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

GCW Omni 4/22/84

Tommy Rogers vs. Bob Roop

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Jake Roberts vs. Brad Armstrong

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 
Ron Garvin vs. The Spoiler

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

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

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

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

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

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

Road Warriors vs. Masked Superstar/King Kong Bundy

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

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

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

Read more!

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

GCW Omni 2/5/84

Jesse Barr vs. Johnny Rich 

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

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

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

Les Thornton vs. Brad Armstrong

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

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

Ron Garvin vs. King Kong Bundy

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

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

Jake Roberts vs. Jerry Brisco

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

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

Mr. R (Tommy Rich) vs. the Spoiler

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

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

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

Road Warriors vs. Sweet Brown Sugar/Pez Whatley

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

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

Read more!

RIP Bobby Eaton Pt. 4

Bobby Eaton vs. Bill Dundee CWA 7/24/82

ER: Exciting under 10 minute studio match for Eaton's Mid-America Heavyweight title, with Dutch Mantel as Enforcer sitting in a chair at ringside right next to Jimmy Hart. This is a hot 15 minute segment, with Hart running down Dundee as undeserving of a title shot (even laughing him off as a "midget"), leading to Dutch Mantel causing a huge scene in the studio trying to get his hands on Eaton (who had just taken the title from Dutch a couple weeks prior). Dutch and Hart sitting next to each other at ringside gives us some great atmosphere for the match, the first half of which is filled with Dundee beating Eaton to the punch on everything. Eaton misses offense and Bill is there to land a moonshot punch, throw a hiptoss, and otherwise knock Eaton onto his butt. Eaton sells majestically for Dundee, with the best bit a headlock punch that sends Eaton duck walking backwards into the corner holding his nose. Dundee misses a big splash allowing Eaton to take over, and we get some mighty fine punches, a high elbowdrop, and a great kneedrop. Dutch yanks Bobby's leg from the floor (with Eaton face planting  like the rug got yanked out from under him), then Dutch pummels Hart as Dundee steals the title from a distracted Bobby. King Cobra and others cause a big melee after Dundee's title win, leaving Superstar busted open but good. Memphis was so great at jamming a ton of memorable moments into 15 minutes while also furthering several different feuds, and you aren't going to find many better segment anchors than Eaton/Dundee. 

Bobby Eaton/Sabu vs. Jerry Lawler/Sweet Brown Sugar CWA 2/6/83

ER: This is the last 6 minutes of a 16 minute match, but another example of a tremendous No Offense Lawler performance, and Eaton shows that he can use weapons with the best of them. We get one punch early as Eaton and Lawler spill to the floor, and from there it's nothing but Eaton throwing beautiful worked shots with weapons and Lawler showing that he's the best ever at bumping into inanimate objects. Lawler takes bumps into the ringpost better than any wrestler in history, and here he gets to show how devastating he can make a rope stanchion look. Eaton drags one into the ring and plants it in the middle, grabbing Lawler by the back of the neck and throwing him down throat first onto the stanchion. I remember seeing Finlay do that in his WCW match against Hak, and thinking that there aren't many guys who would be able to make that read as painfully as it would feel, but obviously Lawler is one of those guys. Eaton is a master at worked chairshots, and he has this incredible diving shot to Lawler's throat, like a big running fistdrop or elbowdrop except driving a chair into Lawler's throat. Eaton also drops Lawler with a piledriver onto that chair, with Lawler doing his perfect piledriver stomach bump. Sabu (Cocoa Samoa, not actually Sabu obviously) and Sweet Brown Sugar are mostly non-factors in the part of the match we get, as this is all about the two greatest worked strikers in wrestling history painting a little masterpiece. Eaton finishes with a wrapped chain punch to Sugar, a cool snapshot of Eaton adjusting all of his offense to include weapons, and Lawler showing how compelling he can be without throwing a single fist. 

Bobby Eaton/Sabu vs. Arn Anderson/Terry Funk ECW When Worlds Collide 5/14/94

ER: I had never actually watched this match before, it just existed as one of those legendary on-paper matches I figured I would watch eventually. This was an ECW tag that would have greatly benefitted from being worked as a traditional tag. But they didn't really go full-on ECW either, the ref didn't seem to know what kind of match to call (with lots of scattered rule enforcement), and Terry's lack of selling and pacing really hurt the match overall. It's not too often where I can say that Terry Funk's participation in a match hampered a match, but even with the good he brought to this match I think the bad outweighed it. The match totally works just on the weirdness of Beautiful Bobby and Arn Anderson confidently strutting into the ECW arena and getting huge reactions from the crowd. Even those mutants are going to be excited to see Bobby in his watermelon Bubblicious colored tights. All I really wanted to see from this match was 1. Eaton in the ECW Arena, 2. Arn vs. Sabu, 3. Eaton vs. Funk (a pairing that is much more rare than it should have been). We got all of those and a ton of good interactions, it just didn't really build to anything. So, it's 20 minutes of four of your favorite wrestlers doing things that make you like them as wrestlers, and that's at minimum going to be very entertaining. 

Eaton's punches were the best thing about the match. He tagged in and immediately started throwing gorgeous right hooks to Terry's jaw. Eaton throws plenty of his perfect short punches in this match but I adore those big looping rights, with Terry recoiling in the ropes with every one. Terry takes a big bump to the floor when Sabu just literally bodyslams him from the ring through a ringside table, and later Arn takes his own big ass bump to the floor after getting dropkicked off the top by Sabu. Sabu uses a lot of soft chair attacks throughout the match, crazy to think how hard wrestlers were braining each other with chairs just a couple years later when you see Sabu and Funk throwing 1997 Lance Storm chairshots in this match. Arn felt like the only person in the ring who knew how to throw an effective chairshot, which I was not expecting. There's some great stuff too, like Funk sticking Eaton with a piledriver through a piece of broken table he had laid over the bottom rope. It had all the makings of one of those Funk spots that don't get pulled off properly, but it looked vicious and Eaton really looked like a guy who had been crippled. 

Things kind of fell apart after that when Funk missed a moonsault, Sabu nailed Funk with a moonsault, and then Funk sold it by just standing up and immediately going back on offense. Funk did a lot of that. He'd crash and burn on his own move, get nailed by Sabu or Eaton, then just stand up and go on offense. He was also moving around with very little energy, nowhere near as much as his typical level of flopping around. I mean I get it, he's 50, but I don't think I'd show anyone this match as proof that the 50 year old could still go. It's great hearing the Arena get hyped for Eaton's Alabama Jam, then see Sabu pull out his moonsault variations on Arn and really crush him with a slingshot senton. The whole finishing stretch is a mess, with Eaton and Funk brawling into the crowd (most of which we can't see) leading to Funk hitting Eaton with a piledriver in the eagle's nest (which we can't really see). Public Enemy gets involved and easily run off by Arn, there's a really tepid spinning toehold exchange between Funk and Sabu, Arn ends up turning on Funk due to an errant chairshot, and Arn batters Funk's knee with a chair (again best chairshots of the match) and Sabu wins with a half crab. Throughout the match the ref had been keeping track of the legal men and doing his best to get chairs out of there, and then did none of that during the finishing stretch, which just added to the mess. This is the kind of match ECW could have turned into a killer 3 minute music video that would have made you feel like you missed the match of the year. It's not, but you'll be smiling a lot for 20 minutes. 

Read more!

WWE 24/7 SHORTIES -Phil and Lee Benaka

Shorties

Ron Garvin v. Big Bubba Rogers

PAS: This was easily the best match we watched on our day of ON DEMAND. Ronnie Garvin is one of my favorites, and really works best in a street fight setting where all he is required to do is throw his great punches. Even green as goose shit Bubba Rogers isn't afraid to take huge fat man bumps, like getting bealed off the top rope and flying outside the ring. Also we had some nice blood, including the visual of a spreading bloodstain on Bubba's dress shirt from Ronnie Garvin's open wound.

LB:  Bubba's weight looked more evenly distributed than his fatter-looking days as the Big Bossman.  However, if Ray Traylor were still alive today and flying from town to town for indie shows, he probably would be charged for two seats owning to his condition as a "man of size."  The opening sequence with Garvin tagging Bubba with quick punches was great.  Bubba's selling and frustration (along with that of boyish Jim Cornette) was enchanting.  I never did quite understand the rules of the Louisville Street Fight, other than it allowed managers to gratuitously interfere with tennis rackets for cheap endings.  The blood was great, and this match went on for a while but was always fun due to Garvin's manly offense.

Sweet Brown Sugar/Dizzy Hogan v. Jobber Black Bart/Ken Timbs

PAS: Short meaningless enhancement tag from Mid-Atlantic, placed on the show for the fact that Dizzy Hogan went on to be Brutus Beefcake and Sweet Brown Sugar wrestled as Koko B. Ware. Of course the Sweet Brown Sugar who wrestled in this match went on to be Skip Young, but I suppose that WWE on Demand editors have cross racial identification problems.

LB:  Phil and I had great fun as the night went on mistakenly identifying various African-American jobbers as future WWE superstars, including the future Bobby Lashley and Booker T.  Ken Timbs was the most enjoyable participant in this match in that he really seemed to care about making most every move mean something.  Jobber Black Bart didn't look much different than the James J. Dillon third-rate heel stable Black Bart who appeared on the 1985 WCW show that we watched later this night.  Was this the match that looked like it was filmed in front of two rows of spectators?  Aww, those early 1980s territory TV matches were the best.

Lord Al Hayes v. Bobby Heenan

PAS: This was a battle of the managers from AWA, and was a blast. Lord Al Hayes has a bunch of fun british escapes which work real well to frustrate Heenan. Heenan doesn't really bump big or bleed alot, but he does have surprisingly nice punches.

LB:  This match was another winner.  I actually had never seen His Lordship wrestle, although I have fond memories of seeing him manage the Super Destroyer Mark something-or-other in the Central States wrestling I grew up on.  Hayes was quite dickish with the boot grinding into the head and slaps.  Heenans hide-and-seek with the foreign object down his trunks was done pretty well.  I was surprised that Heenan was able to get his heat back so completely at the end of the match when he clocked Hayes and the referee with a chair.  And the ref got to his feet first, but I suppose His Lordship absorbed most of the impact.  It might have been better to have had Nick Bockwinkel help Heenan rough up Hayes at the end, but it's nice to see Bobby take care of himself.

Read more!