Found Footage Friday: 1991 WWF TAPING~!

WWF London Ontario 2/16/91

MD: This is all new save for the Crush vs. Butch match, and therefore, we'll cover the rest.

Koko B. Ware vs. The Barbarian

MD: Early on, Lord Alfred talks about seeing a young, young Barbarian in Puerto Rico when he was wrestling there with Monsoon and I wish we had 70s Lord Alfred in Puerto Rico. Ah well.

This was very good, especially the early feeling out process. They framed each and every exchange well, Barbarian's early strength (holding him up in a one-handed choke, which you never seen), and then Koko chipping away at him with dropkicks, until he went sailing over the top and menaced the camera man. Back in the ring, Koko was able to fire back with shots to the face, but Barbarian hefted him over the top and then crushed him against the post on the outside and that was that. 

Pretty good face-in-peril with some nice hope spots (including a sunset flip in). The nerve hold could have been a little more active, maybe, but the crowd came up for Koko getting the elbows in on his comeback. That got cutoff but then Barbarian missed an elbow drop and Koko was back in it. They actually had me on a couple of the nearfalls even though intellectually, I knew there was no way Koko won this one. Barbarian won it with a hotshot out of nowhere, which really did feel like the ultimate match-ender for this time period. A guy ends up with his throat draped over the top and it's over.

ER: I was impressed with how well Koko overcame the size difference here. 1991 is some Peak Gas WWF (see how fucking jacked Bushwhacker Butch is in the match after this) and Barbarian looks immovable. Well, Koko moved him real well and threw babyface punches so good that they believably kept moving him. I love Koko, a great sympathetic babyface seller who knew how to take bumps that garner even more sympathy. His low fast backdrop to the floor made the bump look more tough and his selling once he was on the floor built it more. Barbarian will slam your spine into the ringpost but a great salesman like Koko will make it look truly backbreaking. Koko has two strong nearfalls: an inside cradle that was pulled off quick, and his missile dropkick which was done well enough that I bit on it as a finish. He took Barbarian's hotshot finish so exuberantly that the top rope practically touched the bottom. Frankie wasn't there to see the loss. 

Ted Dibiase vs. Jimmy Snuka

MD: Pretty interesting point in time and space here as Snuka actually got on the mic and brought out Virgil to Dibiase's horror. Virgil was super over as you can imagine. Once this got going, it didn't wear out its welcome. Dibiase got sneak attacked by Snuka while distracted and then everything he tried for the next couple of minutes backfired on him. Honestly, this is as good as I can remember seeing Snuka look in this run and so much of it is due to the set up. Dibiase did take over by getting a gutshot up to counter a double axe-handle, and they built to Dibiase trying to suplex him in and Virgil grabbing the leg to set up the upset. Dibiase got rocked by him post match. Very effective, crowd-pleasing stuff to help get over what they were doing with Virgil.

ER: Agree that this feels like the best 1991 Snuka, but a lot of that felt like the best 1991 Dibiase. This was a basic 1991 Offense WWF match that Dibiase was working like an All Japan match. He took extra, probably unnecessary, snap off every surface Snuka bounced him off. Dibiase made every connection an impact, dedicated to making every slam into a turnbuckle look brain scrambling. He could have gotten away with going lighter on the 2nd night of a week straight of house shows. Snuka had timing and Weird Buff Old Guy energy, using simple offense like clubbing hands, and "grabbing Dibiase to shove him into a thing". I can't recall when I've been so impressed by someone getting their head bounced off the ring apron. Jimmy Snuka was in his late 40s and moved older than that, but Dibiase made him feel like a fighter. 

The camera doesn't film his fistdrops from the best angle but he does three of them and we keep seeing each one from a slightly different too close angle, and by the third it felt like a cool look at the up close magic form of his fistdrop. He was a guy whose Ace Worker status dipped after we watched the Mid South footage, a guy who plays incredibly in the greatest matches of all time but doesn't hold up in the weekly TV. But I'm quite high on 90s Dibiase. He started working more like Arn Anderson and I thought he was great. I love '93 Dibiase. He stands out in unique ways from the other strong WWF heel workers from that year (Doink, Michaels, Headshrinkers, Yokozuna) and takes his impact bumping to All Japan and locks it in until his injury. Ted Dibiase is destined to become one of our wrestlers whose discourse constantly waffles between overrated and underrated until we die, but I think any unearthed 90s footage has only added to his case as a great worker. 

Gen. Adnan vs. Hacksaw Jim Duggan

MD: I don't remember seeing a singles match between these two make tape during this run but I could be wrong. It's one of those things you'd see in house show results and wonder how they did it. Now we know. A lot of "Back to Iraq" chants by Duggan. Adnan snuck up on him with the turban, choked him, got slammed, and ate the three-point stance clothesline. Another crowd-pleaser but now we know what it'd look like at least.

ER: To think, looking like a reasonable facsimile to Saddam Hussein would get you a certain death gimmick as a decoy in one part of the world, while in another part it could net you a plum late career WWF gig. I have a ton of respect for Adnan Al-Kaissie's 90s WWF run. You're in your early 50s, haven't worked WWF since your 30s, and you happen to look like a dictator from the country you're from and don't have to get in actual shape for the gig. You get to have one minute matches on house shows where fans watch Saddam Hussein get no offense in on America (OR Canada!!) before quickly losing. It all ends with a main event PPV gig opposite Hulk Hogan. Also you get to wear incredible boots. It's one of wrestling's greatest gigs ever and should be celebrated as such. How many wrestlers get the chance to work in front of 20,000 people in a main event, ever, in their careers, let alone in their 50s? I wonder what his Summerslam paycheck looked like compared to Virgil's. 

Rick Martel vs. Jake Roberts

MD: Martel on the mic with just a few words about how everyone was jealous to ensure he wouldn't get any Canadian cheers. Jake had the blue and gold cobra crotch tights. Important everyone knows that. 

Very fun early. Martel ambushed but crashed into the post on a shoulder block attempt. Jake started on the arm, including lifting him up and holding him there for a second, and punches. Best part was when he faked high, causing Martel to duck, and then kneeled down to punch the model in the face. Big sell of the nose. Big pop. Jake really bathed in the DDT chants too, milking them.

Martel's control, after using the ref as a stalking horse, wasn't as interesting, but he had some good cut offs at least. Jake ended up trapped in the ropes as Martel went for Arrogance, but he got out while the ref was fighting with him and hit the DDT. He took forever, absolutely forever, to creep over and pin him. 

ER: It was truly stunning to watch how long Jake took to pin Martel after the DDT. They were both down so long that the ref started counting both down. I have no idea why Jake was down so long. He set up the DDT with a long stretch of being stuck in the ropes just like Andre, doing great physical work of stretching out his body as he tried to pull both arms out of the ropes. His physical work was so good, his selling for Martel so emotive, and his post DDT crawl was the slowest thing you have ever seen. 

Undertaker vs. Tugboat

MD: I don't have a lot to say about this but it's a great example of how the initial heel run Undertaker had total commitment to his character. He moved like a lurching zombie, ever creeping forward. It was a great act and has been rarely emulated. You could push him back but he'd keep coming in a way that was sort of unnerving. When they shoot to the audience for Superstars/Challenge matches and show scared kids, they were scared for a reason. And then, when least expected, like in the finish here, he'd do something extra quick or agile and it'd go from creeping doom to jump scare. Here it was vaulting over the top rope so he could climb up, take a few steps and hit an elbow drop to beat Tugboat. 

ER: Marvel at the front row of Very Canadian Men who all seemed amused/confused by the Undertaker. None of them understood what it was they were supposed to be seeing and silently stared accordingly. Imagine if zombie heel Undertaker actually worked like a heavyweight and hit like he was a big man. He could have been one of the scariest heels of all time. By the time he learned how to strike 15 years later he was incapable of ever being a heel. He had a kick to the ribs that was so light he may have confused people into thinking he was portraying a ghost who is incapable of making physical contact with our realm. His backward leap into the ringpost is a cool bump in theory but he doesn't know how to give it weight or impact. Tugboat is the one of the two who felt like a guy with potential. His powerslam has rotation that makes it feel big but a controlled landing that safely drops a 300 pound zombie. When Tugboat hit and then missed his leaping avalanche I was thinking how much more agile he was than Taker, but just then Taker leapt over the top rope to the apron and got to the top rope so fast that it was like I was watching a wrestler I'd never seen before. Taker's rope walk elbowdrop finisher was a cool piece of his arsenal that felt like a dead man falling off a roof. 

Brooklyn Brawler vs. Virgil

MD: One thing I appreciate about the Brawler's act is that they let him come out with Yankees gear. My guess is that if he came around today, he'd have Brawler written on his shirt instead. 

He did a good job of showing fear of Virgil early, which only helped him be over with the crowd. They had a nice bit of rope running with multiple leapfrogs too. In general, this went longer than it should have. Virgil took some big bumps including one through the ropes to the floor, but I do think this was set up to give him some ring time selling. The match was sacrificed to prep him for future matches which makes total sense. He won it with a power slam which is not a move you usually associate with him. 

ER: This era of Virgil's work was so weird. This match was smack dab between his babyface turn on Dibiase at the Rumble, and their big WrestleMania match next month. It is the only match Virgil worked in February. No matter your thoughts on Virgil's in ring, it is undeniable how well his babyface turn got over. Listen to the response he gets from the people of Ontario! This is a man they are rooting for! He hasn't wrestled as much as you might think for being on WWF TV for so many years, but he wrestles like a guy who is barely trained while also wrestling like a trained wrestler who is wrestling as an untrained wrestler. You see glimpses of a man who can't run the ropes, who throws clotheslines like he's only seen them portrayed in children's drawings, but also see a man who throws himself into big babyface bumps and knows how to use them to draw sympathy. His bump flying through the ropes with nothing slowing him down, back bump past the mats and onto the London Gardens floorboards, was the best bump on the show and kept his reaction peak. But he also took a "hard way" bump back into the ring that I thought was among the best of its kind. His powerslam looked terrible. 

Brawler is a worker I like more whenever I rewatch him. Any era. Virgil gets a great reaction for a bizarrely scarce post-turn match, but Brawler is great at keeping them interested in Virgil all match. What's the best Lombardi match? Is there a consensus? I think Tom once sold me on an Abe Knuckleball Schwartz/123 Kid match.  I don't think this one would be in the discussion for Best Lombardi match but it's a great showing and a professional handling of the green veteran Virgil. 

Hart Foundation vs. Power & Glory

MD: These two teams were very well matched. Bret started with Roma, lots of rope running ending with him catching him on a leapfrog and then hitting the inverted atomic drop/clothesline combo. Herc outpowered him but didn't outpower Anvil. He did catch Bret off the ropes and took over accordingly. They worked over Bret's back including some nice Roma backbreakers. We rarely get close up footage without commentary like this and you could hear how vocal Herc and Roma were in rooting for one another. To set up the hot tag, Bret climbed across the mat on his back using the ropes. Great stuff. Finish had Roma cut off the Hart Attack and Neidhart cut off the Powerplex and then everything spill out to the floor for a double countout. Post-match Harts ran P&G off but it mostly set up a second encounter. 

ER: This should have been better but there was a really great Bret/Roma match in the middle of a good enough tag match with a bad finish. I don't know if I've watched the Bret/Roma singles matches but now I'm going to, but if there are Hercules/Anvil matches I can probably skip them. This was two FTR teams that are better than FTR working a so so FTR match. I wonder what Bret's thoughts were about he and Anvil working over Herc's shoulder only for it to build to a Hercules gorilla press slam? That's the kind of backwards set up that Bret never wants to take part in, while feeling like a sequence Bret was mapping out. Bret matches don't build to the heel press slamming the babyface after getting his shoulder pummeled. 

Is P&G the best era of Paul Roma? Has to be. It's crazy they kept trying to make him a babyface. He looks so untrustworthy. He'd assault your girlfriend at a party while you were in the bathroom. Power & Glory Roma was fully in his element. The Bret/Roma stuff works so well because he's essentially working a heel Bret style, if Bret were a greasy forcible sexual assaulter. The snap was the same, the heel bumping was the yin to Bret's baby bumping yang. He's a great punch taker, a truly hateable piece of scum like Tully Blanchard who moves similar to Tully as well. I loved the work from everyone when Roma ad Hercules were tying Bret up in a bearhug; Bret's selling was compelling, Roma's bearhug was even better than Hercules', and Roma worked a false tag far better than you'd ever think from someone who teamed with Jim Powers. I don't remember the last time I saw a team work a modern false tag spot without also doing it with a I'm A Heel wink. Roma wasn't out for glory, he had business to take care of. 

The finish stunk, but there was a tremendous reveal while setting up the late match Hart Attack: The way it was filmed, you couldn't see where Roma was. He got knocked off the apron into the guardrail but his location couldn't be seen. As Bret started his run into the opposite ropes, he was expertly kept off camera to preserve the mystery behind whether Bret would hit it or whether Roma would make it back in time to grab his ankle. It was the latter, but until Bret went down it looked like he was gearing up to take Hercules' head off. 

Sgt. Slaughter vs. Ultimate Warrior

MD: I know we already had one or two of these Sarge w/Sherri matches but I haven't seen them for a bit so I couldn't tell you how similar this was. All I generally remember is Sarge bumping all over the place and Sherri dying at the end. This starts with her doing a saluting ceremony with Sarge on the floor after Warrior runs in, including putting the title up to her waist to taunt him, and it's good stuff. Warrior gets Sarge's helmet and goes nuts with it which is also good stuff. 

Warrior chases Sherri around including the usual 1991 high culture bits of them coming out from under the ring with him having undressed her. That lets Sarge take over though and there's a pretty long heat which is well done. Sherri works her ass off helping and cheering on Sarge, especially in a never-ending Camel Clutch. That's going to end with him shrugging Sarge off of course. What's surprising is that the cut off has Sarge getting his knees up. They really make Warrior work for the comeback, which makes it all the more frustrating when he shoves the ref for basically no reason once he does come back. Post-match, he continues to cause havoc including the press slam on Sherri. It's impressive how much they got out of this honestly. 

ER: Sherri was looking THIS hot on Canadian house shows!? That's the major takeaway from this match, which was such a "should have been better" match that I feel I was too quick to give Hart Foundation/Power & Glory that title. Sarge looked more washed than I remember - great bumps still, including his classic over the ringpost that I love so much - with sludgy offense where he looked afraid to fall over too fast. His stomps and some of his other offense looked like he was working a kid with progeria, not as gassed up freak sporting his dumbest haircut in a lifetime of dumb haircuts. Warrior comes as close as humanly possible to hitting a 50 yard head of steam Pounce on a ringside cameraman who sprinted out in front of him like a wild rabbit. Warrior was only going to do so much to avoid him and this guy came about 3 inches from being driven brutally into the guardrail. It would have been the highlight of this event. The Canadian crowd clearly had no idea how they were expected to react to Warrior assaulting Sherri both physically and sexually, but they rightly sat in uncomfortable silence while he hit his hardest offense of the match on her, dropping her from his gorilla press with a real flop, then actually stepping on her as he exited the ring. I wonder how many in attendance had actually seen a woman this hot before. A satin pink teddy with black thigh highs? Girl, Detroit is thataway. 

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FOUND FOOTAGE FRIDAY: OMNI 2/26/84

 

Jesse Barr vs. Pez Whatley

ER: A match made completely worthwhile by the finish. Up until the finishing stretch I was prepared to write "Yep this sure is some undercard wrestling. Well Barr did work his chin lock fairly effectively and I appreciate that" and be done with it. But then we go on an excellent one minute run to finish on a perfect high note: Barr throws Whatley through the ropes to the floor, fast, and the cameras pan to Whatley and what appears to be a ringside security guard facing away from the ring while eating popcorn and literally reading a fucking magazine. When Whatley tries to get back in the ring he's greeted by Barr's legitimately great kneelift - the best piece of offense all match - and I love how Whatley's reaction is to get obliterated by the kneelift and desperately try to roll back to the floor before being dragged back in. All of that is made worth it by Barr taking one of the greatest banana peel bumps I've seen when Whatley sweeps his leg. Barr made it look like he had no idea the football was being pulled. 

MD: Nice way to get acclimated to 1984 here. The ref, especially does a great job in both checking Barr before the match (showing Barr that if he doesn't agree, then he'll declare Pez the winner) and then catching the hairpull on the top wristlock cutoffs the second or third time Barr does it. Barr was maybe 25 here and you had to wonder what his ceiling might have been at this point. He looked good, high energy especially on a kneelift catching Pez on the way in and then bumping big for Pez's finishing stuff, and Pez, of course, knew exactly what he was doing and played to the crowd well between it. Ok opening match but I'm glad they didn't decide it needed to be a time limit draw. 

TKG: Fuck all that, this ruled and was ridiculously hot for an opener. Pez Whatley backdrop driver may be the most impressive suplex on a show with great throws. Just holds Barr up in impressive lift before perfectly dropping him. Whatley just looks like a hoss throughout this dominating on mat. Why wasn’t Whatley in the Varsity Club? Why didn’t he get a Triple Crown title challenge. You watch that suplex and shocking that it wasn’t finisher. Barr actually hits a desperation knee to get straight back on offense. And really the high knee lift is Barr’s only move. Was Barr doing a loaded knee pad gimmick? Barr refuses to let ref Scrappy McGowan check his kneepads before the match until Scrappy threatens him with DQ, all of his offense and comebacks and signature bump built around knee lift. Hits a knee lift for control and then slaps on a chinlock. Whatley wins with this high neck yolk move (instead of a bulldog from behind he yolks opponent down from the front), Whatley goes for it several times and never quite gets it till the win. First time, I thought it was a crossbody that he got too much height with, second time I thought it was a Mil style in ring tope and when he finally hits it clean, clear that is what he was going for and match is over. The moves based match structure had a real first round of a early 2000’s Super Eight feel to it, and you could totally see Ketner booking a Billy Fives, Scoot Andrews, Barr, Pez 4 way dance for the next month.

The Spoiler vs. Johnny Rich

ER: Spoiler standing on the top rope looks like a magic trick. It looks like an illusion. He's standing so still, like he's not even standing on anything at all. Don Jardine is a man the same age as me and twice my size, yet he stands effortlessly on the ropes with the grace of El Hijo del Santo. Watch him. Watch his entire body. At one point he appears to be only standing on one leg, right leg on one set of ropes, left leg on another, until one of the legs lifts...and the rest of his body doesn't move. His entire body is still, no part of him looks like he is countering weight to maintain balance. He looks like he is standing on solid ground. He looks incredible. You've never seen anyone walk the ropes like Spoiler. Fenix, Komander, Elix Skipper, any name, none are comparable to what Spoiler does. 

I could go on and on about the unreality of his rope work - if this wasn't a full card and only this match, I would write several paragraphs on him standing on the ropes - but maybe the greatest thing about it is how he uses his rope work for heel heat. I don't think there has ever been a heel who has used "look how well I balance on the top rope" as the basis for his heel heat, but there is Spoiler on the top rope, striking and holding a pose like a large buccaneer, showing off his balance to a bunch of husbands and wives out on a Sunday. The Spoiler draws heat from standing still on a very high point, and the crowd starts coming alive for Rich's comeback because of it. Johnny Rich does this thing where his punches keep looking better the deeper into the match we go, and it makes the crowd louder and more responsive. And then my man hits the blade for Spoiler's claw, and we get this incredible, violent, wrenched in claw that Spoiler made look like he was breaking Rich's entire upper torso. The shot of Rich, still standing, body being contorted while held in the claw, blood covering his face quick, made me go from "Man Spoiler matches always deliver" to "oh wow they did something special in just 6 minutes". 

MD: Great look at the Spoiler and I'm glad people will see him that are unaware. Hot start to this as he clubbers right away in the corner only for Rich to fire back. But then the size advantage takes over as he just hefts him up and then tosses him into the corner. The rope walk elbow drop is just super striking because he does it with ease and without hesitation and he followed it up by draping Rich in the ropes and kicking the ropes and they made it look great and painful. Someone needs to steal that. 

Rich eventually rolls in (and to the other side of the ring so he can recover) and fires back with jabs, but pressing Spoiler into the corner is no good. He'll just grab your head and use it to steady himself as he walks the ropes. From there, he started utilizing the claw, getting Rich out of the ring with it and then immediately catching him on the way back in, leaving him a bloody mess. I'm happy people will get introduced to Spoiler this way (And Rich was perfectly fine in his role with fiery but futile comebacks).

TKG: The Spoiler putting Rich in a cat’s cradle is the greatest yo-yo trick ever done with a wrestling ring..

Ted Dibiase vs. Mr. R

ER: This was not designed to be a great match, but instead was worked like the first six minutes of a bigger match, all basic Mr. R side headlocks floated over into Dibiase pin attempts and then back again. I had never seen any of the Mr. R angle and my favorite part of this was Rich avoiding Jesse Barr and Spoiler's attacks as he rolled out of the ring and jumped the rail. The fans were into this and all they did was headlock shoulderblock stuff, showed how over the full angle was. 

MD: We had maybe 25 seconds of this previously. I imagine those might have been the 25 seconds we needed but we have so little actual Mr. R footage, this is still interesting. They worked the first five minutes of a very conventional match with the usual chain wrestling. Dibiase was very into it and this was fine, but it's interesting just how normal and conventional it was. After about five minutes, Dibiase calls his cronies in and the heels all try to get Mr. R's mask, but he darts out of the ring like a trickster and hops the rail and wins by DQ. The energy at the end with the angle bit was very good but this was really all just a tease.

TKG: There was some cool fighting for top wristlock stuff here but this reminded me of a lot of the Mid South Dibiase technical fussbudgeting with no direction killing time before the loaded glove finish. I kind of need to feel like you are stealing a win for me to get mad at a DQ.

Les Thornton vs. Tommy Rogers

ER: My God Les Thornton is a little tank. Tommy Rogers had a real credible side headlock and he really cranked it in a few times, especially on one spot where Thornton tried to push off, but just when I thought I knew what snug was, Thornton made me say "whoa" aloud (in the bathroom at work where I was watching this) at how violent his reversal to headscissors was. Thornton pulled off the headscissor with such speed and force, in a way I haven't seen. Rogers couldn't have stopped this if he wanted to. Made me want to see a Thornton/Finlay match. Every headscissor looked great and Rogers sold his frustration in them so well. His hair pulls are done with such a quick snap that it made me smile when Rogers finally broke a headscissors with a knee straight to the head. Rogers has a clean sunset flip that looks like an actual pin, and Thornton really thunderclaps his ears with his legs to break. Love the bounce Rogers got on Thornton's butterfly suplex and how both men made every headlock exchange look like actual struggle and applied pressure. The finish had a couple things that didn't quite work. Thornton has a way of taking Rogers dropkicks that makes Tommy look like a chump, and Rogers tried a back suplex that saw him dropping Thornton's full weight onto himself. Thornton's pin reversal win looked like it didn't even have half the leverage of any of the headlock/headscissor exchanges. Basically I loved the first 13 a lot more than the last 2.   

MD: I thought this was going to be wrestled straight but as it went on Thorton leaned heel. There was a lot of ref interaction early. I liked him the first match but he got a little too involved here turning holds over, kicking the arms off when they were holding the ropes, etc. They did some really neat things with headscissors right after pins including a transition into a takeover from Rogers i'm not sure I'd ever seen.

The match opens up midway as Thorton starts to introduce heel tactics. It leads to a really big extended comeback by Rogers where Thorton keeps trying to cut him off but can't. That played more to Rogers' strengths so it was better than if this was just wrestled clean. The fans were pretty into it by the end and when Thornton holds onto the tights to win, they are very much not happy with him.

TKG: Meltzer wrote about Malenko v Benoit from Road Wild that it would be a great match with a different audience and I was like “fuck that, they would have worked it differently for different crowd”,,,the best part of that match is how hostile the work was making the crowd. I was joking with Phil the other day about a Les Thorton v Scott Mcghee match which the WWF had booked to kill heat and send crowd to concessions. I assume Vince Sr was getting percentage of concessions and built into his card formula were these log technical draws that were intended to get a hostile crowd response and send people to concession stands and my memory of Thorton v Mcghee was that crowd started “boring” chants from moment they came to ring but actually never left their seats for concessions, transfixed; just couldn’t take eyes of one guy has a headlock which other guy counters with a leg scissors and just got more and more hostile about the idea that it was holding their attention. Match had a bunch of same elements while that one was built around egging on hostility while this is built around the pops for the face and encouraging the cheers. We don’t build matches to kill crowds anymore and kind of miss it as an art….but this was really cool too

Wahoo McDaniel vs. Nikolai Volkoff

MD: Basically a slugfest. Volkoff had big over the top punches. Wahoo had straight shots and chops. Volkoff did do this one shot to the face that I thought was amazing and Wahoo, as he was firing back, did a chop where he just ran through Volkoff in a way that I hadn't seen him do too many times before. Volkoff did get one bearhug in there but it was functional and led to a wild clap escape by Wahoo. He hit both of his backbreaker variations (including the press slam one). Things got wild on the floor with Wahoo dodging a chairshot. This was one of those matches where it was just interesting to see how they made the noise for their strikes. Not stomps so much as recoil jumps, things like that. Eventually the ref, who had been all over the show as noted, tried to get in the way of a Wahoo choke and both guys ultimately tossed him for the no contest. Wahoo tried a bunch of elbowdrops to crush Volkoff but he kept on rolling to safety.

TKG: Crap, was Nikolai Volkoff always this bad? It is Wahoo, you can hit him. He won’t cry. Volkoff’s lift before backbreaker is always impressive but c’mon. Wahoo keeps on leaning into strikes and Volkoff pulls them even more. Aways a joy to see Wahoo tee off on someone but Volkoff is a shitty guy for him to be stuck against.

ER: Damn, was Nikolai Volkoff always this good? Do I like Nikolai Volkoff now? Wahoo is Wahoo and the chops (more than one to the face!) are great and his comeback had the heaviest shots of the match, but has Volkoff been good this whole time and I just haven't sought out any of it? Is the Don Muraco Eastern Championship Wrestling Title match good? Is the '94 WWF run good? Volkoff was a big weird guy here and I loved the way he kept awkwardly kicking at Wahoo's forehead like he was Bad Taue. Imagine how great Volkoff could have been had he just been Bad Taue? He throws his kicks up with the same awkwardness of Taue, but with normal body proportions so his legs aren't as long. He does two great backbreakers to Wahoo. Well, one good back backbreaker and one incredible backbreaker. Volkoff is one of our few wrestlers to make gear a part of his backbreaker. It must be so humiliating to not only have your back broken, but to have your singlet or trunks stretched and wedged and rearranged during the lift. Volkoff kept lifting higher and Wahoo's singlet kept stretching further, an insult I think worse than mussing someone's hair. He bumped bigger than I expected when Wahoo started firing back, getting upended by a running chop and pinballing all the way across the ring for Wahoo's excellent shoulder shrug to the jaw. 

Jake Roberts vs. Ron Garvin

MD: Just an exceptional match. With these GCW Omnis, we see the Jake Roberts that we were always promised, the master of psychology, of bringing the crowds up and down and using every dirty trick. He was good later on but was too much a babyface and without the room to breathe like he had here. His ribs were taped coming in so we had his reach and leverage and dirty tricks and Ellering at ringside against the promise that at some point in the match, Garvin would get free and use the hands of stone to punch those ribs. 

They built it and built it and built it, Roberts leaning hard on the ref disallowing punches and utilizing every hairpull, tights pull, piece of rope to choke, distraction from Ellering, everything he can manage. At one point he goads Garvin into the corner (with Garvin having the advantage) only for Ellering to pull the leg out. So much of the match is just a seated armbar, but they work it so well, with hope spots like Garvin pulling Roberts' shirt up to expose the taped ribs, just that. It's so good. He gets him once but Roberts' escapes, and then when he finally gets him and ties him up in the ropes, laying in shot after shot, the place comes unglued. The ref takes a great bump and while Garvin's able to stop Ellering from using the chair, Jake blindsides him and DDTs him on the chair. When the ref comes too he hits a couple of insult to injury elbow drops for the pin, keeping the program going and getting huge heat. Just a brilliant match, maybe even a perfect one for what they were trying to accomplish.

TKG: I think of Garvin as a guy who is relentless on offense, and less of as a guy who is really great at selling but he is…he isn’t bumping for strikes but somehow by standing tall and selling the toughness of not going down, he makes the strikes look far more legit. Also I am so used to TOUGH manager Paul Ellering, that exasperated throwing hands in the air freaking out Ellering was super fun.

ER: 1984 t-shirt Jake is such an amazing era of Jake Roberts. He never looked more like the most dangerous Molly Hatchet roadie. The load out guy who everyone fears but everyone knows is the guy who can get you crank...and beyond. He did not look like a wrestler or move like a wrestler and it's what made him one of the most compelling wrestlers. He did not throw his uppercut like a wrestler. When he throws five downward punches at Garvin's face when Garvin has him by the leg, he punches like a carny. When the throws cross chops at Garvin's throat they're...maybe the best non-punch strike you've seen. Jake is wearing a t-shirt to cover up his taped ribs, and this might be the only Garvin match I've seen based around him throwing body shots. Once he starts teeing off on Jake's ribs, even tying him up in the ropes like Andre, the crows loses their mind. The whole thing is incredible. Roberts stifles Garvin for so long and escapes at the right moments, and it all burns down as Roberts is finally getting his ribs battered while he sells it like he's doing kabuki, bent at the waist on tip toes. The finish is dynamite, with Garvin being spiked right on Ellering's chair with a DDT. You can't fake the way Garvin takes this DDT, that's a man going vertebrae first onto that chair. The best past is Jake doesn't pin him after that. He rouses the ref by shoving him the way a big brother would shove his little brother after calling him numb nuts, then when the ref is watching he falls onto Garvin with an elbowdrop. He grabs at his ribs on impact, totally worth it. Had this been on one of the DVDVR 80s sets, we would have called it one of the greatest Jake matches. Now we can. 

The Road Warriors vs. Stan Hansen/King Kong Bundy

PAS: In my mind this is an insane Kaiju battle, a tag version of Andre vs. Hansen. It wasn't that, much more of a traditional tag match, but it was delightful. I am going to leave Eric and Matt to rhapsodize about the initial lock up, but man was that beautiful stuff. We don't have a ton of Road Warriors stooging and bumping, and they do a great job of that early, I can't remember seeing Stan Hansen working face in peril, and we get a nice spoonful at once, I have definitely not seen hot tag Bundy, and hot tag Bundy was incredible. I wanted a bit more of an explosion at the end, it felt like this was a match setting up a huge gimmick blowoff, which never happened, but man what a treat.

MD: Finish or no finish, the fans got their money's worth on this one. It was, in some ways, very weird in the entire history of wrestling. GCW Roadies were still raw, were very willing to stooge and show ass in a way that they really wouldn't later. Bundy was a big towering babyface, and Hansen played face-in-peril. We don't have a ton of performances like this out of him. 

When they did finally take over on him, it was by focusing on the arm, the old Hansen standard, but his hope spots were great and rousing, just big booming attempts to fire back, with the fans getting behind him, before he'd get cut off. There were only so many teams in the world that could believably keep him down like this but the Road Warriors in 84 were on that list and they really made it work. Bundy coming in at the end was like a wrecking ball and yes, this broke down with Ellering grabbing Bundy's leg and all four guys firing off until the ref called it. It's great that the Road Warriors became what they did, but I do wonder what I would have looked like if they stayed on this road instead. Just a tremendous Hansen performance overall and a new piece of a puzzle that was already feeling complete. 

TKG: This was way more a standard tag than I was picturing but a pretty great standard tag. I assume most of this will be covered by everyone else but I really loved all the Hansen face in peril trying to make sure that he still was getting blood flow to his fingers while the Road Warriors working over his arm.

Ric Flair vs. Brad Armstrong

MD: This went how you'd expect it to go except for that maybe it stayed clean (though with Flair still strutting when he did well) for quite a while. I loved Brad's energy on his hope spots/comebacks. The bit where he climbs the bottom rope to start firing back on Flair was great and I want to see Daniel Garcia implement that as part of his act ASAP. Just super, balanced pro wrestling with a little something for everyone who might be watching in 1984. More of this please, and soon.

ER: I want to know more about the Donald Sutherland/Kurt Vonnegut led couple who left at the same time with the cool younger leather jacket couple. Leather jacket guy had his hand on his girl's inner thigh and they had just found out this Brad Armstrong headlock had hit the 10 minute mark. They made a look before both getting up at the exact same time and I didn't see a single solitary second the rest of the show where it looked like they even know they were there. A bunch of kids take their place and the 13 year old on the end is wearing a sleeveless Union Jack and has his arms crossed the entire time. He's the fucking coolest 13 year old I have ever seen at a wrestling show. 

TKG: The weird thing about the “traditional long slow build Flair main event” is how fucking fast paced it is. Like this is the fastest paced match on show. In theory Flair is trying to slow it down but it never slows and just builds. I also really like the way it feels like 2/3 falls match where it has parts, an initial technical fall section, a brawling section and a quick running exchange section that feel like they build off each other. At one point Flair does his first set of chops during the technical section to regain control and those are completely different than the type of chops he does during the actual brawling section.

TKG: Referee Scrappy McGowan worked this entire show solo and it is a real impressive performance. HE is neither a tough ref who is completely in control nor a ref in over his head struggling to assert himself but instead just a perfect medium. Guy who gets manipulated by heels but also stops heels from cheating. Of the Georgia refs, he isn’t one that I think of as getting talked up but he was really great throughout this show.

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Found Footage Friday: BABY TAUE~! HARA~! BRET~! VIRGIL~! BABY MONEY INC~! BLONDY~!

Akira Taue vs. Ashura Hara AJPW 10/28/88

MD: This isn't long, but if I'm not mistaken, it might be the earliest Taue singles match on tape. And honestly? It wildly overachieves. I'm used to 89 and even into 90 Taue who is trying to figure out how to be Taue. This is not that guy. This is a big athletic guy trying to figure any of it out. And he's trying to do so against Hara who is stoic and brutal and ready to kill him. Taue hits a Thesz press right at the bell and the crowd ooohs. Great, effective start. The first two minutes of this are pretty sprint light, all building to Hara clocking him with the ring bell on the floor. Throughout this, Taue will throw chops and kicks and there really is the sense that he's learning in the moment, even from a purely kayfabe perspective. He's trying to figure out what angle to throw his strikes from, what technique to use, how to get enough mustard behind the kicks to actually impact Hara, despite his size and presumably strength advantage. It means that every four or five shots from him equals one of Hara's. It means that when he hits the hundred hand sumo slap in the corner and it doesn't register and he escalates to outright smacks across Hara's face, Hara is going to clean his clock with one massive retribution shot of his own. It means when he's able to score four or five kicks, Hara's able to cut him right off with just one off his own off the ropes, even if both of them will keel over after the fact. 

When it comes to the actual execution, Taue bumps big, most especially for the clotheslines at the end, but there is a sense of him telegraphing his stuff (especially the missed stuff) way more than it ought to. We get a great camera shot of Hara managing the same exact thing, a missed clothesline in the corner, with a lot more intensity and grace. I think, and this is just a guess, that Taue didn't know enough to get in his own way yet. He has some single matches with Taue over a year later, right as Taue was on his way out, and in those, he tries to fight from underneath and show fire and I almost see more of that here, naturally, against Hara. Watching the AJPW mainstays this early in their development is so interesting, because you can see all sorts of possibilities and realities that didn't happen. This Taue, one that was more than willing to run into Hara's open hand, and then throw his entire body right back at him, was a different sort of Taue than the one we'd eventually get.

ER: I can't get enough Taue, the man who took over as my favorite pillar sometime post-Misawa death and together we haven't looked back since. I just like how he moves and how he falls and how he sells on his feet. He's a permanently old man and this is the youngest I've seen the old man doing his thing, Akira Taue with the fluffed up city pop hair of All Japan Young Boys. Taue is an athlete who is clumsy in form and clumsy in fall in all of the best ways. He is in his first year - which means he has been thrown to the wolves for over a hundred matches already on the Kings Road schedule - and can barely budge the Hara the Tank. It's one of those fun reaction worthy young boy matches where a brick solid stoic badass in his 40s lets a young boy hit him as hard as he can while he barely budges until he shows him several times how to throw proper kicks to the ribs and butts to the head. Ashura Hara barely reacts to Taue's slaps and yet also feels the need to bash him with a ring bell a couple minutes in. Early! Taue sells slaps really well and Hara knocks him silly really well. He lets Taue kick him in the chest and back if it's hurting him he's wearing it all inside. He catches a kick when he decides to catch a kick - casually, like he was just throwing Taue's leg around with his buddy - and gets to his feet with an uppercut to Taue's left cheekbone. Taue absorbs all of Hara's clotheslines and kicks really well, and Hara literally just clotheslines and kicks him until pinning him. They all looked great and none of them looked clean. 

Fabuloso Blondy/Guerrero Negro vs. Stuka/Apolo Estrada CMLL 1989

MD: Three falls in fifteen minutes or so. Blondy was in his full glory, and Guerrero Negro, sans mask, seemed just happy to be there with him saluting along to the anthem. Tecnicos charged in immediately thereafter. I haven't seen a ton of Apolo Estrada but I like what I have seen. He's very charismatic and over the top in his own particular way. Blondy fouled him to lose the first fall but take over the momentum which is not something you see often actually. They focused in on his stomach and took the segunda after a solid beatdown. In the tercera, Estrada came back after shrugging Blondy into the post on a ram attempt on the floor. Nice pop for it. The fans were into these guys. He got some solid revenge on Blondy's stomach, too, which is again not something you see a lot of focus on. As they cycled through Blondy did a sleeper, which, again isn't usually part of the diction of lucha libra. Finish was fun with Stuka getting Guerrero Negro but Estrada missing a big leap off the top only for Blondy to get overconfident and rolled up. It was a good, over act and here was another look at it, brief, a little slight, but still enjoyable.

Bret Hart/Virgil vs. Ted Dibiase/IRS WWF 8/16/91

MD: This came out of nowhere. They started running this matchup in July, with Duggan sometimes teaming with Virgil. It's still very early in the Dibiase/IRS pairing. We don't have a ton of them with Sherri so it's fun to see it. Super hot crowd and you can hardly blame them as there was always something to look at here. Just having Sherri out there meant that there was a constant reaction to everything that was happening. That meant lots of attempts to interfere which didn't come to anything but drew the eye (and the fancam) to holding her head during a double noggin knocker, to taunting every single person in the arena when Dibiase and IRS finally took over. I almost can't comment on some of Rotunda's holds because the cameraman was more interested in seeing what Sherri was up to. There was a long, long shine here with a couple of false calls on the heels taking over but some very fun stuff, like Bret feigning an eyerake from the outside from IRS (that never happened) which let Virgil unload on Dibiase illegally and this great bit where Virgil did an arm wringer to IRS and then Rotunda's fist right into Dibiase's face. I'm sure I must have seen that spot at least a few times but it felt new to me. The heels had to work three times harder (and dirtier) than the babyfaces to get anything which, I suppose, made the fans care all the more when they finally took over. There was a ton of heat for it at least. Bret ended up taking maybe 80% of this match though Virgil seemed plenty competent when he was in there. Finish was probably what people usually got around this time, with Virgil, almost, almost getting to triumph over Dibiase only to have it stolen out from underneath him (by a loaded purse). Summerslam was just around the corner though.

ER: I have bad taste in wrestling, so this kind of thing is the kind of new match that excites me. I love seeing new WWF pairings from this era, matches that didn't exist in any other form. They ran this tag on a few house shows leading up to Summerslam '91, the peak of Virgil's career and Bret's first singles match title win. Other than these few house show tags, Bret and Virgil rarely associated. Both babyfaces, both careers on the upswing, both in wildly different places one year later. Virgil's World Title Challenge the next year would be by far Bret's shortest match of his first World Title run. This is our lone Bret/Virgil partnership on film and it's a really good tag match, and every person in the match is really great at their role in the match. Bret gets loud crowd sympathy out of getting out of a long chinlock, Dibiase reacts perfectly to a hot tag, IRS works faster and hits heavier than later Money Inc., and the timing of everything is pinpoint. 

But this is a Sensational Sherri. Whatever single Montreal man snuck their camcorder to horsily record Sherri's every single movement at the importance of anything else on the show, was correct to do so. Regardless of the intentions of a lone Quebecois cameraman probably named Edouard, this camera belonged on Sherri. This was one of the hardest working, entertaining, constant motion and broad breathless interaction that few managers in history could replicate. Sherri works an incredible and active manager role with the best looking legs of her life, running around the ring to stop and rub specific fans' faces in it, shouting specific encouragement to IRS or Dibiase in between interacting with fans, physically interact with all four men in the match multiple times ranging from big to small ways, all while adding to the match by getting the crowd more invested in the match by also being more invested in her. She is incredible to watch. It's like she's acting a big scene out for her own biopic; an incredible confident performance that is bigger than any TV performance. You put this performance of hers in any territory and she is a megastar. 

This is a gem of a tag. Every participant did a leaping punch off the middle or top buckle, and any match with jumping or falling punches is going to be a house show gem. But this is a Sensational Sherri match, a match I'm not sure I've seen anyone work better. That it plays like a documentary scene about a Great Manager due to our French New Wave handheld with swirling squeals of in the red crowd noise makes it a wrestling match that should be referenced going forward. 

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Found Footage Friday: All Japan 12/5/85

Haru Sonoda vs. Shinichi Nakano

MD: Good performance here from rookie Nakano. He showed a bulldog's tenacity in attacking Sonoda's arm (especially good headbutts to it) and never felt like he shouldn't be in the match. I'd seen him quite a bit recently in 89-90 and past a bit of meandering at times, I would have believed you if you told me this match was from that era. Maybe that was part of the problem in him not advancing more. Sonada (who was Magic Dragon but I imagine most people reading this would know that) came back with headbutts and inside shots and a lot of focus on the eyes. Nakano sold an eye rake with a back bump which was a choice. Finishing stretch was okay in that you at least wondered if Nakano had a shot.

Nick Bockwinkel/Curt Hennig vs. Mighty Inoue/Masa Fuchi

MD: This was what drew me to this show as much as anything else. A new Bockwinkel match. Against two of my favorites of the decade for AJPW in Inoue and Fuchi. AWA babyface Hennig was in for a lot of this, having his leg dismantled by Inoue and Fuchi as they cut off the ring. The nature of the handheld made the ring look huge and the distance insurmountable at one point for Hennig. There were a couple of clips there in that part but you got the idea. Once he did make it to Bockwinkel, Bock was amazing as usual. He immediately pressed Inoue in the corner, then raised his hand in a flamboyant gesture of an exasperated clean break before laying in some shots anyway. He followed it up with a deep slam across the ring before Fuchi came and the two of them scrapped their way to the floor. When it was Hennig's turn to get some revenge, he showed a lot of fire. The finishing stretch was definitive but unique, with Bock lifting Fuchi up for a Hart Attack move with Hennig's "Axe" and then hitting a rare power bomb for the win. I don't think it was ever better than the sum of its parts, but the parts were all very good.

ER: Normally I'm a fan of minimalist wrestling but I wanted a bit more from this one. I was hoping to see Hennig and Inoue work quick and land hard and instead it was a lock of Inoue holding Hennig in a leglock. It was engaging enough, but it wasn't the kind of engagement I wanted. Mockingly, the handheld cuts away right as Hennig starts punching Inoue from his back and Inoue starts connecting back. Fuchi wasn't as much of a dickhead here as he'd become, wrestling much more like Jumbo lite. I did really like Fuchi catching a Hennig kick and Hennig punching him a couple times while hopping on one leg. Bockwinkel hit hard when he tagged in, and the finish was spirited. Inoue splats Bock with his senton and then hits the mat just as hard when Bock rolls away from the next one. The Hennig Axe bomber Hart Attack looked awesome, and Bockwinkel's powerslam finish looked just as good. 

Tiger Mask II/Genichiro Tenryu/Motsohi Okuma vs. Yoshiaki Yatsu/Isamu Teranishi/Norio Honaga

MD: First couple of minutes here had me a little worried as everything was nice and clean and sportsmanlike. Then Yatsu came in and everything changed. 85 Yatsu came off as far more of a disruptor and dissident than Tenryu, a real chip on his shoulder, a real attitude, and more than happy to toss people around with one throw after another. Tenryu would meet him halfway, blasting him with shots and tossing him around on the floor, but he wasn't nearly as violent against anyone else, even Honaga who he was paired up with in the finishing stretch (a standard "junior getting some hope against a star before getting put down" bit). In fact, it was Okuma who came off as both a force and, really, a star, even though he was teaming with Tiger Mask and Tenryu. His headbutt act was perfectly suited for a house show setting and over. Following up from a bit where Yatsu (using Teranishi's distractions) kept coming in to break up submissions, Okuma did the same with headbutts. Eventually, the other side got revenge by all getting their own headbutts in on him (with the crowd egging Honaga along as he was the last and most hesitant of the bunch). I would have liked some of the teams' control segments to last a bit longer as it all felt a little too back and forth but once they got past that initial reluctance to really fight one another and Yatsu reset the mood, this became overall enjoyable.

British Bulldogs vs. Kuniaki Kobayashi/Fumihiro Niikura

MD: Pretty typical ten minute Bulldogs match here. It's 85 so Dynamite was mobile but roided to the gills. Kobayashi especially made the Bulldogs look good, not that it took a ton of work. They were leaping off of pin attempts for both of them and not just Davey Boy which I found interesting. Davey always looked like he was having so much fun in there while Dynamite never did. When it was time to eat offense for the Bulldogs, that was Davey too. I don't know. Unless we're talking 1980-2 jerk heel Dynamite, I always see the stuff I expect to in his matches. Hard to come in with an open mind. This was fine though.

Jesse Barr/Harley Race vs. Jumbo Tsuruta/Giant Baba

MD: I had some hopes for this one. Generally, I think Race gives way too much in Japan given who he is and what his rep is and how awesome he can be when he's really laying it in. His partner here was Barr though so I couldn't imagine Barr carrying too much of the offense. This still had a decent amount of Race stooging though. Some of it was pretty ginger. He moved super slow out of a corner whip, for instance, but then he walked right into a belly to belly, so it's not like you can complain. When he did go on offense, it was pretty great, with some killer headbutts out of the corner and then holding Jumbo up for the world's longest delayed pile driver. Even the way he'd turn a Jumbo front facelock into a suplex, just the way he powered him over, had a ton of presence behind it. Barr was okay, bumping big for Baba (and glad to do it) and rewarded later by getting to belly-to-back him. The finish had Jumbo and Baba repeatedly kill Barr only for Race to save him again and again until both teams got counted out. My favorite part towards the end was the guys with the handheld camera shouting out what they thought Jumbo's next move would be (they got the clothesline right but didn't realize he wanted to do a revenge pile driver instead of the belly to back).

ER: This managed to be a bit dull and a bit surprising all at once. Jumbo had a couple dry runs on offense, and Race was a bit slow and deliberate at times, but I love these kind of matches because it's always fun seeing guys like Jesse Barr interact with huge legends. Race bumps a lot, getting big air on a Jumbo hiptoss and really tossed with a belly to belly, gets the legs knocked out from him by a Baba back elbow (after Race punched Baba in the eye), and down the stretch he takes his big rope flip bump backwards to the floor. I agree with Matt that it's more fun when Race fights back harder, and we get a feel for that when he's punching at Jumbo and gives him a hard atomic drop. I think '85 Jumbo is more interesting as a dynamic seller than on offense, buckling his knees at the impact of Race's strikes. 

Jesse Barr interacting with Baba and Jumbo delivered what I wanted, and I liked how the guys recording this either really liked Jesse Barr, or at minimum were pretending to like Barr to crack each other up. Every time Barr would pull off a move they'd yell "Barrrr!" I didn't really hear them react to any Harley Race offense, but they reacted to Barr the whole time. Barr had a really nice high bearhug on Jumbo that Baba had to come in and break with a chop to the back of Barr's neck, and later he got to throw Jumbo with a nice belly to belly, and drop Baba with a high delayed back suplex. Jesse Barr dropping Giant Baba with a huge back suplex was too much, I love it. Baba had a bunch of great chops and Jumbo knocked Barr to the floor with a big running knee, then Barr rearranged every ringside barricade with his body. It had dull parts, it had some great stuff, it's a good enough 12 minutes. 

Dory Funk Jr. vs. Riki Choshu

MD: First and last third of this were really good but I thought they'd be striking a lot more. Instead they worked the mat and that first third had them moving in and out of things frequently and really fighting for positioning and counters. Gritty stuff. In the middle, it devolved a bit more into fighting for one particular hold, be it a half crab or the Scorpion, but they picked things back up for the finishing stretch. At one point Dory hit a belly to back followed by a butterfly suplex and a Russian legsweep. Just boom, boom, boom. Then Choshu blocked the fourth boom (an atomic drop) and started throwing the clotheslines leading to one great near fall where Dory ducked it. Eventually, they hit the floor and Hansen and Dibiase (and then Hara and Rusher) came out to cause chaos and set up the next match and that was that. The good stuff here was very good.

ER: I thought this was pretty great, a hardscrabble match where nothing looked easy. This looked like a real workout for Dory and Choshu, and I thought Dory was especially impressive. Choshu is a real bulldog and goes after Dory on the mat, and it's cool to start a match with 6-7 minutes of catch as catch can before going into the stuff where you really need a gas tank. Dory was just a couple months away from his WWF stint and looked really big, far bigger chest and arms than he had earlier in the decade. That extra size comes in handy as he and Choshu have some pretty nasty collisions. The matwork was tough on its own, both guys working hard to block single legs and Funk fighting off the Scorpion, and I didn't think the finishing run would be as hot as it was. Not only did Dory start dropping Choshu, but both guys were getting to their feet quick, and the excellent camera work really zoomed in and showed how hard that 1985 AJ mat was. 

Every bump looked body jarring and Funk really looked like he was powering a heavy Choshu up. Funk's back suplex looked great and his butterfly suplex was strong, guy looked like he was out there on the farm loaded bales, and if Stan Hansen hadn't pulled a Russian legsweep even more deadly looked in the very next match then I would have said Dory clearly had the best legsweep on this show. Choshu threw a few lariats right at Dory's neck, and I like how accurately Dory sold them: one knocked him flat on his back, one to the side of his neck knocked him sideways and onto one foot, and when Riki started swinging his arm my man had to act fast. Dory ducking THEE lariat was perfectly done, as Riki swung for the fences and Dory just dipped his head under and hooked the waist, a nearfall on an O'Connor roll that would have been a really good finish. Tough as hell match, shocking this kind of workout was what they were doing when the cameras weren't rolling. 

Rusher Kimura/Ashura Hara vs. Ted Dibiase/Stan Hansen

MD: This had one clip in the middle but probably not a big one. Hara and Rusher took it right to their opponents, with both sides trying to drive each other back into the corner when possible. Dibiase tries hard but when paired with Hansen he always comes off as a guy trying to wear his dad's suit. This was short and entirely back and forth but it had the sort of energy you'd want given who was in there.

ER: Man how cool does Baba look at ringside with his yellow stripe on black track pants, black shirt tucked in? Our director was 100% right to zoom in on him. The Yellowjacket ringside track suits were a real highlight of 1985. There was a cut in the middle of this one, so I'm not sure how much we missed, but what we have is 8 minutes of a real good fast-paced scrap. Everybody comes off like a tough son of a gun, with Hansen bullying Rusher around and the still-spry 44 year Rusher fighting back hard. Rusher was easier for Hansen to bully 5 years later, but he was still beefy and mad in 1985. I love the way Hansen tangles guys up and spins and rolls around the ring with him, really tussling. His body language is always the best, and he pays close attention to things that could easily be throwaways, like the way he clamps heavily on Rusher and Hara's traps when he locks in a nerve hold. 

Hansen never makes it easy on anybody. He's always pulling on you, laying on you heavy and not giving you rest holds, and always hitting so damn hard. Hansen is just the most annoying opponent, more relentless than Fit Finlay and 60 pounds bigger. And I like when guys like Kimura and Hara can deflect that relentless energy, even if only temporarily. I loved the finishing building to Rusher's hot tag, when Hansen rushes into a Hara boot and spirals his way dramatically down the length of the ring. Rusher tags in and throws a ton of headbutts and Hansen reacts to them like he's in a swarm of bees. I liked Dibiase here too, holding his end of Large Gaijin Hansen Partner of a big tandem shoulderblock that knocked Hara ass over elbow, and bringing the beauty of the falling fistdrop to Hiroshima. He dropped a bit of the technique here and to focus on the energy, and I kind of like Dibiase wrestling like Joel Deaton. Hansen hits one of the smoothest violent Russian legsweeps I've ever seen, Dibiase wins it with a big rotating powerslam, and Hansen slides out of the ring and gets the hell out of that arena like he was missing his bus. Great stuff. 

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An Exhaustingly Exhaustive Review of WWF Royal Rumble 1/24/93, Pt. 2

Bret Hart vs. Razor Ramon

ER: Another great match. Perhaps too long, but still a great match. The first 75 minutes of the show is one of the best 75 minute stretches of wrestling you'll find in any era of WWF. A couple pieces could have been placed differently, and the crowd gets weirdly restless in the middle (maybe burned out by too many closely strung together nearfalls? I don't know). This starts with a great opening punch exchange, and Razor never got enough credit at the time for his punches. I'm not sure who else could even make the claim to a better whipping right hand in this era, or any era. Razor's punch doesn't allow much wiggle room and requires a lot of moving parts, and I don't know who threw a similar punch better. Also, Razor and Bret are both great stomp punchers. Razor throws those long rights, whips Bret hard into the turnbuckle, and Bret takes just a classic back first bump into them, making it look almost as violent as his classic chest first bump always looks.  

Hart takes over by working over Razor's leg, kicking it out from under him a few times while holding onto his other leg, slamming it into the ringpost, and it's the only part of the match that feels incomplete or misplaced. It never really leads anywhere, Razor doesn't sell the knee, and I don't think you really needed a leg work segment to set up the Sharpshooter finish 12 minutes later. You can just win with the Sharpshooter, you don't need leg work. Now Razor working over Bret's ribs is much more interesting, and it starts with Razor reversing an Irish whip by jamming a kitchen sink knee into things, then whips Hart low into the corner. Bret slides across the mat ribs first and gets wrapped around the ringpost, and the ribs give Razor a cool focal point for the rest of the match. We DO get Bret going hard chest first to the buckles and we realize, yes, the Bret chest first turnbuckle bump IS the definitive violent corner bump. This particular one is one of Bret's best versions, and think of how many matches that covers. I don't know how Bret's arms didn't go completely numb after hitting the buckles. He ran full speed into them like he couldn't see them and had no idea they were there, and then fell backwards, rigid, to the mat. Most match finishes do not look as nasty as Bret running into the buckles. 

We get a lot of Razor working on Bret with his abdominal stretch, stomps, a stiff shoulderblock, and his always nice fallaway slam. Bret's big comeback from all of that is big, with Razor taking a high  backdrop bump to the floor and then Hart nailing a full body tope (with a couple of sneaky mounted punches thrown in after the landing). They work in a lot of momentum shifts down the stretch, which were all handled well but might have benefitted from one or two of them being dropped. Still, it lead to some classics, including proof that Bret might be the only person who can make the jump off the middle buckle into someone's boot actually look damaging and not silly, and the way he crumbles after hitting it is an incredible sell. It also helps that he hits his Hitman elbow off the middle rope so actually has a reason to be leaping off it into a boot in the first place. The match really should have ended with Bret wriggling out of what surely would have been a match finishing Razor's Edge to trap Razor with a backslide. Nothing that came after was necessary, and the finishing itself came off a little clunky (even with Razor grabbing onto the ropes and Earl Hebner's pant leg to desperately stop the Sharpshooter. Pulling a backslide out of the jaws of a Razor's Edge would have kept Razor stronger, and the backslide looked like a finish (most of the crowd bit hard at the late kickout). Still, even with my criticisms this felt like the 2nd best match on a card with four strong matches. 

Lex Luger debuts as Narcissus in an awkward segment where really nothing at all works. They have the trifold mirror set up in the entrance way, but Luger's gear covers up a lot of his body so you can't even see what all the fuss is about. And there IS fuss. Luger poses to an obstructed view while Heenan lavishes such praise over his body that it nearly approaches Power and Glory workout video levels of uncomfortable. My favorite part was when Heenan drooled over Luger's thighs. "Yes! Look at yourself! Enjoy yourself, Narcissus! Look at his thighs!!!"

The Rumble Match

This is a really really good Rumble, with the only flaw being that it is TOO LONG. It has a great first half and almost felt like a love letter to fans of the territories, as it was front-loaded with several different world and regional champs and that early star power felt big. Within the first 10 entrants we had Flair, Backlund, Dibiase, Lawler, Tenryu and Perfect. Flair and Backlund start it off, and neither Monsoon or Heenan talk about what a historic showdown it legitimately was. When you think of early 80s WWF champ, you think Backlund; When you think of early 80s NWA champ, you think Flair. As best I know, this is the only recorded footage of these two facing each other. There was an early 80s "title unification" match at the Omni but I don't think footage of that was ever shown on TV. So you get a fairly decent chunk of a Flair/Backlund match, years later than you would have wanted it, but they work it like an actual match (as opposed to spending the time trying to lift a guy's leg over the ropes). Papa Shango interrupts as the 3rd entrant but gets disposed of immediately, so we get a 4 minute Backlund/Flair match, and that's pretty neat. Now, Backlund was in this Rumble for over an hour, but I thought he looked pretty bad during at least his first half hour, and 1993 Backlund had a ton of weird timing issues. It often felt like Backlund was purposely trying to throw off his opponents' timing during this run, but he doesn't seem the type to do that. 

The two major standouts of this Rumble are Flair and Lawler. They're each in for just 15-20 minutes but their activity and execution and sheer knowledge of how to work a great Rumble is unparalleled. Flair must have had a running bet to see how many eye pokes he could fit in to his run, as he cuts off every single spot with an eye poke and it's incredible. My favorite was right after Max Moon came in and hit a fiery babyface sequence, and Flair tapped him on the shoulder and poked him in the eyes before just walking off. Lawler looked amazing during his whole run, punching everyone in sight and selling even better, getting into battles with guys we never got to see him battle (like Lawler/Backlund, or Lawler/TENRYU! Just the idea of a Lawler/Tenryu singles match makes me angry that they were even in the same ring and it didn't happen). Lawler has an awesome moment with Max Moon, where Max hits his nice corner spinning heel kick on Lawler, goes for it again and eats a huge backdrop bump to the floor. Huge bumps to the floor were one of the great things about this Rumble as I'd say 2/3 of the eliminations were dangerous bumps or bad landings, and that's an insanely high percentage. Also, Lawler has these incredible lowrider car show screen printed tights. Perfect targets Flair and Lawler and anything those three do with and against each other is gold, and if you want to talk about disgusting eliminations then you have to talk about Lawler and Perfect. 

Lawler takes the highest elimination bump of the match, getting launched by Perfect, and then immediately cashes in that receipt. Dibiase and Koko start shoving Perfect over, and Lawler begins yanking him by the head, really making it look like Perfect was desperately trying to hold on to that bottom rope, turning it into a really violent elimination. Referees are trying to pull Lawler away, guys in the ring are shoving Perfect, and Perfect hangs on to the bottom rope as long as humanly possible. It's, ahem, perfect. Knobbs, Skinner, and Samu have really memorable 3 minute runs, and you need a few high end crash and burn guys to make a Rumble good. Knobbs got a huge crowd reaction and had a real fired up run, Skinner came in like a dangerous potato throwing asshole, and Samu came in throwing headbutts. They all took tremendous bumps to elimination, with Samu's maybe the most dangerous. Undertaker had come out midway through (hilariously right as Lawler was headed back through the curtain, and Lawler gives Undertaker a wide berth) and he eliminates Samu by setting him on the top rope and shoving him hard, Samu flipping onto the apron on his head before going to the floor. Berzerker was fun during his 5 minutes, but with a guy who can eat up that much of the ring you hope for more than 5 minutes. I loved how, when Berzerker entered the ring, he went around the ring literally hitting every single person in the match. He didn't focus on anyone (until following Backlund to the floor and hitting him with a chair) but instead just stomped and clubbed his way through everyone. Koko also had a good run, building off 10 year feuds by going after Lawler while gleefully hiking up his gigantic High Energy windbreaker pants. 

The halves of the match are really clearly divided, as the ring needs to be fully cleared so Giant Gonzalez can debut and attack the Undertaker. I liked the Gonzalez debut, even though they never actually learned how to film him. When a guy is *actually* 8 feet tall, you don't need to film him from the floor up. He's the tallest man in pro wrestling history! Show him from far away so you can see how much larger he is than anything else in the arena! When you shoot him ground up it just makes him look like a normal guy, albeit a normal guy wearing a fur and muscle suit.  The problem is, since you had to clear the ring for that angle, and you front loaded the Rumble with most of the best workers, you're left with IRS, Damien DeMento, and Backlund when the smoke clears. It takes quite awhile to build any of that lost momentum back, with even a Natural Disasters Explode moment feeling tepid. Earthquake went right after Typhoon with no explanation, eliminated him, and then it was never mentioned again (Earthquake was gone at the end of the month and worked WAR for the rest of the year). 

Carlos Colon comes out fairly late, but it's really weird because he clearly belonged in the first half of this when it felt like they were legitimately trying to bring in a ton of regional champs. What would Carlos Colon even mean to a 1993 WWF audience? Also, you better believe Monsoon referred to the 45 year old Colon as a youngster after both he and Heenan had spent the entire match using Backlund's age 43 as a negative against him.  I would love a show of hands at the Arco Arena to find out how many in attendance knew anything about Carlos Colon. They had him announced for the Rumble several weeks before the match, but had only showed a picture of him during Mean Gene's Rumble previews, no footage or anything. It would have been far more valuable to see Colon throwing punches and headbutts at Lawler, Tenryu, and Flair; instead we get to see a lot of Colon against Damien DeMento, which is weird! Tatanka was by far the most exciting worker of the 2nd half of this, and his chops in the corner were thrown with more force than any Flair chop. 

Bob Backlund is 28th elimination, going past the hour mark and getting the most mixed reaction of the match. For the first half hour the crowd audibly hated him, but the longer he stayed in the more the crowd seemed to be pulling for him. When he was eliminated I genuinely could not tell if the loud reaction was applause for him making it that far, or relief that Backlund was not going to be in the main event of WrestleMania. The finish run is Macho Man vs. Yokozuna, which was better than I remembered, but the execution of the finish is as bad as I remembered. They work a 5 minute singles match as the final two, and it's good. Savage gets Yokozuna reeling with axe handles, Yokozuna hits a great thrust kick, Savage fights back, and eventually hits the big elbow. And then Savage pins Yokozuna...in the Rumble...and Yoko kicks out, sending Savage over the top to the floor. I kinda get it, I guess? The pinfall attempt just looks stupid and makes Savage look like a total dweeb, but I guess I can buy that the two of them had been one on one so long at the end that Savage went into Singles Match Mode. But that elimination? One man just cannot press a man from his back, over the top rope, and make it look like anything other than a man jumping over the top rope. Savage does as well as possible in that situation, but surely we could have figured out a better way for Yokozuna to eliminate Macho Man. This Rumble is way too long and dips hard for a bit in the middle, but that first half has some of the best work in Royal Rumble Match history and that alone makes this one of the best Rumbles, warts and all. 

This feels like one of the best WWF PPVs and it's weird that it doesn't get discussed as such. I thought every match was a varying degree of great, with the Rumble Match itself being too long and having too much deadweight but still succeeding due to a lot of hard work from the entrants. Lawler, Flair, Perfect, Dibiase, and several guys who were only in for 3 minutes all had great showings, and it had some of the nastiest elimination bumps of any Rumble. The other 4 matches are great in their specific way, and I think it's important that they all accomplished something very different, all felt very different. The opening tag is one of the great WWF tags of the 90s, Michaels/Jannetty had a better match at a house show the day before (and a much better match a few months later on Raw) but still delivered here, the big boys fight was fast paced and fun, and Hart/Razor gave us a Bret singles match that we rarely saw (they had two PPV matches and to my knowledge no other singles matches that made tape). This was a great show. Every single match is recommended. 

Best Matches: 

1. Beverly Brothers vs. Steiners

2. Bret Hart vs. Razor Ramon

3. Big Boss Man vs. Bam Bam Bigelow

4. The Rumble Match

5. Shawn Michaels vs. Marty Jannetty

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WWF Handheld Boston Garden 1/9/93

Our brave director missed the Crush/Skinner match that I really would have wanted to see, and also missed out on the Terry Taylor/Jason Knight match (which feels like a really weird match to be happening on a 1993 WWF house show), but managed to get the rest of the show:

Most of the Show

The Nasty Boys vs. Money Inc. 

ER: I was never a big Nasty Boys guy, but I think I might really like babyface house show Nasty Boys? Their face run was only about 6 months at the very end of their WWF run, but the Boston crowd being loudly into them and believing a title change could happen really made this match. It was a simple tag that didn't really have a lot of offense but built to a couple of very clever moments. Dibiase was good at running control, and things settled nicely into Money Inc. keeping Sags away from Knobbs by working over his back. Sags got knocked to the floor, got his back driven into the turnbuckles several times, had his back worked over with bearhugs from both guys, and the longer it went the more fans wanted to see Knobbs. There were two very unexpected beats in the match, cool ideas that Knobbs executed perfectly. 

We get an actual Nasty Boys pinfall that looks like a surprised house show title switch. Sags and Dibiase collided and both went down, referee included. Knobbs, instead of dragging Sags closer for the tag, just drags Sags out of the ring, wakes up the ref, and pins Dibiase. Crowd loses their minds, Jimmy Hart is on the apron freaking out, and of course the match gets restarted. Later in the match, Dibiase is still wearing down Sags, has him locked in a sleeper, and Sags is already down on his knees unresponsive. The ref lifts Sags' arm  twice and drops it lifelessly back down, and as the arm is getting lifted a third and final time Knobbs just sprints into the ring straight at Dibiase, who drops the sleeper to focus on Knobbs *just* before Sags arm would have dropped for the third time. The timing on the spot was excellent, and without the timing it would have looked bad for everyone involved. Sags' arm was clearly going down for a third time and if Knobbs was late it would have looked like an awful botched kickout. Instead, the visual was awesome, with Knobbs charging in and immediately taking the focus off the split second from loss Sags, who drops straight to the mat in a heap, no longer being held up by the ref or Dibiase. It's wild hearing a crowd of children chanting "NASTY! NASTY!" but these kids fucking love getting nasty. There's a good nearfall for the Nasties with a nice pin break by Dibiase, and just as we're about to see Sags get his revenge (awesomely dragging IRS up to a seated position by his necktie) Dibiase bashes him with the Halliburton to retain. My brain never thinks of the Nasties as a babyface team, but I really liked the vibes here. 

Undertaker vs. Papa Shango

ER: I love the theatricality of 1993 Undertaker, reaching back practically to the mat just to throw his big uppercuts, and I love how far Papa Shango bumps for them. Undertaker threw hard stomach kicks (never think of 1993 Taker when I think of great stomach kicks, but he throws them with a great downward angled shove) and some Kent Tekulve release point uppercuts, and this is almost entirely Shango bumping around for everything Taker does. I kept wondering if Shango was going to go on offense at all after Taker misses an elbowdrop as Shango rolled out of the way, but when Papa Shango  got up he walked right into a hotshot. I think my favorite part of the match was Shango bumping that hotshot all the way across the ring, winding up with his boots over the bottom rope. Papa Shango finally does take over on the floor (after maybe hitting Undertaker with the urn or his top hat or something in the corner) and hits Taker with a chair, then drops a couple nice elbows in the ring, finally gets to throw punches of his own (nice ones, too), and lands hard on his butt after a missed legdrop (great timing too, with Undertaker sitting up to avoid it). Undertaker powers up to his feet from a chinlock and hits a Stone Cold Stunner, which was not a thing I was expecting. The match wrapped up a little too simply after a Taker chokeslam, but I really liked the moments where you really got a sense of how large both guys were while slugging it out.  

Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Typhoon

ER: This was an awesome Bigelow house show performance, and one of the best Typhoon singles match performances I've seen. They do a few things I wasn't expecting, and kept managing to surprise the people recording the show with cool exchanges (yet didn't get them to stop complaining about the lack of "highspots"). It starts with Bigelow being unable to budge Typhoon with shoulderblocks, so he tries a running crossbody and gets caught WAY high up by Typhoon and then planted with a front slam. Typhoon catching, holding, and slamming Bam Bam felt like a really big spot to go to so early in the match, and honestly felt like something they could have used as the finish. They work some surprisingly quick exchanges, with the best being Bigelow missing a hard charge chest first into the corner and getting slammed, then rolling to dodge a Typhoon elbowdrop, getting to his feet and dropping a headbutt, only to faceplant when Typhoon rolls out of the way. Great stuff. They tussle a bit, and Bigelow grabs Typhoon by the waist and flings him forward into the bottom buckle, and let me say that I LOVE when someone gets grabbed by their waistband and yanked into something and more people need to do that now. 

Bigelow tries to hold Typhoon down and work a front chancery, but in a wild spot Typhoon powers up and attempts a vertical suplex, but Bigelow shifts his weight and lands on Typhoon. It looked really dangerous and almost like Typhoon dropped Bigelow, but Bigelow went for the pin so quickly that it had to be the actual plan. Bigelow really bumps around for Typhoon, getting whipped hard into the buckles a few times and getting flattened when he tries to slam Typhoon and Typhoon just drops on him. Typhoon ran wild with lariats (including a big corner lariat), and really my only gripe is how sudden and tidy the finish is, with Typhoon catching boot on a charge and then Bigelow hitting the top rope headbutt. They really just went home with it and the match really could have soared with a Typhoon kickout and a couple extra minutes. Still, this match delivered and really showed the kind of impressive stuff Bigelow was doing when the TV cameras weren't watching. 

60 Minute Iron Man: Bret Hart vs. Ric Flair

ER: I have never actually watched any of the house show Iron Man Bret matches. I am a huge Bret fan, a guy whose work so far holds up better than almost all of his contemporaries, and huge iron man matches against Flair and Owen have existed on tape since before an old tape trader like me had ever traded on tape. However, the Bret/Shawn iron man match is one of the worst Great Matches in history, an opinion that is far less controversial today than it was 20 years ago. I can't imagine there is a Bret match in existence that I would not watch before watching that WrestleMania main event again, and that alone has probably been the main reason that - until now - I have never seen the other available Bret iron man matches. It's far easier - and more interesting - to see how many 8-15 minute gems Bret had with literally every member of the WWF roster over a decade plus stretch, than spending 60 minutes on one potential gem. But here we are, no turning back now. We've reached the monster at the end of the book. 

One thing this match has over the 1996 match is how bizarre it is that it even happened. 1993 WWF was focused directly at the eyes of 8-12 year olds. A match *guaranteed* to go an entire hour is the literal last thing 8-12 year olds would want to see at a pro wrestling show, and I imagine there were some parents who got dragged to a wrestling show against their will who suddenly found themselves faced with a full hour of one wrestling match. Shows what I know, as over the course of this hour long match the crowd only got louder, only hated Flair more, and only rooted harder for Bret. This match really blows up the theory that people were leaving the Shawn/Bret match in droves because they "just weren't ready for a match that was advertised to be an hour long". I assumed that old talking point would apply here, but the crowd interest did not dip the entire match, growing loud for all if Bret's comebacks but staying invested during limb work and submissions. I would love more insight into the mindset of running this gimmick at house shows, seeing it succeed, and then not ever using the stipulation for a Coliseum Video taping. 

This was a strongly built 60 minute match that felt shorter than its one hour, which is a strong point in its favor. The first 30 was simple house show work, strong body selling from both, and the kind of attention to crowd work that you'd expect. Bret even started things chippier than normal, slapping Flair to break in the corner, which I thought was notable as Flair had done nothing untoward to earn that slap. I could just hear Jesse Ventura griping about this on commentary. There's strong work around hammerlocks, with Flair wrenching one in before reaching down and picking Bret's ankle to loud WHOOOOOS. The pro-Flair contingent was quite loud through the first 20 minutes, never really turning on him but eventually getting drowned out by the louder pro-Bret fans. Flair is good about begging off in good spots peppered into this hour, with the first (and maybe my favorite) when they go back to standing hammerlock exchanges and Flair snaps Bret to the mat by pulling his hair, but backpedals quick when Bret kips up immediately. Bret had some great selling around being whipped into the turnbuckles, but not from his usual chest first bump (which came much later). Flair had taken over with stomach kicks and whips, and Bret hit the buckles and slowly dropped to his knees like his arms went temporarily numb. Bret had small touches like that through the entire match, and it felt like Flair's selling was stronger as well (and I've seen plenty of long Flair matches where that gets thrown out the window). 

Flair works a long hammerlock with his feet on the middle rope, really milking the rope cheating to get the crowd out and angry. Heenan would intentionally cause a disturbance on the floor, and whenever Earl Hebner would go quiet him down not only would Flair continue using the ropes to cheat, but he would rake at Bret's eyes. Flair did all the tricks really well, making sure the ropes shook just enough when he would remove his feet, enough for Earl to be suspicious but not enough to get him to actually do anything.  Flair threw chops in the corner and Bret came firing out with great right hands, backing Flair into a different corner and climbing the buckles for 10 count punches, only for Flair to drop Hart with an inverted atomic drop so impactful that I have to assume Bret was working this iron man match with Iron Balls. Fantastic atomic drop. Bret finally takes over when he rolls out of the way of a Flair elbowdrop, gives Flair a big backdrop, and starts working a figure 4 to loud cheers. Flair made it to the ropes and Bret took him right back to the mat with a nice vertical suplex and middle rope Hitman elbow, then went back to the figure 4. Flair wisely goes back to Hart's eyes, and Flair going to the eyes was something that got played up the entire match, always the thing Flair could reliably go back to, always a thing that would make the crowd angrier every time it happened. After raking Bret's eyes, Flair was a real asshole and threw headlock punches right into the eye he snagged (and would hold the headlock so the punch to the eye was obscured from Hebner's view). 

They manage to do a great job shifting the momentum of this match very believably, with neither guy in control for too long and all the transitions being simple things that made sense (and most of Flair's transitions back to offense were from eye rakes). There's a great sequence where Flair nails his big kneedrop and comes up limping theatrically, but still goes for another only to miss, and find himself right back in the figure 4. Bret works a legbar and a couple rolling leg snaps, but Flair tosses him through the ring ropes by yanking on his waistband (see Bigelow/Typhoon from earlier). Bret makes it back in with a sunset flip but Flair stays on his feet walking backwards alllllllll the way to the other side of the ring, then uses the ropes for stability as he punches Bret to break, eventually leading to a huge delayed back suplex (I love when Flair works suplexes into his game). Flair seems in control but Bret gets the surprise first pin after an Irish whip and missed clothesline allows him to get a very slick O'Connor Roll around 27 minutes in.

Flair begs off and gets a cheap 1 count to restart, but nicely counters a Bret side headlock with a nasty knee breaker, then starts tugging on Bret's leg like he wants that leg separated from Bret's hip. If you wanted to rip a man's leg clean off his body, I don't see it looking much different than what Flair was doing to Bret here. Flair worked a figure 4, eventually getting Bret to tap around the 35 minute mark when Flair grabbed the middle rope for leverage. Great - possibly unintentional - when Bret taps out on Hebner's knee, but then grabs Earl's leg right after to try to get him to notice Flair holding the ropes, tripping Hebner and giving Flair time to get off the ropes undetected. Bret is great at selling the leg, bumping and crumbling in fine ways as Flair throws pointed kicks right at the patella before, locking in another figure 4 to draw ANOTHER tap less than 3 minutes after the prior tap. It's real smart psychology to go right back to a submission that just got you the fall in an iron man, but it's not often you actually see someone getting a logical tap like this and I loved that they did it to put Flair up 2-1.

Flair drapes Bret's leg over the middle rope and throws kneelifts into his inner knee and thigh, drops him hard with a headlock punch, and I love how Bret takes hard drops from corner punches the way a 1968 French Catch babyface sells uppercuts in the corner, falling with one limb draped over a rope, looking like a man who is actively being aided by the ropes. We get a nice throwback to early in the match when Bret fires back with punches from the same corner of the ring where he first tired of Flair's bullshit, leading Flair to hit another knee breaker. Bret absorbs the knee breaker and feels it, but as he's bumping the knee breaker he manages to grab Flair's head of hair and smash him with a headbutt, sending Flair down to the mat with him. They have a nice punch out and Flair gets whipped upside down into the buckles, runs the length of the apron to the top rope, gets caught with a punch to the stomach on his axe handle attempt, then dropped with a vertical suplex. Flair working with a lead is a fun thing, as he starts cheating in different ways while still keeping the classics, and a Flair mule kick gets a great angry reaction from the now loud Bret crowd. There's a firm denial to Hebner, but that mule kick to Bret's iron balls will not be enough to go up 3-1. Flair starts going for a bunch of quick falls, and there's a great bit where he has his legs over the middle buckle while going for four straight pins, Hart nudging his shoulder up each time, and this crowd is getting tired of all of this rope cheating. 

They fight over a real solid backslide that looks like it could tie things up, and as Hart bears in on Ric in the corner after the kickout, Flair does the most cool, casual, perfect eye poke you've ever seen, strutting out of the corner past Bret and his closed up eyes. Bret just stormed up to him and Flair poked him in the eye as easily as he slapped a thousand stewardesses on the ass. Flair hits a nice vertical suplex, but gets caught and slammed off the top when he goes up. Hart moves to recover in a corner, and when Flair throws a big knife edge Bret pulls the straps down and gets Flair to beg and backpedal all the way to the opposite corner. Fans react huge to the straps coming down, and Flair takes some of his biggest bumps of the match on this hopeful comeback, including an even higher backdrop than earlier. Bret really drags him to the mat with a neck wrenching bulldog, hits the backbreaker, another Hitman elbowdrop, but Flair will not stay down and time is getting short. Bret keeps upping his offense and hits a superplex (while also selling the damage that he took delivering the suplex so well) and evens things up 2-2 with the Sharpshooter with just 5 minutes left, causing children to literally jump up and down in the aisles. 

Bret sets Flair up for another superplex (which I thought was interesting within the match, to go back to the superplex instead of going back to the sharpshooter the way Flair went right back to the figure 4) but Flair rakes at the eyes AGAIN, then nails Bret with a loaded fist. You see, after Bret tied things up, Heenan got in the ring to cause a big stir, but slyly slipped something into Flair's hand while checking on him. Flair made strong use of the weapon, distracting Hart by going to the eyes first and then putting him down hard when Bret staggered back towards him. Bret took a hard flat back straight body bump, going down like someone who has been hit with a weaponized fist. It's not enough to beat Bret, and we get a nice throwback to that earlier blocked sunset flip, with Bret once again landing one and not giving Flair time to back out of it, instead pantsing Flair to finally get him down to the mat. This is not stooging bare ass Flair, as Ric responds angrily to having his ass bared in Boston, going right back to yanking at Bret's leg and spinning into a figure 4....which leaves him wide open for a small package with 15 seconds to go, giving Hart the 3-2 win and making a hot Garden crowd lose their minds. 

This was a really great iron man match, great enough to at least be arguably better than their title change match. I usually lean towards a tighter match, but they did a really great job filling 60 minutes and that is an impressive feat. Both men looked great on offense, and both sold compellingly enough for a crowd of all ages to stay engaged. Bret was really credible at selling all of Flair's cheating, doing some genuinely great physical acting that put over exactly how Flair was gaining an advantage. Flair's cheating wouldn't have been half as effective at drawing heat without Bret kicking his heels into the mat and really struggling through every hold, not to mention his excellent move-appropriate bumping. Flair had a great performance too, one of his best in WWF. He looked like he was in his absolute comfort zone here, knowing exactly how to work these 5,800 people into a lather while hitting all the expert notes his fans would want. He had so much charisma here and knew how and when to play it to the crowd or play it to one specific person. The match peaked in great ways and made it feel like any result was in play, and that's going to keep it above most iron mans. 

Because, for all the stories we've heard about working 60 minutes every night 8 nights a week in front of 10,000 loud fans, there are only *so many* great 60 minute matches, and this is one of them. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE WWF 305 LIVE

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