Video level match, one that probably could have accomplished what it did in a shorter match, but you cannot argue with that fan reaction through the very end of this. Sherri put in overtime making those fans cheer Duggan, and damn did they. Savage wasn't over the top with bumps, taken less snap bumps to the mat, but peaking with a bump I've never seen him do before where he bounced off the middle rope when Duggan moved, hitting the back of his head on the fall. It was like an 80s heel stooge version of the Psicosis bump. During the match Savage is more tricking the easily distracted Duggan to fall for another axe handle to the back of the head, and it keeps working. Sherri comes up with a half dozen different attacks from the floor, picking her shots but picking them frequently. Dressed the entire time as Magica de Spell, she yanks Duggan's leg, claws his back, nails him with her purse, even runs him into the damn ringpost! By the time Duggan is finally chasing after Sherri and Sherri goes scrambling into the ring and crawls across it, the fans are absolutely losing their minds as she gets her comeuppance. Duggan takes his fun oafish bumps (especially like how he takes Savage's top rope neck snap), Savage saves his biggest bump for Duggan's post match rampage, and the crowd reaction for a Duggan nearfall kickout is all you need to hear to know people were invested in this one. The shot of a bunch of people standing up and yelling at pointing at Sherri when Duggan kicks out is a great pro wrestling moment.

MD: In some ways, this is a perfect match. Look, in some ways, it's obviously not. Half of Duggan's clotheslines are ridiculously bad. This is exacerbated by him getting multiple phantom pins off of them. His offense is so limited that he has to hit the huge atomic drop twice to different effects at different moments? There's nothing special about his selling? The ref is way too blind when it comes to Sherri, especially on the finish? They have the exact same ref bump that the Rude vs Piper match had on the same show and that was a DQ? I'm sort of straining here.

This is pretty much the ultimate 1989 WWF style dark match. It has Duggan hot to start, foiling Savage being underhanded but wild. Eventually, Sherri is used to perfection first to turn the tide and then to lay on the heat. It's never on her either since it's always Savage directing traffic. When the comeback comes, Sherri is front and center and it feels like a backfire, even though it's not really. Duggan still earns the comeback with a couple more twist. That leads to the ref bump, the phantom pins, and the last twist on the crowd with the handbag. This is a sort of match that can't exist in 2019. It's simple and straightforward and entirely committed. Yes, there were execution issues, but the broad strokes were so primal and the characters so larger than life that it's hard to care all that much. This is a thing that wrestling can be and those kids in the first rows on the near side of the camera that kept raising their thumb up and going hooooo definitely didn't want it to be anything else.


Fit Finlay vs. Steve Wright 1991

ER: I can’t actually fathom a world where I wouldn’t be seriously into 12 minutes of these two doing their thing. Both of these guys are excellent minimalist wrestlers, guys who could work a great match around a very specific set of parameters. There needed to be a kind of Dogme 95 among accomplished European wrestlers where they gave themselves different challenges, different ways to specifically shape a wrestling match. It felt like we were going that way with mid 2000s Indy wrestling but they eventually just decided to make the shittiest 90s All Japan style ever. But I was there live for the Bryan Danielson/Claudio headlock match, and I remember thinking live that we were about to enter a bad fucking ass period of guys working matches around super specific injuries and weird shit like 93 minute matches that I’ll never watch. I even remember there was a 60 minute draw Masa Chono match during that early 2000s period where I was devouring as much VHS Japanese wrestling as I can squeeze into a day. Wrestling was weird as fuck and everybody was discovering World of Sport and people were trying out stupid shit in a modern setting. Finlay and Wright were good enough to pay too close attention to details, and it made them so eminently watchable. This is two experts running into each other, stomping hands, throwing clubbing shots to the back of the neck, and making each individual moment mean something. Both took a big bump to the floor (Finlay flies into a ringpost so fast, one of the more violent looking missed charges I can think of), and there is a moment on the apron where Wright is throwing elbow shots at Finlay, and not only were these great looking elbows but Finlay sells the shots as well as it is humanly possible to sell an elbow. The way Finlay goes down, increasingly harder, for these elbows...honestly they didn't need to do anything else and the match would still be something I love.

MD: This one's a bit of a cheat. It's been out there, but this channel is amazing and this is an easy in. Early 90s Finlay is a treat because he's a middle ground between the valet-wielding, heatseeking, stooging and stalling WOS foil and the bruiser, brawler monster we'd eventually get. You get a bit of each world and it makes for a great package. He'd hit amazing knees or uppercuts or just bruise his opponent in a corner, but would also get on one knee to beg off a ref. It also meant that he could sell big for Wright the whole match, which meant his successful possum play late in the match completely believable. Wright was a twenty year vet at this point and maybe shouldn't have been trying missile dropkicks, though he gets points for the effort. What he's best at here is portraying a real babyface fury, getting carded multiple times but staying wholly sympathetic and having the crowd playing along. I have to admit I was a step behind on some of the rules with all the cards and some of the stoppages, but it did se up a very cool finish that felt a little like a sudden death overtime. That doesn't feel like an easy thing to emulate in wrestling; I haven't seen it often, so it was cool to see here.

PAS: German Finlay is really close to peak Finlay, and this feels like an awesome WCW discovery. Wright is a bit past his prime, but knows how to fire up a crowd and make the most of the athletic abilities he still had. Finlay is a great frustrated wrestler, he really sells aggravation great, and you know he is going to take out that aggravation on his opponent. He is just so great at the little things and I am glad we added another brushstroke on his career.

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New Japan HandHeld Bonanza: Lucha Cherry Picking

Pete over at PWO has gotten his hands on a ton of New Japan HHs from the 80s. I am posting the Fujiwara matches in C+A posts, but I figured I would do some reviews of the lucha guys showing up and my buddy MattD showed up as well!


Tiger Mask/George Takano v. Brazo De Oro/Brazo De Plata 9/6/81

PAS: Slim and trim Brazos looking great. We have a couple of other 1981 Brazos New Japan matches and we don't have any lucha Brazos this early. They are here to serve as foils for the technicos and they do a great job eating fancy arm drags. We get a nasty Plata top rope senton which is less lung collapsing in 1981 then it was later. Takano is a big dude and he flies around quite a bit with some nice arm drags. Mask is at his best when he comes in, hits his stuff and leaves and he had some cool flipping sentons. Nothing mindblowing, but a great chance to see a couple of lucha greats early in their career.

MD: I'm going at this in a more comprehensive way than Phil, watching everything (including Tiger Jeet Singh handheld matches). He is a wiser man than I. For 81 Brazos, I jumped the line though. The setting on this is amazing. It's some sort of outdoor bathhouse with steam rising up in the foreground and a crowd that seems eager for all of the Brazos' relatively outlandish stuff. Tanako competently takes most of the match with Tiger Mask hitting just enough of his signature stuff at the beginning and end to leave you satisfied. Oro and Plata, despite being very young here, base perfectly both on offense in taking stuff (goofus and gallant) and fit in just as well as they would in Japan ten years later.

Tiger Mask/Gran Hamada/Kengo Kimura vs. Steve Wright/Coloso Colosetti/Black Man 3/5/82

Totally fun trios match, that was a better finishing run away from being a real lost classic. Black Man had a couple of fun lucha exchanges with Hamada, which included Hamada taking a couple of his legendarily high backdrops. Colosetti wasn't in a ton, but I liked his exchanges with Tiger Mask where he kept trying to brawl like a rudo, and kept getting caught with spin kicks, I loved how he finally got frustrated and just palm thrusted TM in the eye. The rudo star of this match was Wright, totally awesome performance, he may look like an accounts payable manager, but he is remarkable agile, at points looking more agile then Tiger Mask. He has really great looking cartwheels out of arm bars and a cool kipup, and when it got time to get nasty, he through some really nice uppercuts and some vicious bodyslams and an awesome looking judo throw. Match kind of ended abruptly, which is a problem for a lot of Tiger Mask matches, but it was a real treat to watch.

Junji Hirata v. Luis Mariscal 8/29/82

Mariscal is a 70s and 80s luchadore who worked as a Baby Face and Scorpio trios partner and lost his hair to Villano IV and Perro Aguayo, I don't remember seeing him before, but he was a fun discovery. Young Hirata was svelte but hit hard, and these two had a nice scrap. It started with some basic but solid grappling, and then Hirata actually got snippy and they had a bunch of nice punch and chop exchanges. This was an undercard match with little heat, but I could visualize Mariscal having similar exchanges with Enirique Vera and tearing the house down. Really liked the multiple in ring topes by Mariscal to set up the pin

Kantaro Hoshino v. Villano III 8/29/82

PAS: Pretty strange match, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. V3 jumps Hoshino at the bell throws him to the floor, posts him, and hits a plancha. The match never felt in control, with Hoshino ripping at Villanos mask and Villano constantly biting Hoshino's head. It really felt like someone should be bleeding, and I enjoyed seeing a real lucha brawl in New Japan. Finish had Hoshino DQed for trying to rip off Villano's mask, and he goes nuts and beats up the ref. Then he ties up V3 in the ropes and tries to tear off the mask again. Really felt like a match setting up an apuestas, and I guess we need another batch of handhelds for that.

MD: Yeah, this was enjoyable. V3 rushes Hoshino and just doesn't let up for a few minutes. Pure rudo beatdown to start a match. I love how he keeps things moving, using the ring as a weapon, leaping off the ropes inside and out for extra leverage, pulling Hoshino half out to hit a knee on the apron, bulldogging him into the turnbuckle, etc. If Villano was doing this here against a guy working a different style, what the heck was he doing in Mexico at this time, right? When it's Hoshino's time to fight back, he goes straight to the mask and then follows it up with some revenge usage of the ring as well. The finish is where the weirdness sets in as they move on to rope running and submissions, like the end of a title match primera. Thankfully, it cycles back to hate with the mask ripping finish and the never-ending post match with the two trying to get their hands on each other. This left me wanting to see about three dozen more 1982 V3 matches. Then I made the mistake of looking at what else he did in 82. Not much, just, you know, feuding with Los Misioneros, including apuestas matches with Signo and Texano. This was definitely better than nothing though.

Black Cat/Isamu Teranishi/Kuniaki Kobayashi v. El Signo/Negro Navarro/El Texano 1/1/83

PAS: This was one of the most exciting matches to show up on this batch of footage. We have so little prime Missonaires de la Muerte, we know how awesome all these guys were as oldsters, and their rep is so great, that any time 80s MDM shows up it is a lucha fan holiday. This was more like an awesome first fall of a great trios match, then a great match on its own, but it was a awesome demonstration of what made this team so special. They were just relentless, attacking at the bell and always moving forward. Their pace was really something to watch, never not moving, never not attacking. They didn't take many bumps but every bump was athletic and crazy. We don't get a ton of offense from the Japan team, Kobayashi has a couple of cool armdrags, which Texano bumps huge for. For some reason Kobayashi and Teranishi start brawling post match, as the MDM just strut out victorious.

MD: Los Missionaries were the prototype for a rudo trios side for a reason and here you can so clearly see why. Relentless is exactly the word I'd use, too. This was just the perfect combination of complex spots and improvisational bridging. They kept working back into their corner, kept switching up, kept helping each other whenever possible while their opponents weren't on the same page at all. This would have played well as a Guerreros primera twenty years later (give or take a powerbomb), maybe even thirty. You saw hints of the stooging and miscommunication that would have, in another match, been part of a tecnico shine or comeback. You saw hints of them basing and bumping. At times they were moving so fast that you'd think that there was no way they'd feed an armdrag in time, but they do. Primarily, though, this was their showcase and they brought it, from the initial ambush to the triple team hanging seated senton on the floor and the nasty, nasty tombstone that finished things. Again, it just leads you to imagine all the things we don't have.

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