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

Hanover 9/10/80 

Le Grand Vladimir vs. Karl Dauberger

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

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

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

Achim Chall vs. Caswell Martin

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

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

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

Axel Dieter vs. The Destroyer

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

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

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

Ed Wiskowski vs. Steve Wright 

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

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

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

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

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Found Footage Friday: HANOVER 1980~! DESTROYER~! UFO~! COLT~! MARTIN~!

MD: More Richard Land Patreon finds. I like to be able to share links with everyone of what we're watching but the simple fact of the matter is that these Germany drops are the most exciting thing in wrestling footage right now, probably. So I'm going to keep covering them and people should just seek the patreon out when so inclined.

 

The Destroyer vs. UFO (Bob Della Serra - Date Unknown but around September/October 1980, maybe 9/8/80?)

MD: 20+ minutes of lost Destroyer footage and more than that, getting to see him in a completely new environment, working a European rounds match in 1980 Germany. UFO was over (lots of chants) and very game. Destroyer has a unique stocky way of walking and they were playing into it hard. He would try something like a full nelson; UFO would get out of it in a specific way such as a reverse monkey flip, and then when Destroyer tried it, he'd get jammed, then UFO would mock the stocky walk in a sort of strut and the fans would go nuts as Destroyer tantrumed around the ring furious.

They'd do bits where Destroyer would control with pretty nasty armwork or by hiding an object and going for the eyes masterfully but the nature of the rounds meant that UFO would be able to come back and make Destroyer stooge some more. He had some nice rolls ups to (including one out of a fireman's carry). I think they ran out of time in the end and it was a draw, but it was entertaining the whole way through. Great find.
 

10/3/80 

UFO vs. Klaus Kauroff 

MD: This was inconclusive but really good while it lasted. Della Serra looked as good as i've ever seen him here and came off as one of the best in the world maybe? Maybe that's a stretch but he was real good here. Karoff was quite good as well. They started with strength spots vs finesse where Karoff would bully UFO only to get wound around at the last second. That lasted right until Della Serra ran into Karoff's fist and it was really an amazing moment. Just a great visual which Karoff than milked for all it was worth because he knew what he had. From there we had around or two of Karoff absolutely bullying UFO, with Della Serra throwing his arms all over the place and really selling it for the back row in a compelling way.

The big comeback was ducking another one of those clothesline punches off the ropes and UFO came back strong, just brutalizing Karoff with these massive haymacker European Uppercuts/Lifters. One after the next as Karoff went down big for them. He'd dodge shots and just keep them coming for a round or two before Karoff started to comeback and everything sort of just ended. Another one that was real good while it lasted though. Simple stuff but so well executed.

Caswell Martin/Karl Dauberger vs. Chris Colt/Francisco (Paco) Ramírez

MD: This was an absolute blast. From the moment Colt came down to the ring, dancing by hooking Ramirez and pulling him towards him and then doing the robot, he was pure entertainment, such a sleazy brilliant heel. Constant reactions to everything. Martin and Ramirez paired off well, with all of Martin's usual spots (landing on his feet out of a mare, the cartwheel counter, the leg splitter where he keeps spreading his feet wider). Once they started the tandem comedy spots, they never looked back. I don't even want to list them all because if you do see this, I don't want to spoil it, but they played the hits (just a taste: the pumphandle switch, the four man headlock into the double headlock charge, an estrella, etc). There wasn't really an ebb and flow here, just one entertaining spot after the other with Colt bumping huge into the corner or having it out with the ref or begging off after the fact. Not a ton of drama here because even when the heels took over, they couldn't keep it for long, but the audience (and German audiences laugh as well as any audience I've ever heard) were in stitches the whole time. Great look at Colt for anyone who's never seen him with a game cast of characters alongside him. Martin, for the footage we have of him, always looks incredible.

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Found Footage Friday: BRAZOS~! CASAS~! LOVE MACHINE~ BEYER~! LUBICH~!

Dick Beyer vs. Bronco Lubich NWA Upstate 1962

MD: Just watching them get introduced, I half wondered if this really was Beyer. We couldn't get close enough to see the nose and the frame from a distance seemed a bit off even for the youngest Beyer I would have seen, but no, within the first few seconds, he gets Lubich in a full nelson and repeatedly slams his head in the top rope and that was enough to convince me. I'd continued to be convinced as the match went on. He wrestled with incredible confidence and presence and ingenuity and imagination. That's Dick Beyer.

He was given the Destroyer gimmick this year so this was towards the end of him wrestling unmasked. Lubich was longer in the tooth and may have even been more managerial. They mention a birthday cake at the start (a birthday cake angle in 1962!) and Poffo (presumably Angelo) as allied with Lubich but hard to say exactly what was going on there. If it's documented somewhere I'd love to hear about it. This was all about Beyer having his way with Lubich though, with Bronco finding ways to get some shots in at the margins. For instance, Beyer dropped him into the leg nelson (with quickfire legwhacks) but right on the rope break, Bronco was on him. Or Beyer got him with an airplane spin but when he went for the second, Lubich grabbed the rope and landed on him. Or after a Giant Swing, Lubich rolled out and was able to ambush Beyer and drive his head into the side of the ring.

Lubich was credibly tough but Beyer looked like the best wrestler in the world and kept on him, finally beating him with a rolling bodyscissors sort of deal and a dropkick. Just a great look at Beyer in 62 right before he'd become the Destroyer.

ER: I wonder if there were any Sell The Arm fans in 1962 Buffalo who were upset at the ways Lubich never paid much mind to Dick Beyer standing and stomping and dropping knees onto his arm and shoulder. Some smart guy in Buffalo rolling his eyes after Dick Beyer gets run the length of the ring apron and flies off into the ringpost, because Bronco was in the ring holding up both arms instead of rubbing his shoulder. Maybe that man existed, because if Dick Beyer was moving like this in 1962 Buffalo then I'd believe anything. Beyer was so far ahead of his time and moved like no other American wrestler, so quick and crafty while built like a spark plug, an acrobat with thump. I love the desperate little ways Lubich tries to stop the onslaught, with his only chance briefly shifting his weight by grabbing for the ropes. If he wasn't a manager, it was a great "wrestling like a manager" performance against one of the coolest to do it. 

Los Brazos vs. Jaque Mate/Dusty Wolfe/The Viking Monterrey 1992

MD: I have no idea who the Viking is. I know it's our job to figure this stuff out for you but no idea. Past one fun staggering bump into the corner off a Porky headbutt, we don't really care about him anyway. Dusty Wolfe is doing his best Jimmy Jack Funk impression with a silly mask but we don't really care about him either in this one. We're laser focused on El Brazo and Jaque Mate, because right from the get go, Mate opens Brazo up and never, ever looks back.

Brazo spends a chunk of this out on the floor bleeding buckets. They seem almost reluctant to put the camera on him before he towels off which is something I'm not sure I've ever really seen in lucha from this era. That's how much blood we're talking about. And while Mate's happy to beatdown the other Brazos with his compatriots, he makes sure to come back out to do more damage. At one point he goes for a chairshot and a fan puts a chair up to try to block it. They even play music to try to rouse the Brazos.

Eventually, Viking tosses El Brazo back in and he goes wild, crashing across the ring, rubbing his own blood on his fist to use it as a weapon, tearing at Mate's mask and then opening him up on the outside. It's a great Brazos comeback but ends abruptly with a Mate foul that the refs miss and the rudos taking it. Great bloody mayhem here.

ER: What a world. Exhausted on a Friday night, I throw this on and am taken away to another world where somebody's 1992 Monterrey tape survived and we get a perfect color distorted tracking lined masterpiece that may as well have been from another dimension. This is a bloody match even within the annals of bloody lucha matches, with Brazo's entire face and torso covered in blood maybe two minutes in, and a long primera beatdown where Porky and Oro also get busted open. It's an all time bizarre rudo team as Jaque Mate recruits two real American goobers - longtime WWF job guy Dusty/Dale Wolfe and another guy doing a truly great job Bad Brody impression - and they all punch the shit out of Los Brazos. I actually liked The Viking as a poor man's Sylvester Terkay, and I thought Wolfe did a real good job punching and scraping away at Porky. Wolfe's punches to bust Porky open were on point and he kept doing a bunch of cool things to work over a cut, like scraping his boot eyelets across Porky's face. 

But yes, the real show is the brutal beating El Brazo takes at the hands of Mate, and the way the crowd physically rallied behind a man completely covered in blood. Men in white dominant polo shirts are coming to Brazo's aid as he's trying to catch his breath and maintain his balance, and then things get surreal when they start playing music mid-match. With the hazy video and choppy tracking, it feels like another channel is bleeding over into ours. Brazo is bleeding out and suddenly an angelic choir is playing over the top of it and it elevates everything to high art. Porky and Oro were great at taking secondary beatings throughout, knowing their brother was the show but not content with hanging back and out of the way. Porky was still in there taking backdrops and getting worked over by both Americans. The Brazos comeback in the Segunda, with a primera dragged out long enough to build that anticipation, was shockingly brief and even more shockingly ended in a Brazos loss. We never get the full satisfaction of Wolfe or Viking getting busted open, even if we get Porky and Oro throwing headbutts that look like they should open cuts. As we eagerly await these American goons getting squashed in various ways by Porky, Jaque knees Brazo in the balls for an undignified loss, music still playing, his brothers confused. Now we need another 30+ year old Monterrey tape to surface that has Los Brazos' bloody revanche.   

Love Machine/Apolo Dantes/La Fiera vs. Negro Casas/Hijo del Solitario/Stuka Monterrey 

MD: Stuka was a replacement for Black Magic. Everyone else was fine in this one, but this was the Casas vs Love Machine show. Two dynamic, imaginative wrestlers, who knew how to mug and make the most of things. You always see something new with both of them and they were matched up here. We start with Casas beating down Love Machine with a table, including jumping on it repeatedly from the apron with it on top of him. Later on, Love Machine gets some great revenge, taking Casas's head and driving it down into the ground from the apron before chasing him into the crowd. And then towards the end, we get the spot that closes the circle, with Love Machine basically punching the table towards Casas. It's just a joy to watch these guys do their thing. Completely iconic stuff.

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All Japan Battle Royal 1/3/79

1/3/79

ER: This is a pretty early iteration of the format that I would come to adore, taken a bit more seriously and worked a lot more dryly. It's only 10 combatants, so there's none of the scrambling chaos of later versions, no huge dogpiles, no betrayed alliances. There are still special moments, obviously, because how could there not be? I like how Destroyer went after Don DeNucci, throwing a great headlock punch before putting him down with an airplane spin into fireman's carry. Now, the ring being filled with traitors and all, of course everyone flips DeNucci onto Destroyer the second Destroyer pinned him. Two favorites eliminated early, and at that point it mostly became Bruiser Brody's ring. Brody even leaps out of the ring to start a fight with the eliminated Destroyer before hopping back in to isolate himself. The remaining natives all jump Brody, and I am amused at guys like Rocky Hata and Takashi Ishikawa holding Brody's arms while Motoshi Okuma is on his knees jamming headbutts into Brody's stomach. However, it is futile. They all dogpile Brody and in perhaps the only instance of this I have ever witnessed, Brody kicks out of a All Japan Battle Royal dogpile! Even Stan Hansen didn't get to kick out of a dogpile!! Of course, Hansen was never foolish enough to allow himself to be dogpiled. We get a good spot where Great Kojika and Karl von Steiger battle over an endless abdominal stretch, with von Steiger finally getting it. And then Rocky Hata gets an inside cradle on both of them! Hata and Okuma try to double up on Brody, but Brody easily pins Okuma using Hata. This really wasn't worked with very much silly energy, and the combination of silliness and unexpected stiffness is what can make these special. Fun moments for sure, but the format was still evolving.

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New Footage Friday: Destroyer, Abby, Finlay, Fish, Navarro, Roadblock, Vilano III

The Destroyer vs. Abdullah the Butcher AJPW 5/23/80

PAS: This match had been on the schedule for a while, and it obviously has larger significance with the Destroyer's passing yesterday. Destroyer is such a legend, that any new chance to see him wrestle is a treat. I really loved the push and pull of this match, Destroyer want's to wrestle a Destroyer match, lock ups, a big butt drop on the knee to set up the figure four etc., and Abby wants to drag him into an Abby match with blood, bumps into chairs and head severing elbow drops. Destroyer keeps getting battered and bloodier, until he says fuck it and goes to war and we get a double count with Destroyer chocking Abby with a chair. Not a ton of Destroyer bloody brawls, but when it breaks down, he shows he can hang in this atmosphere just as well as he can on the mat.

MD: I've been pushing this one for a while and it just happened to work out that it was at the top of the list the day after Beyer died. I'm glad for the kismet even if saddened by the overall situation. There is generally a joy to Destroyer matches, a sort of whimsy. He was a wrestler who was exceptional at his craft, just a wizard on the mat, but that was also so confident in his own abilities and his presence that he allowed himself to emotive and even comedically vulnerable in a way that added to the match and did not detract from it.

And here we get an entirely different side of him. The first half of this match has him trying to solve the problem of Abdullah, and more power to him because he decides the way to go is with repeated figure-four leglock attempts. The back-half, however, is a straight-on headbutt war. I'm pretty certain he loads the mask in there to even the odds, but regardless, the two of them just go at it. It's not at all what you'd expect and it's at times unrelenting and triumphant. There's one headbutt where he staggers Abdullah, which is as good a comeback moment as you'll see. This is Abdullah in AJPW in 1980, so obviously it devolves further, but it does so with blood and metal and escalation.

That this vivid image, a bloody yet valiant mess of a masked man choking out an absolute monster with a chair, is now how I am going to remember the Destroyer is simply a testament to how great he was at so much else.

ER: I must point out that Phil sent me a text saying we were writing this match up WELL before news of Beyer's passing, which would have felt like a coincidence if he hadn't also been sending me a bunch of Airwolf texts the past several weeks. Destroyer is a guy who has been criminally underwritten by us, and I'm not just saying that because he passed, but because he's clearly a guy who is as much a Segunda Caida Guy as anyone. It's a lame observation, but I just love the way he moves in a ring. He has a bunch of his own Finlay type moves, the kind of things that come off so natural but obviously must be way harder or else we would see them more often. I love early on how he takes this big (but safe and smart) bump to the floor, Abby chucking him down the length of the ring and Destroyer bumping out to the apron to the floor; later on Abby does something similar and Destroyer grabs the ropes at the right time to effectively stop it. He's really smart at leaving those kind of breadcrumbs in a match. 

There are not many things I like more in wrestling than Abby dropping elbows, I love the way he angles his elbowdrops, love the degree they land, love when he charges in and misses his big killshot sliding elbowdrop, love them all. They're really smart about pacing them out so they still feel strong, and throwing in the missed shots at the right time to give Destroyer a chance to go back in control. By the time it devolves into headbutt exchanges I'm in love. One of my favorite matches ever is Destroyer and Killer Karl Kox (under a mask) doing just think, and I love the visual of these two locked in and just clunking heads together. The red color scheme on Destroyer only adds to the visuals of this wrestler pushed too far, this man dragged down to Abby's level, and him finally grabbing a chair and smacking him with it was great. I'm confident you'll be seeing a lot more Destroyer on these electronic pages.

TKG: Maan, I'm a fan of the Destroyer and am pretty sure there is another match between these two that I dug a ton and he just passed, but this match left me empty. Abby normally brings more structure to a match and this felt like it could've been Destroyer working this match vs anyone. A good chunk of this is Abby bumping rudo missing stuff as Destroyer evades him. It's not Rayo doing Ole spots as rudos tumble. And Destroyer has neat evade moves, especially liked the spot where Abby wants to take it to the streets and goes to toss Destoryer out of ring only for Destroyer to land on apron (real early in match), and Abby is a fun rudo tumbling....and then the final AJPW no finish out of control brawl, doesn't feel that out of control.

Dos Caras/Canek/Villano III vs. Negro Navarro/El Signo/El Torre Infernal UWA 10/31/92

ER: This is not an important match, not a spectacular match, but a match I instantly swooned for because I actually had no idea we would ever get footage of ROADBLOCK working Mexico, The Towering Inferno himself (which is a GREAT name for a giant fat gringo in lucha), the man with some unexplainable gaps in his pro wrestling career, but someone who managed to have stays in Japanese garbage feds, big lucha feds, and the biggest company in wrestling for several years. He's an odd footnote who probably should have been a bigger deal, the classic "if you were born 10 years earlier" kind of guy, but also a tall fat guy during an era when Vince still loved tall fat guys, but apparently didn't love Roadblock. He would have had to have been on their radar, so perhaps there's a semi-interesting story about why Roadblock never went north? Anyway, Roadblock is a fun towering inferno in the center of this very standard match, bullying much smaller men into corners, missing elbowdrops to give them comebacks, falling into fans in the front rows during tecnicos comebacks, takes his mammoth bump over the top to the floor in spectacular fashion, and somehow gets to pin one of the biggest stars in lucha history TWICE. There are better wrestlers in the match, but they couldn't possibly have the presence of El Torre Infernal. Villano III had some wonderful athletic moments, loved how high he stood in the air before delivering a monkey flip; and we got some great Misionarios moments, with my favorite being Negro Navarro getting armdragged to the floor and taking that smooth feet first through the ropes to the floor lucha bump, causing him to give El Signo a baseball slide dropkick. But this was about The Towering Inferno, who looks like a truth giant while getting his hands raised by the tiny ref. There are other Roadblock UWA matches, and I will be reviewing those, obviously.

TKG: They line this up at the start with Roadblock v Canek, which makes sense as you expect the big spot to be Canek bodyslamming Roadblock. And Roadblock's a guy who you always loved as the guy in a match built around "can an opponent with a power offense lift this big motherfucker" (Luger opponent setting up Luger v Giant). And it's bizarre cause that Roadblock v Canek match up never seems to be as heated as it should be. On the other hand every Villano v Roadblock and every Roadblock v Dos Caras interaction is fire. Should also be said that Navarro starts out matched with Dos Caras and Villano III starts with Signo and Navarro seems more fired up when working Canek and Signo with Caras. Signo pulls out a fork or some type of foreign object way early in first fall and him thowing blows with the shank is violent but also kind of out of place. Roadblock as bumping big rudo is fun and yeah it's a shame he didn't get a longer big run somewhere.

MD: Did we know that Roadblock was in WWC in 1991 as well? I didn't. Also, he'd been wrestling since 87? Trained by Larry Sharpe too? All of these are things I did not know. Look, I liked his presence here. A lot of times when you get bigger guys in lucha, they're short but fat, your Brazos or whatever. Even Kraneo is only billed as 6'1". Sometimes you'll get a really tall guy who isn't fat like Thunder or Marco Corleone. Rarely do you get a towering guy like Roadblock and it was a nice visual to see him up against everyone else. You got the sense that the Missionaries were glad to have him in their corner and to sort of use him as an element to shape the match around. So, I liked that, and yeah, I wouldn't mind seeing him more, both here and in Puerto Rico. But yeah, this was pretty sloppy all around and not just Roadblock. Villano III looked great. Roadblock had, as I said, a super presence. Things even sort of built to a fun moment where he faced off against Caras that was better for the anticipation than the actual payoff. That's all I've got though. Still, I'd see more if there is more.

Bobby Ocean/Drake Evans vs. Bobby Fish/Fit Finlay IYFW 5/18/12

MD: Good, grounded local indy tag match. I've seen less Bobby Fish than you have, but I was at least somewhat happily surprised here. He lost focus a little bit at points, relative to Finlay who was casually laser-focused (casually everything actually; more on that in a moment), but his stuff looked good and appropriate and I have no qualms.

Finlay was great. Completely nonchalant while still being as violent as ever. The targeted offense to Evans' leg was nasty, especially the bodyslams into the ropes. If you're going to have a smaller ring, use it. I loved how he crossed his heart in front of the ref to show that he had made the tag when he had not and how he just encroached into the ring later on when there was no chance at all that he'd get away with it. There was a hint of mischief there that you'd see much earlier in his career but not in his WCW or WWE runs.

This was structured well enough with a double heat and a couple of relatively hot tags for the crowd size. The babyfaces were fine and played their part well enough. The time limit restart was weird and unnecessary and hurt the flow a bit but overall, it was fun to see Finlay in this setting, a setting which probably did Fish some favors as well.

ER: I really liked this, and thought it was a tremendous Finlay performance. The bulk of this match was Finlay beating Ocean and Evans around the ring, and he looked as good here as he ever looked. It's truly amazing how he was able to come back after several years and still look like the best guy in the ring, age be damned. This was among his very last pro wrestling matches ever (you know, unless he decides to show everybody how he's the best AARP eligible wrestler in the world any day now...) and his skill level is still just off the charts, one of my absolute favorites, a guy who I always love seeing control a wrestling ring. There were a lot of gems from his indy run (and seeing Finlay/Thatcher live is a cool feather I get to wear in my cap) but I also really liked matches like this against guys you hadn't heard of and would otherwise not check out. Finlay sports a WCW era singlet and beats these two like he was working a WCW syndicated show. You're obviously going to love him dropping a knee to Evans' temple, doing a big butt splash right onto the inside of his knee, throwing the hardest short arm clothesline in wrestling, stomping on Evans' hand when it was lingering on the mat for too long, and slamming him leg first into the ropes. 

My favorite little Finlay moment was Evans reaching out for a hot tag and Finlay kicking his arm. Fish was fine enough as a generic indy kicker, and I dug he and Finlay cutting off the ring. Really this whole match was like 90% Finlay/Fish in control, and you couldn't get much of a feeling for Ocean or Evans until Evans late match tag in. That said, both were professional and handled their end of things well. I especially liked Ocean doing an across the ring leap for a hot tag, and really liked Evans' hot tag offense: he threw a couple of hard stiff arm lariats at Finlay's clavicles and hits two really nice spinebusters, and that's easily enough to make me like a guy. We get a goofus 15 minute time limit bell out of absolutely nowhere (and also only 12 minutes in) that leads to a clunky restart, and things would have just looked so much better had they just done the 2 minutes post restart without any kind of stoppage in between (obviously), but no matter, this whole thing was still a ton of fun and a great look at what a total badass in his mid 50s could still do on ANY card.

TKG: Being a Finlay tag partner is thankless, because Finlay is so fucking sharp that I'm just going to end up watching him on apron while you do whatever you're doing. Finlay always getting ready to break up pinfalls even when he never does was my favorite Finlay on apron move. Finlay bodyslamming Evans into the ropes was nasty as fuck but also Evans really made it look like his leg was fucked. It is so great that we have this.

PAS: This match was posted on Bobby Ocean's youtube page, which is a great thing about 2019 wrestling, we get a chance to see one of the last matches of an all time legend like Finlay because a random dude decided to aim his Flip video at the ring and post it on youtube 7 years later. Finlay and Fish were a really fun heel team, dominating most of the match working over Evans's knee, with some classic Finlay offense, loved all of the slams into the ropes, it is such a simple move and so brutal looking. I also loved his butt drops on the knee and nasty indian death lock. We did get a nice pair of hot tags, and I dug Evan's spinebusters. I agree with Eric and Matt that the restart was really unnecessary, but otherwise this was a blast and new Finlay is all we could want.

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New Footage Friday: Rude, Blonds, Scorpio, Steamboat, Sting, Destroyer, Baba, Razor, Tito

The Destroyer/Bill Dromo/Kurt von Stroheim vs. Giant Baba/Michiaki Yoshimura/Toyonobori JWA 12/1/64

MD: Everyone who's seen any amount of Destroyer matches think that he's great, just a perfect marriage of credibility and comedy, able to provide far more of the latter than you'd expect, especially in Japan, while never, ever losing the former. The reason why we can never quite rank him higher against his peers is that we just don't have enough varied footage. Here, though, he was in his mid 30s, and he feels undeniably like one of the best I've ever seen. Baba's amazing too, with this electric alacrity that I'm not sure I've ever seen out of him. He's got this lightning throat chop that feels like Sangre Chicana's comeback punch. It's that good.

This goes forty minutes but it feels like a breezy fifteen. It tells a half dozen narratives, narratives that maybe never add up to a greater whole, but still never feels disjointed or ambling. The other four guys in the ring hold their own, with Destroyer, Dromo, and Von Stroheim amazingly on the same page for three guys who seem completely different. The finish is the best thing too, Destroyer, who stooged and gooned and grumbled the whole match, expertly escaping a rolling bodyscissors and locking in a laser-fast 1964 figure-four leglock, basically earning two falls in one. It was this great Buddy Rose moment where a guy who fed and fed transcends the normal scorn of the crowd by showing that he's an absolute killer.

PAS: This is some of the earliest Destroyer footage we have, he is an all time great who we don't have a full view of. There isn't a ton of new tricks a new Flair match will show us, but we don't know all of the Destroyers tunes. Structure of the match was interesting, they would alternate between the heels controlling with quick tags, and the native trios getting off big moves with the heels stooging and bumping. Nifty bits of stooge work by the heels, I loved Destroyer flying all around the ring for Yoshimura's drop kicks, and Baba is treated like a total monster. The match really kicks into gear in the last section with Destroyer slamming Baba on the floor, and Baba coming back like a maniac wrecking everyone.

The finish itself was totally awesome, with Yoshimura ripping off a rolling bodyscissors, and Destroyer spinning out super fast into a figure four, it was a crazy bit of athleticism, which you don't really see in later Destroyer matches. They do the super old school thing where the refs and other wrestlers need to untangle the legs to break the hold and Yoshimura lays slumped in the corner selling like he tore his patella. Destroyer struts around like a cocky dick as Yoshimura can't answer the bell for the third fall. Destroyer comes off like such a legend, a badass who can end a match in an instant. If I was a fan in the 60s I would totally would buy a ticket to see Baba or Toyonbouri try to take him down, but I would be terrified that he could break one of my hero's in the snap of his fingers.

Tito Santana vs. Razor Ramon 6/29/92

MD: I know 84-94 WWF as much as anything, with 90-92 WWF that sweet spot of nostalgia from when I was 10. So while this wasn't great, I still wanted to talk about it. Obviously, Hall had honed the Ramon gimmick as the Diamond Studd (and if I'm not mistaken, a bit in PR before that), but there's an element to his work here that is really interesting.

He feigned apathy in a way that no WWF heel ever had before him. Basically, he worked this match as a dismissive cool heel and it was something the crowd had never really seen. There's been a lot written about how cool heels swallow their opponents on the mic, but look at what he does here (and how he turns it on a dime to effect later in the match). When Tito gets him in an armbar early, he just casually walks to the ropes, putting his foot through to break it. He feigns that it's not even worth the effort to try to escape. By the second or third time he does this, the fans are irate at him because it goes against everything they know. Some heels (like a Dibiase sort) might have tried to get to the ropes, but only because they couldn't escape any other way. To Ramon, it wasn't even worth trying. Later on, while feeding for Tito a bit, he'd just sidestep him and use his side to redirect him over the top rope. He'd sell the arm, would jaw with the ref, but he was in absolutely no rush to go back after Tito. It was this 90s mentality which went against everything the fans were trained to think about wrestling. There was also an element of visual dissonance. Ramon was big, bigger than Tito, but he was just so purposefully laconic and taking shortcuts, not because he had to or because he liked to but because he didn't see any point in not taking them.

Here, because it was one wrestler in one match, and because Ramon, once he was outwrestled by Tito (who cares as much as anyone) later on, showed cracks in the facade, it worked. The fans barely reacted to him at the start and by the time he won (after lazily getting a leg up on a flying forearm and rolling through a flying body press with a tights grab), they hated his guts. Extrapolated forwards, however, especially as he continued to rack up wins, there was a real danger that he would have torpedoed the credibility of everyone he was in the ring with, making them all look like fools for caring so much when he didn't care at all.

ER: Matt's early wrestling nostalgia lines up almost exactly with my childhood wrestling experience, so the most notable thing about this to me was that Razor *was wearing pants*. And they weren't just generic tights, they were clearly Razor Ramon tights. I have never seen a picture of him wearing tights, although I'm sure there must be one out there, so right away this felt weird. Matt did an impossibly great job of running down a match that was essentially worked like a Young Lions match (it felt like Razor went out there specifically showing what he could do in a match with zero offense, with I think his biggest highspot being a legdrop to Tito's balls), and for fans looking back I bet this came off as memorable if only because the match actually goes about 10 minutes, and this being a Superstars taping, after this they were going to be seeing 15-20 different 2 minute matches. But it's pretty impressive to me just how fully formed the Razor Ramon character was. He has a lot of mannerisms down that he would go on to use for the rest of his career, like he has it all figured out. Again, Matt does a great job of running down the subtle psychology, that cocky foot on the ropes that Razor employs throughout, but I also liked him calling his shot before the bell, indicating he was going to toss Santana the hell over the ropes. He later does so and turns to the crowd without even having to tell them "Told ya so". I wrongly assume this is because they're debuting a bunch of guys before the Rumble, which it seemed like they did, but checking the date and that's likely not the case. I appreciate guys getting mileage out of no offense, and most of this is Ramon and Santana trading holds and reacting, with the only real offense being Santana hitting a nice dropkick and the flashy flying forearm and a crossbody (which is reversed), and Razor eating knees on a Vader bomb spot. The rest is mannerisms and machismo, a cool snapshot of the next several years.

Rick Rude/Steve Austin/Brian Pillman vs. 2 Cold Scorpio/Ricky Steamboat/Sting WCW 5/6/93

MD: Looking at the Observer results on this match, it was in front of ~300 people in Terre Haute, Indiana. On a Thursday. WWE was elsewhere drawing 2500 with Giant Gonzales vs Taker and Money Inc. vs the Steiners on top. Right before this match the crowd had to sit through Orndorff vs Eric Watts and Bagwell vs Wrecking Crew Rage (they did get Rip Rogers vs RVD and Benoit vs Regal).

So here you have six guys who are stars, who were on magazine covers and in video games and had toys made of them. Rude and Steamboat wrestled in front of massive houses. Austin and Pillman and Scorpio less so, maybe. Sting was Sting. And in front of 300 people in Terre Haute, Indiana, they put on a hell of a match.

Scorpio was glad to be there, felt like such a star, and was hugely helped by all the heels begging off from him. The Blonds act was perfect for a match like this, pretending to want to scuffle with the rowdy crowd, pairing with Rude really well, feeding endlessly for the faces. Rude was at the height of his power. He was one of the best in the world in this period and he could do more with his hips alone than most wrestlers could do with six or seven full body rotations (you know what I mean).

It was an elimination match, which was fun in some ways but it meant we lost Scorpio a little earlier than I would have liked. It did mean Pillman got to shine a bit in the back half though, and meant that the finish (which was great, maybe one of the best finishes in 93 WCW) was entirely between Sting and Pillman. This was the perfect combination of star power, house show goofing, and guys actually working hard when there was no reason in the world for them to do so. Were they really putting on matches like this every night?

ER: What a special little gem of a match, the perfect mix of all six stars' abilities and terrific house show stooging and shenanigans. There's no way fans went home feeling they got ripped off after this one. This would have been a great and well remembered match on PPV, but I like the in the crowd feeling we get for this one, as while Matt pointed out there were 300 people there, those 300 people were excited for this match. Rick Rude was clearly one of the best wrestlers in the world during this era. You rarely get to see a man stalk the ring and work the match with this kind of unabashed, deserved confidence. Dude knew where he was at every step of the way, knew what would work and did it better than anyone could have. He milks the atomic drops from Scorpio like you hoped he would, pretends to be occupied on the apron so he wouldn't have to take Pillman's tag when Sting was going wild, throws a full Rude hip swivel in while holding Scorpio before hitting a spinebuster (this really popped off fans around our camera man), and there was a tremendous moment where he started headbutting Sting, then lost control and started throwing a ton of headbutts....before realizing how much his own head was now throbbing; we get great Rude stumbling around while he's selling his own forehead, with him wandering perfectly into place for Steamboat to throw a lonnnnnnnnng windup punch from the apron. If I saw a spot like that on a house show I genuinely wouldn't care what else was on the show, my spent money would be deemed worth it. Rude was an absolute force during this era, really a guy I want to go back and just watch every ounce of his WWF/WCW work.

Everyone else was great here, too; this was far from a one man performance. Blonds - like Rude - were great doofs and total badasses. We get an incredible shot before the match, total luck really, of Austin going after a fan and Pillman having to hold him back. Austin is going after a guy literally right next to our camera man, so we get to see the incensed hate in Austin's eyes and how much of his body he's really throwing into Pillman's stoppage. Obviously there was no chance Austin was going to lay his hands on some Terra Haute hillbilly, but he commits to the act and these same fans are riled up the entire match. Stone Cold is what brought me back full bore into wrestling fandom in high school after I had abandoned it a few years prior, and when I got back into wrestling I had never seen one second of WCW Steve Austin. Everything I loved about Stone Cold was right here already, 4 years earlier. Babyface team was fantastic, every bit of wild energy you could want from a babyface house show trios team (look at that big Sting press slam!!), and it was awesome seeing Scorpio treated like a star. This is a real gem, something you desperately hope there is more of, out there, somewhere.

PAS: I love house show handhelds especially from the 20th century. You are going to a get a much more interactive performance in a small Indiana gym, they aren't working to the back of the arena, because they aren't in an arena. You get to see guys work shtick to the crowd, and it is just incredible to watch all time performers interact like this. Absolutely loved Rude here, we got a ton of variations of his hurt butt sell, took several atomic drops, missed a sunset flip, nothing says wrestling like Rude clenching his ass cheeks and tip toeing around the ring. Scorpio is always a treat to watch, he is constantly mixing in unique bits of offense and selling, here he broke out a flying back Super Astro tope, which has got to be the only time that spot was ever done in Indiana. Such a treat, and it is pretty great that this is just available to watch on your computer 25 years later.

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1975 Match of the Year

The Destroyer v. The Spirit AJPW 7/25/75

ER: I had never seen Kox as The Spirit, although it was not uncommon for him to work as The Spirit in AJPW. But right when I see him in his black mask, looking like Timothy Carey playing an executioner, I'm hoping against hope that we'll get some loaded mask cheating. And we do. Match starts slow but very satisfying, with some really cool controlled strength matwork. It's far slower than all this hot Catch Point stuff we're all used to, but I really dug it. It's all a long old man strength test, with little one ups peppered in, each man just trying to muscle the other down. Kox locks his arms in a cool way I've never seen, behind Destroyer's back so that he can roll him into an uncomfortable upside down position. Destroyer reverses a couple times so both men end up sorta twisted. Destroyer kneels on Kox's throat, and Kox comes up popping him with his punches that I love so much. All the lock ups in this felt tight, felt tough, and would always end with one of them tossing a punch, an elbow, a headbutt; Kox starts ripping at Destroyer's right eye and busts him open with a loaded mask headbutt, and Destroyer starts bleeding through his mask.

We go through a long and wonderful hide the weapon portion, with each man hiding somewhere between 1 and 4 weapons between them, loading their masks and their fists. Kox starts picking apart Destroyer with loaded shots and Destroyer is great falling into the ropes, onto his knees, getting knocked to the floor. Dick gets his own weapon and Kox is great whipping himself into the mat off loaded headbutts, and always eventually turns the tide by punching back to offense. Punching, headbutting, kicking Beyer in the face and chest as he's falling from punches. At one point Kox goes to plant his knee in Beyer's face and Beyer moves, and these old dudes are tough so they don't wear kneepads, meaning them knees get planted right into the mat. Destroyer pounces on Kox's hurt knee, and locks on one of the best figure 4s you've seen (on the correct leg!), and Kox does a great scramble to the ropes.

Ending is a little surprising as Jumbo finally has enough of The Spirit's cheating, grabs his leg, which leads directly to Destroyer rolling him up with a super snug cradle to win the third fall. I could see some people not liking this, but this match was right in my wheelhouse. From the early stalemate tough old guy mat work, to all the loaded masks and fists, I loved it. There were no slams of any kind, no suplexes, minimal bumps (Destroyer had a big one to the floor and Kox bumped big a couple times off loaded mask shots), just two brutes elbowing eye sockets and wearing the other out.

PAS: End of the road Killer Karl Kox might be one of my favorite wrestlers ever. Just a nasty old bastard who will split your eyebrow with a right hand or knee you in the throat. I also loved the early matwork portion too, nothing fancy, nothing tricky but really impactful. These are a pair of old dudes with crazy tendon strength and it was fun to watch them struggle in tests of strength in weird angles. Wrestling matches are full of traditional knuckle lock tests of strength, these guys were struggling from their back or their knees. Then we get the great mask hiding foreign object section. Destroyer is an old master at that and it is fun to see him have to deal with someone using his own tricks on him. It is like a Lawler match with the heel hiding a chain too. Every one of those foreign object shots were extra violent looking, the headbutts were sold like they should be, and the chain assisted punches really thudded. These no bump Kox matches are the best, I could watch him not bump forever.

All Time MOTY List

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SLL's All-Request Friday Night

Rikidozan vs. The Destroyer - Best 2/3 Falls Match (JWA, 12/2/1963)
Requested by Jingus

The description on the YouTube page linked above says this is their historic match that drew the largest TV audience of any match in wrestling history. Assuming the dates are correct, that's not actually true. That match happened on May 24th of the same year, and to the best of my knowledge is still buried in the NTV vaults if the footage still exists at all. And that's unfortunate for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that - again assuming the dates are correct - this would be one of the last - possibly even the last - matches in Rikidozan's career. This match happened on December 2nd. Six days later, he'd be stabbed with a piss-soaked knife in a nightclub men's room. Five days after that, he'd be dead.

So let's send out Japan's greatest wrestling hero with a bang, as he takes on one of his greatest career rivals probably for the very last time. And I'm sure glad it's him, because while Rikidozan seems to have been mildly underrated as a worker, The Destroyer is one of the best, and at least half of this match's charm comes from him bitching at the referee. "Get 'im out of there! What's he gonna do, stay right there? Get 'im out of there! You don't see anyone in my corner, do ya?" There are kind of a limited number of Destroyer matches out there, but from what we have, he did seem to have a nice formula worked out that he executes here: attack, get countered, complain. This is something like 35-40 minutes, and he could build the bulk of a 35-40 minute match around stuff we usually think of as opening match bullshit. Rikidozan holds up his end of the bargain as the straight man in Destroyer's comedy routine well. He grabs a nice jumping headscissors takedown, and lord knows Destroyer is a guy who can work being in a headscissors. He tries to handstand out of it, but eats a mini-piledriver before eventually escaping. He clings to Rikidozan's leg and gets him backed into the corner, where he rams his shoulder into Rikidozan's gut while the ref was laying in the count before backing off ("I broke the hold, and I'll belt you, too!"). We get a lot of fun trading holds and complaining ("What's wrong with that? What's wrong?"..."I broke it! I broke it! I broke it!") before things start getting rough around the 20-minute mark. Rikidozan slams Destroyer and then busts out the double bootscrape on his face. Destroyer comes back with two big kneedrops. A third from the second rope misses, but he recovers and lays Rikidozan out with a pair of slams, getting the first fall with his feet on the ropes. There is hemming and hawing from the natives, but honestly, it was just his feet. He didn't actually lift his legs off of the ground to get added leverage. He just draped his ankles on the ropes. They should be hemming and hawing about how a wrestler as good as The Destroyer should be able to cheat better than that. Ah, well. It's a minor flub in an otherwise stellar match. Anyway, things get more aggressive in the second fall, including Destroyer shooting face-first into a kneelift, followed by Rikidozan's prototype Kawada short kicks. Destroyer comes back with one of his own, but he can't hold the advantage long before Rikidozan chops him in the throat to tie things up one fall apiece. Destroyer takes out his frustrations on the guy handing out bottled water between falls, and then really takes his frustrations out on Rikidozan when the third fall starts, immediately getting him in the corner and laying in big forearms and kicks. He grounds him and drops some more knees on him, including the nasty-as-fuck handstand double kneedrop to Rikidozan's face. Most of the rest of the match is The Destroyer trying to lock on the figure-four, which Rikidozan keeps countering by rolling with the stepover toehold onto his stomach, which was pretty clever,though I may argue that they dragged it out a touch too long. Eventually, though, Rikidozan kicks him off of an attempt and send him to the floor. He gives chase, and they have a nice little brawl until Rikidozan hits a backdrop on the concrete and makes it back in the ring just in time to beat the count and win the match. The crowd goes wild, blissfully unaware that their hero's most dangerous opponent of all was just about to strike.

Randy Savage vs. Bruno Sammartino - Lumberjack Match (WWF, 2/7/1987)
Requested by Televiper

Pretty great for a sub-five minute match. Savage wastes no time, using Elizabeth to keep Bruno at bay before pulling the QB sneak around Liz and the ref to blast Bruno with an axehandle. He lays into him, but Bruno makes a fast comeback. From what little I've seen of Bruno, I think he gets a bad rap as a worker. Even this late in the game, he's a pretty capable brawler, though obviously it helps to have Savage bumping around for you. Savage comes back with the help of an imaginary foreign object, and gets Van Terminator-level distance on a top-rope axehandle, but Bruno fights back and tosses Savage out of the ring to Ricky Steamboat, who dishes out some payback before sending him back to a Bruno bearhug. King Kong Bundy runs in to break it up, getting Savage DQ'd, and Savage bails as a big brawl with all the lumberjacks breaks out with Bruno and Steamboat standing tall at the end. Nice.

Hulk Hogan vs. Randy Savage - Lumberjack Match (WWF, 2/17/1986)
Requested by J.H.

This is the rematch of the bout I reviewed last week. In the month since, Savage has won the IC Title and Hogan has had his ribs injured by King Kong Bundy. Beyond that, this match really picks up right where the last one left off, with Hogan rushing the ring and clocking Savage behind in payback for the post-match cheapshot from last time. He also gives Savage a taste of his medicine by repeatedly bashing him in the head with the title belt just as Savage did the month before. Hogan is on fire offensively. His punches all look great, and he also shows off a nice backdrop and a great running back elbow into the corner. This all gets cut short when Bundy trips up Hogan while he's running the ropes, which doesn't immediately turn the match around, but does seem to throw off his game enough for Savage to go to the eyes and then hit a running kneelift to the taped ribs. Savage does a great job working over the ribs, including hitting four top-rope axehandles to them. There also a great spot where Hogan gets thrown to the outside in enemy territory, and Don Muraco holds him in place against the post so Bundy can deliver a nasty avalanche to Hogan. They roll him back in, and Savage winds up for a big right hand...and then just pushes him down and rolls him back out where Muraco and Bundy do it again. Hogan sells the beating really well for the bulk of the match, barely getting his shoulder up on every pinfall. But, of course, we do get our requisite Hulk-Up after the top rope elbow. Match ends pretty quick after that, as the criss cross off the ropes, and since turnabout is fair play, George Steele grabs Savage's leg, and Savage trips and lands in perfect position to be hit with the leg drop. After Hogan's great early offensive run, I kinda hoped his finishing stretch would be a little longer, but I still liked this a bunch.

Marty Jannetty vs. Skinner (WWF, 11/9/1992)
Requested by douchebag

Man, there is some weird-ass commentary between Gorilla Monsoon and Lord Alfred Hayes in this match. I'm trying to decide what the highlight was: Gorilla's off-hand comment about Sensational Sherri having been hit many times before "in numerous places", his implication that Hayes was into teen pussy, or him suddenly yelling that he'd belt Hayes if he disagreed with him over something and Hayes just laughing it off. When you're on a commentary team with Lord Alfred Hayes and you're out-weirding him, that's kinda impressive.

Anyway, match itself is pretty choice. This is one of Jannetty's first matches back after The Rockers' break-up, and he is all fun and athletic, and does a "block a monkey flip by stomping his face" variant where he does a fistdrop instead. That is one of my favorite stock spots in wrestling, and Marty has a good fistdrop, so cool to see him break it out. Cool spot where they fight to a stalemate, and the ref steps in between them, only for Skinner to reach around and smack Marty in the face. Not long after that, Marty takes a spill to the outside and tweaks his knee, and the second act of the match is built around Skinner: Master Technician working over the leg with various toeholds and kneebars. It's kinda brilliant at first, because you remember, "oh yeah, Skinner is Steve Keirn, he's a grizzled ring veteran who would know how to do this old-school stuff, and the fact that he's doing it under a silly early-90's WWF gimmick just makes it weirder and cooler". But then you remember "wait, I've actually seen a lot of pre-Skinner Steve Keirn, and I don't remember him ever doing any of this stuff...is he calling back to his 70's work or something? What am I looking at?". Marty makes his comeback, and does a great job selling the knee all the while before putting the Fabulous Alligator Man away with the top-rope fistdrop. Marty looked really good here, and Skinner did a fine job putting the youngster over.

Masato Yoshino vs. Don Fujii (Dragon Gate, 1/18/2011)
Requested by Brandon-E

Yes, I will even review Dragon Gate matches. Don't expect it to happen often. Especially if they're like this one.

I don't like Dragon Gate. I don't think that's a secret. What might be a secret - if only because it just occurred to me while watching this match - is that Dragon Gate might be my least favorite wrestling promotion ever. And when I say that, that doesn't mean I think it's the worst promotion I've ever seen. Believe me, I've seen far, far worse than Dragon Gate. I mean, from it's inception to this very day, even with the intermittent bits of good they've done, TNA has to be considered a vastly worse promotion than Dragon Gate. But they do intermittent bits of good, and I can laugh at the large swaths of bad, and the embarrassing spin doctoring that goes on after the fact. I can look back at death bed WCW and laugh at their pathetic foibles while digging their final syndie matches and the last-minute resurgence of the cruiserweight division. AAA at their very worst always had something interesting going on somewhere, even if you had to dig for it. But Dragon Gate is a wrestling dead zone, producing nothing good enough for me to really enjoy, and nothing bad enough for me to really laugh at. Dragon Gate is a promotion whose matches I can review with a form letter. In fact, I've got one right here:

"After Scott Keith's "Netcop Busts", the first thing I ever bought when I got into tape trading was a Jack Epstein "Best of Sasuke Sekigun vs. Kaientai D*X" tape. It's been a while, but the last time I watched the "These Days" 10-man, it was '05/'06, and I remember writing on the late, lamented Happy Wrestling Land board how surprised I was at how few dives were in it. Seriously, for a match that often gets thought of as the pinnacle of spot-fu, I remember counting a whopping two or three dives in the whole match. Which isn't to say it wasn't still chock full of spectacular looking offense, I just tended to remember it as being a lot of in-ring action in the first half building up to the out-of-control dives in the second half, and there really weren't that many dives. Even when I first saw it as a largely puro-illiterate kid, I was able to pick up on the significance of that first half ("Oh, they're keeping the match in the ring and just teasing dives right now to build anticipation, so when they actually start diving, I will be extra psyched for it. Cool!"), but when I rewatched it that last time, it really struck me how important that was. It may have only been two or three dives, but I remembered it like it was 30. They knew how to build a match, how to create a sense of scale, how to make things seem important...stuff I don't get from the Dragon Gate guys. I try - with varying degrees of success - to stay on top of the current wrestling scene. To that end, I do check out Dragon Gate matches every now and then. At best, what I've seen has been clean, inoffensive, aesthetically pleasing, but also emotionally empty. At worst, it's...well it's pretty much the same as it is at it's best, it's just more structurally flawed. I can see why people like it, but when I watch it, I just don't feel anything. It's been an even longer time than since I last watched old M-Pro, but I do remember liking Toryumon in it's original form. That might not age so well if I watched it now, but I wonder if there's an issue with the later generations of wrestlers from the company. There was a sense of real wrestling fun and old-school competence in Toryumon that Dragon Gate just abandoned. The fun was replaced by metrosexual fanservice, and the classic wrestling structure by an endless series of mechanically fine and emotionally hollow spots done constantly until the match ends. This isn't what I look for in wrestling, to the point that I'm loathe to even call it "wrestling". This is a demo of wrestling moves meant to get Japanese teenyboppers to touch themselves, and that's it."

But that doesn't really fully describe this match, so I've got to add a specialized post-script to the above.

Yoshino vs. Fujii. Is it a great match? No. Is it a terrible match. No. How does it compare to the average Dragon Gate match? Marginally favorably, largely thanks to Don Fujii. Fujii is the last of the old-school Toryumon guys who hasn't sold out stylistically to Dragon Gate (I'm looking at you, CIMA), and consequently, he tends to be the guy most likely to make a Dragon Gate match watchable these days. Here's the thing: back in the day, Fujii was widely considered the least of the major Toryumon guys. While he was pretty much always good, he was never great, and he still isn't. The fact that the least guy from that era is now the best guy in this one is really damning him with feint praise, not to mention a really damning statement about the rest of the roster. Speaking about the rest of the DG roster, let's talk about them for a second. Here's the sum total of what I can tell you about them: Shingo Takagi is exceptionally bad to the point that fucking Danielson couldn't carry him, Masato Yoshino runs really fast, and Akira Tozawa is actually great when he's put in an actual wrestling environment. That's it. I can't even make any kind of specific comment about Masaaki Mochizuki in 2011, and I had been a fan of his for years. So what we have here is the best of what's left against one of the less interchangeable (but still not particularly good) younger members of the roster. And bless Fujii's heart, he tries to work the grizzled veteran going up against the athletic youngster match to the best of his ability. The nearfall off of the Gedo clutch actually had me going for a second there. And for a guy sold on his speed, Yoshino does deliver on that front. He does Marufuji's stupid, stupid "drape the guy over the ropes, slowly walk away, getting a running start, and dropkick them spot", only here, he goes the entire length of the aisleway, but he runs so fast that it actually doesn't come off as any less stupid than when Marufuji does it. Still comes off as stupid, though. In the end, this is structured a lot better than most DG matches, and I can see how it was supposed to pull me in, and I appreciate the thought put behind it, but these were just not the guys who were going to make it happen.

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