Terry Rudge vs. Ray Steele WOS 7/25/87
MD: This is eight three-minute rounds. We get all but round two. You don't even notice due to the sheer consistency that these two wrestle with. It's exactly what you'd expect. Rudge is the world's best imaginable Barry Darsow, mean and grimy and grinding, quick to throw in an uppercut or a clubbering blow. Steele has the height advantage and looks like some sort of aging vicar, with the stiff upper lip, but a righteous meanstreak if you get him mad.
It has the sort of escalation you want from a UK heavyweight match, a lot of struggling over specific holds (they spend the fourth-round almost entirely fighting over a double knucklelock/test of strength), but Rudge's tendency to sneak shots in leads to Steele firing back, then they're right back into it. I loved how the height advantage played into things. Steele could come over the top to gain advantage on holds, but Rudge would grapevine the leg and turn it into a trip. He'd also come in from underneath with cheapshots now and again.
Ultimately it's a draw, so while we get that escalation, we never quite get payoff, just the two swiping at each other in exhaustion at the end. In this case, I actually think the payoff would have been as simple as a Steele bodyslam. They tease it twice in the match, once in the end of the fourth and then once in the fifth as a counter attempt to a Rudge cross body. Because they make the struggle matter so much and because it never even pays off, it means the next slam that this crowd sees, no matter the match, ought to matter all the more. It's good stuff in the way that most classic UK wrestling with solid wrestlers is; a bit long, a bit daunting because you really have to pay attention to value the connective tissue, but worth it in the end.
PAS: Remember when British wrestling was cool instead of embarrassing? This was the kind of thing which made Euro wrestling great, a pair of past their prime Thatcher voters with fag ash on their trousers having a mid day pub dust up over a five quid cricket wager. Rudge is an all timer, he is in that Finlay/Regal phylum, world class wrestlers who would smash in your teeth as soon as they would put on a leg lock. I loved how he kept throwing these little cheap shot headbutts, where he would grind his sweaty bald head against the cheek and eyes of Steele. Steele was great too, he would use his height to really lean into holds, and threw some nice kidney shots, and an awesome diving in ring tope which looked like it cracked Rudge's cheekbone. I would have liked a real finish, but the match ending with both guys exchanging dental surgery level uppercuts is a great way to ease into a draw. Class stuff.
ER: Fans of modern New Japan would likely just complain about how nothing happened in this match, and it's a match that goes the full 8 rounds with no pinfalls, a 0-0 draw, with big strikes that don't really happen until the home stretch. But I was hooked the entire time. Rudge is just so cool, England's answer to Australia's Roger Ward. He does this great act here where he's a clear asskicker who's playing coy. The entire match was worth seeing just for the post-bell interactions between these two after every round has ended. Rudge does all these annoying little things begging to be hit illegally without outright begging, practically rubbing his big toe into the mat while going "Who meeeeee?". He kept rubbing and pressing his head into the larger Steele, avoiding eye contact the whole time as if he was somehow coming off innocent. Eventually Steele does finally slap him late, and Rudge goes into this great drama routine, holding his face and staggering, really playing it up to the ref while the announcer knows exactly what he is doing. It was all beautiful. But I also loved how Steele came out to start the next round with a handshake, and Rudge reluctantly accepts it as he assumes it's a trap, as he was being a total shit and knew he had it coming. But it was just that, a handshake. It's amazing how "little" can happen in these matches but the style is so engaging to me that suddenly we're through 8 rounds and I'm still excited like it was the first round. Steele is a big guy and gets a couple of great leverage chokes on Rudge, really forcing Rudge to lift up his weight to get out of them, and we get a couple of great long moments of struggle and balance. They both work each other's necks in a way that give me flashbacks to weeks of chiropractor appointments, blocking snap mares with their neck muscles. Those European uppercuts down the stretch look like they would have dislocated my neck from my body. I love this stuff.
Jumbo Tsuruta/The Great Kabuki/Masa Fuchi vs. Toshiaki Kawada/Genichiro Tenryu/Ashura Hara AJPW 2/24/88
PAS: All Japan six man tags are pretty consistently great stuff, and this was a murderers row trios which hadn't made TV or tape before. Look at this line up of badasses and they beat on each other like you would expect. I loved all of the nasty rear naked chokes we got early, both Kabuki and Fuchi look like they are trying pop Hara's head off his shoulders, and Kawada throws a nasty one on Fuchi too. Kawada had some awkward moments of flying, and it was clearly a good move for him to ditch all of his Tim Horner offense later in his career, he gets down to asskicking later and is the Kawada we all love. Everyone in this was great, Tenryu and Jumbo were killing people with saves, Kabuki was throwing his awesome uppercuts and thrust kicks and Fuchi was doing some torturing. We get a frantic finish run full of big bombs and the whole match was a joy.
MD: Totally agree with Phil here. This was good stuff with guys just crushing each other. Of course Kawada was going to end up as good as he was, sharing the ring with guys like this. They gave him a surprising amount of the match. Kabuki, on the other hand was heavily protected, but that let him come in and decapitate people with his strikes and then head back out, never harming the match. There was a good ebb and flow here, with limb-based control segments. I absolutely love that they used the crab both to target the leg in one and then the back in another. When do you ever see that in a single match? My favorite thing about the finish is that it was set up with a shot from the outside from the opposite corner. It was visually jarring but in a good way. There are a lot of late 80s/early 90s AJPW six-mans at this level but that doesn't mean we're not better off for having one more.
Fantastics vs. Eddie Golden/Jimmy Golden SSW 8/5/93
PAS: SSW is a Beau James run indy in Kingsport TN, which has been running for over 25 years. They have had a bunch of southern wrestling legends come through the fed and they just launched a subscription service. This is an early card in the feds history (so much that at this point James, sort of the Lawler of the fed is still working as a ref) and we got a chance to see early Eddie Golden and Jimmy Golden in the tail end of his prime (he was pretty old, but the Buckhouse Bunk run was still in the future) against the Fauxtastics (Jackie Fulton is replacing Tommy Rogers, which is a nice sized step down). This had some really great moments, I really liked Eddie faking a cheapshot punch, and a lot of the heel miscommunication stuff (I am a mark for an over the shoulder arm ringer spot). Bobby Fulton can really milk a hot tag, he isn't Ricky Morton but he is close, but this match went 35 or so minutes, and I think that is bloated for a southern tag. A 20 minute edit of this match would be really great, you could keep the early heel stuff and the long beatdown section on Bobby, but at 35 the seams started to show. I am excited about this service, there have been some great matches in the little bit of SSW I have gotten my hands on over the years, and I imagine their are some classics which will show up here.
MD: This had all the pros and cons of its setting. It was an indy match in 1993 on a fairly big show for the promotion (at least as best as I could tell). That meant it had all the time in the world and could press the southern tag stylings to their full potential. It meant that they could have an extended shine broken up by heel stalling and shtick after payoff-laden set pieces (often involving heel miscommunication). It's amazing how giving Jimmy Golben was in these moments given his size and that he could have put all that weight on Eddie. It meant that they could still build a double heat with comeback attempts and cut offs, and focused limbwork. Having Bobby Fulton in there always helps because he's one of the best at milking moments. It also had a 20 year old scion of a wrestling family, who was a total natural at some things, like the opening match shtick, but also had to hold up his end of a fairly long match. There were some baffling moments, like when Jackie didn't bump on a forearm miscommunication spot (it'd be repeated a few minutes later in a different context) or Jimmy breaking up a pin that should have won his team the match because it wasn't the finish, or even the ref just spending a bit too much time with Bobby on the distraction spots (though it's Bobby so you sort of buy it anyway). If you like the elements of the southern tag style (and if you don't, I feel bad for you), this had deep dives into those, so there was a lot to like.
Labels: Ashura Hara, Eddie Golden, Fantastics, Genichiro Tenryu, Great Kabuki, Jimmy Golden, Jumbo Tsuruta, Masa Fuchi, New Footage Friday, Ray Steele, Terry Rudge, Toshiaki Kawada
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