New Footage Friday: SATS~! RED~! BRIAN XL~! QUIET STORM~! FAKE CHRIS DEVINE~! FANTASTICS~! SATANIC WARRIORS~! GREEK CATCH~!

Apoostolos Souglakos vs Giorgos Pefanis/Masked Man 1980s

MD: Phil Lions has done it again with some great research into what Greek wrestling footage is out there. This is from a comp tape highlighting Souglakos and it's pretty fascinating footage. This particular match is a two on one based on a gym mat, in a gym, but with a big, hot crowd. There was some loose set of rules that kept them from double teaming Souglakos constantly, but I couldn't tell you what they were. The mat had a line drawn on it to keep one guy in place for a lot of this but it wasn't like they didn't leave the mat to walk over to the rail to use it as a weapon too. Despite the strange setting, there were a lot of familiar pro wrestling trappings, be it the moves (mares, headbutts, armdrags, etc.), the bs (Souglakos getting the masked man's mask off only for another mask to be underneath!) or the drama of Souglakos having to completely bloody Pefanis to the point where he was out of the match so that the two heels wouldn't interrupt a pin; what he won with was a pretty nasty crab where he grabbed the toes to yank. The fans were into everything Souglakos did, more so than they gave the heels much heat. Souglakos did come off as a superman, if not invulnerable, as he fought off two men at once. I'd love to see some lost match with him and someone like Flair, something like the Jack Veneno one. He was obviously good at being a local hero in a pro wrestling sense. Someone filmed this so maybe there's a lost footage vault somewhere in Greece too.

Fantastics vs. Satanic Warriors NWL 6/22/90

MD: Yeah sure, this was fun. It was a game crowd. The Satanic Warriors were your sort of D-Level Texas Hangmen, but they were goofy and liked to pose and stooge more than the average masked bruiser gimmick. The Fantastics here were Bobby and Jackie and there was a pretty solid FIP. Part of the strength of a southern tag is that you really only need one guy out of the four who knows what he's doing and a crowd that'll play along and it'll almost always work and this had more than that going for it. They were following up from the night before with powder-to-the-face from their manager Rustee Foxx that let the Warriors win, but this time the Fantastics had Bambi to even the odds. The pre-match Satanic Warriors promo was great as you had a guy who obviously wasn't well-suited for this, in English at least, mumble to them "I heard you cheat," and they ran with it from there talking about satanic power. This is definitely something that pro wrestling can be and that it should be now and again. There's always going to be a place for this sort of match on any card in the world.

ER: I'm always going to be a sucker for one of those teams with an incredible name like SATANIC WARRIORS who are just a team wearing black masks who wrestle like twin Barry Darsows. Satanic Warriors are both big guys, one of them worked as Super Destroyer #2 in pre-Extreme ECW, the type of wrestling team that made up a lot of the independents in this era. You know, one of those teams where the guys were trained by either Afa or Johnny Rodz and so they all work like Los Conquistadors. And that's really all you need to be to work the Fantastics in Guam. Warriors used a ton of good looking axe handle smashes on Bobby and Jackie, and had the good timing necessary to bump for dropkicks in quick succession. Jackie was pretty raw here but had that nice high dropkick that gets full extension off the chest of Satanic Warriors, and Bobby was the kind of pro you want to have on a tour like this. His strikes look the best of anyone in the match (so good that sometimes the Warriors do quick back bumps for him, even with the size difference) and there's a great spot where he gets thrown quickly through the ropes and bumps hard to the floor. As Matt said, a match like this really plays anywhere, anytime. You could run this same note for note match in any high school gym this weekend and get a great reaction with it. There's great chaos with Bambi and Rustee Fox at ringside (loved Bambi telling her she was going to yank out her stringy hair) and we got a huge powder finish from Jackie (with the ref counting his pin in the midst of a massive powder tornado), and I will never tire of formula pro wrestling being played in front of crowds who might not know the formula. 

Amazing Red/The SAT vs. Brian XL/Quiet Storm/Boogalou PCW 7/8/01

PAS: This is listed on the video as Divine Storm/XL vs. SATs/Red, and that is also what the commentator says, but that is Boogalou (Homicide's Natural Born Sinners tag partner) in there instead of Devine. This match up was a revelation when it first got run in CZW, and it is fun to see a new touring version of it show up. Boogalou adds a fun twist, as he does some big suplexes, including belly to belly throwing Red over the top onto a crowd on the floor, there also was some crowd brawling which may have been his contribution. You come for the wacky SAT triple teams and highspots, and while a couple of ranas didn't get caught cleanly, you get a bunch of both. XL hits a crazy springboard tornillo to the floor, and the SATs set up a bunch of cool ways for Red to spin kick someone. It has been 25 years and a million variations, but the Spanish Fly is sill a cool finisher, and totally blew my mind back in the day. 

MD: I'll do my best not to wax poetic about this and, of course, the June match which it follows (albeit with some deviation not just because Boogalou is in for Chris Divine). I don't know who reads the blog; sometimes I think it's all just the same people we've been talking to about wrestling for twenty years but that's probably not the case. The June CZW match between these six is something that feels a little bit lost in the annals of time, but it felt entirely transformative to me at 19, watching it in Real Player in a tiny screen because of the heavy compression, back when it dropped and the entire DVDVR board was going nuts about it. There were obviously predecessors to this in 00 and 01 (and even earlier) but that was the one where it felt like everything came together and nothing would be the same, the switch from indy wrestling being Rik Ratchett vs Billy Reil to being something that would take your breath away. I'm not a big proponent of Meltzer's thought that you have to give matches a lot of passes due to their era, as there's good and bad stuff, stuff that builds narratives and stuff that breaks narratives, in every era, but this is one of those spotfests that gets a pass for me. It was just that symbolically important in the switch from indy wrestling to superindy wrestling.

And, of course, the Woburn crowd is full of a bunch of jokers that spend most of the match laughing at one smartass heckler comparing everyone's ring gear to the Bad video. Honestly, there's no reason that I wasn't at this show. It was probably a 20 minute drive from where I was going to college at the time. I have no idea why this wasn't on my radar. Obviously, I must have felt like it was a better use of my time to watch Arch Kincaid against Dukes Dalton or whatever I was watching at Chaotic Wrestling that month.

A lot of words to get to me saying that this was very similar to the other matches of theirs we have (CZW, PR). I don't think they missed a step with Boogalou in there, and if they did, they rushed right to the next step so quickly that no one was going to notice. Lots of tandem spots. Lots of quick exchanges. Nothing overly blown. Oohs and Ahhs from the crowd, even despite itself. Buzz for red especially. Everyone blown away by the tapitia double stomp and the Spanish fly. This had some more crowd brawling, which was an interesting wrinkle. While it seemed obvious that only a few people in the crowd knew what they were about to see (though those people were trying to sell the others on Red at least), it was still good on them for not just working the same rote match but twisting it up a bit. Everything was moving and changing so quickly in 2001 that this might not have had the same impact on people's minds as the version a few months earlier but I know I'm kicking myself now, twenty years later, for having missed it at the time.

ER: This match is from an era that I will always feel nostalgic for, even though it was happening at the farthest geographic part of the country from me. Indy wrestling was still territorial at this point, and my age and increase in tape trading was a perfect time for me to be seeing all the hottest juniors from the east coast while getting to see guys like Mike Modest and Christopher Daniels live (and in 2000/2001 I'm not sure there was any other wrestlers I wanted to see live more than those two). The All Japan/NOAH exodus and the shakeup that caused plus the burgeoning east coast indy scene made me quickly make more wrestling message board fans to trade wrestling with, using my access to TV lucha libre as my in. We're 20 years past the era where this was revolutionary, but I will always be impressed by the ways these guys moved off of and around each other, and can't imagine what the (match-long) heckler in the crowd would have rather wanted to see (maybe there was a Rapid Fire Maldonado/Axl Rotten match he was waiting for?), but I love it. Gimme Red doing crazy spin kicks after being vaulted off another man, Brian XL doing a gorgeous springboard tornillo, lucha armdrags done well by New Jersey youth. It's kind of amazing how good everyone was at catching ranas (sure some didn't land as smoothly, but you can watch literally any given week of CMLL TV and see several ranas that look worse), and it gives their matches an almost Crosswalk Lucha vibe that really tapped into something special. This match also had a fun crowd brawling section that I'm not sure I remember seeing in any of their other matches, plus Boogalou working as a little Taz. I watched so much of these guys in 2001 and 2002, but I don't see ever not getting excited to take that trip back. 

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Matches from ICW 3/19/10

Grim Reefer/Azrieal vs. All Money is Legal (K-Pusha/K-Murda) vs. The SAT

ER: Yeah gimme this. Azrieal and Grim Reefer are a good multiman tag team, same kind of undersized heel flyers that feel adjacent to Special K. SAT did that great thing where one of the members of a brothers-who-look-alike tag team gets like 35 pounds bigger than his brother. It's really easy to tell Joel and Jose apart when writing, because Joel looks like Sonny Siaki if he stopped lifting, and while Jose has also moved up to heavyweight it is visually much less so. This also happened on the west coast, to one of the Ballard Brothers, twins who are now very easy to tell apart. And I wonder if this happens to these tag teams in every single indy territory, that the United States is filled with lookalike brother tag teams who now look very different, and I think some indy needs to run a tournament with teams like this. I liked this enough, but would have liked it more as a tag. Azrieal/Reefer are a good team, and I would have been way more interested in seeing them work NE stalwarts SAT or see what they could do with the younger AMiL. As it was, nobody got to shine for long, but there was some shine. The dive train was big, with SAT hitting a kind of sunset flip bomb to the floor on K-Murda, Azrieal hitting a gorgeous tope con hilo, Reefer flying onto and past everyone with his own dive. SAT can still hit the Spanish Fly, AMiL are basically in there to be crash test dummies for the more known teams (which they did well), and Azrieal definitely looks like the money of the bunch. He's as quick here as he was on the JAPW tapes I have from earlier in the decade, and Grim Reefer isn't far behind.


Dan Maff comes out and cuts a kind of Ian Rotten promo but gets interrupted by an absolutely ON FIRE Prince Nana. The announcers weren't expecting Nana to be here, and Nana draws actual heat, and it doesn't sound like people are playing along. He is actually out here riling up fans, cutting down hecklers, and has a wild eyed intensity while running everything down. He talks about how he plans on ending Maff's career, and how he wants to end his career TONIGHT. I like Nana holding a grudge for all those times his teams and charges got wrecked by Da Hit Squad earlier in the decade. So now he's going to bring out a murderer's row of goons to cripple Maff.

Dan Maff vs. Rob Fury

ER: Nana's plan has a bit of an inauspicious start. Fury is a beanpole of a man, has a Batman tattoo on his chest, and doesn't have a ton of pro matches under his belt, but he looks professional. I like how it starts with Fury landing running elbows in the corner, throwing downward strikes until the bottom inevitably drops out. Maff hits a buckle bomb that meets the turnbuckle in that perfect spot between Fury's shoulderblades. He scrapes his boot across Fury's face, hoists him up for a big press slam, and then caps it off with a big man standing moonsault. Fury is disposed, so Nana brings out a new challenger...

Dan Maff vs. Maximus Sex Power

ER: This pudgy doofus eats a hard lariat from Maff, then holds on for dear life to the top rope as Maff aims to hit a burning hammer. Once he scrambles out of the BH attempt and makes it to the apron, he just quits. Obviously I wanted to see this guy get shortened by a burning hammer, but I like how they focused on his mad attempts to escape the hammer and leave with his life instead. It made for a more interesting twist. And then Nana brings out the REAL challenger...

Dan Maff vs. Xavier

ER: I loved the cockiness that Xavier entered with, not a single beat missed in 8 years. He doesn't have that speed, but he credibly stands toe to toe with the larger Maff. Xavier flummoxed him with some ju jitsu, and he hits Maff hard with a nice mix of shots. His elbows land right in the middle of Maff's jaw every time, has a couple of killer running back elbows that hit as hard as anything in the match, and all of his knee strikes look good. Xavier's muay thai knees are cool, and I've always been into how he logically starts throwing knees to the thighs and lower abdomen, and keeps working his way up until he's hitting leaping knees into Maff's face. It's cool how much Xavier took control, impressed with how he dished offense to Maff as well as he took it. Maff pays him back with a quick running knee to the face, but hits knees on a senton, and then Xavier actually hits the Xavier driver on Maff, totally crazy looking lift. We got to a great burning hammer tease, but Xavier slipped out of it only to be accidentally punched from the floor by Nana, which allowed Maff to bounce Xavier of the side of his head with a half nelson suplex. Maff breaking a triangle with a powerbomb looked good, and I thought it was cool they established Maff's big lariat finish instead of making Xavier take the burning hammer. Because you have guys like Rob Fury around, with their young fresh unkinked necks, and THEY can take burning hammers and fold in disgusting ways. This match was different than it would have been in 2002, but the best elements were still present in 2010 and I thought was cool.


Amazing Red vs. B-Boy vs. Bandido Jr.

ER: I was not feeling like one. I think the extra person threw off the timing, and there was too much hitch with the extra man. B-Boy was the surprise, and man I wish they had done an angle where he had jumped Bandido and replaced him. So we got a lot of punching guys into position, a lot of guys bumping awkwardly because they had to land not on an extra guy, and too much time spent on getting the third man out of the ring to the floor. Bandido wasn't bad, but his striking was the weakest of the bunch (and yes we got one or two of those dumb moments where three guys stand in a triangle and take turns punching each other). At minimum he hit a dive and took a mean sitout powerbomb from B-Boy. Red didn't have his signature crispness, although still managed to hit a couple nice spots (his senton atomico into both on the floor was the flying highlight here) . His spinkicks didn't have the same snap that they typically have (both 8 years prior and 8 years after) and they felt off because he worked a third man into them, like vaulting off B-Boy to spinkick Bandido. It just meant for more of guys standing still waiting to take complicated spots, and couldn't ever come off organic. B-Boy had a lot of punch and was my favorite guy here, as he flew harder into offense than the others and made his biggest moves land with an exclamation point. The only times he didn't look good were when the match format got in the way. It felt like the format was actively working against the wrestlers. Finish was fun, with Red battling over and finally hitting the Code Red for a nice nearfall only to seamlessly connect on a standing shooting star off the Code Red kickout to win.

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H Effect Are Losers and Users So Don't Need No Accusers

Wasted Youth (Insane Dragon/Deranged) vs. The SAT (Joel/Jose Maximo) vs. Rainchild/Jay Lethal JAPW 6/7/02 - EPIC

PAS: This is just what you want from a turn of the century skinny Jersey fliers match. Rainchild is a guy who wrestled for maybe six months, but he looked good here, especially early doing some nice fast arm drag and rana exchanges with Wasted Youth. Maximo's were working pretty stiff I don't remember them as Dynamite Kid/Beniot style juniors, but they were all about stiff chops snap suplexes and head drops. The match finishes up with a great dive train right next to the Bayonne wall, so lots of height but not a lot of distance, Lethal hits a tope where he basically piledrives his head into the concrete, but all the other dives were beautiful. Insane Dragon then gets finished off with some truly harrowing head drops, the kind of thing which you want to watch through your hands like a horror film.

ER: This was right in the middle of when I was most excited about indy wrestling, with tons of skinny hyper athletic freaks all competing to see who could take a more dangerous bump on their head, shoulder or neck, and everyone wins! I always like Rainchild, he was in an early match of the first JAPW tape I bought (against Ghost Shadow!) and I thought he was really good, was shocked to learn years later how little he actually worked. It's great seeing Lethal when he was working as a Waltman disciple, just a skinny guy dropping fast legs and dives with bad landings. I also didn't remember the SAT as Benoit disciples but I liked that here. I think they were better at dangerously dropping skinny guys with fast suplexes than working quick sequences with them. And for quick sequences you can't really do better than Wasted Youth. These guys were so fast and so damn clever, falling in ways you wouldn't expect and working sequences you had never seen before, adding new twists to familiar wrestling. I flipped when Izzy came off the topes with a double ballshot, then did a flipping dropkick (one guy for each foot) with no regard for his landing. And there were a dozen moments like that, like Rainchild doing cool dodges for Maximo clotheslines, or Izzy jumping and flipping backwards over guys to set up ranas, Deranged flipping himself onto his shoulder with a spinkick, these guys are all just fearless. The dive train is one for the ages, into the Bayonne wall as Phil said. Everyone tries to one-up and they were all a blast, even Rainchild's Space Flying Tiger Accidental Rope Bounce Tope en Reversa. Izzy not only has the best punches in the match, but also takes the nastiest bumps, getting absolutely dismantled by suplexes at the end. I can't wait to watch more of this stuff.

H Effect (Dixie/Insane Dragon/Deranged) vs. JAPW Legends (Magic/J-Lover/Skinhead Ivan) JAPW 11/12/16 - FUN

PAS: Insane Dragon comes out of a nearly decade long retirement to land an awesome looking tope con hilo and take a few crazy bumps. Dixie (who had come out of retirement on the last show) still has great execution, and took Magic's insane Tiger Driver 98 style finisher right on his neck, there was some goofy over bumping by Deranged and a not great section built around J-Lover's hard head, but it was really good to see all of these Wes Hatch comp tape legends back and doing their thing.

ER: This was the match that started the idea for a Dixie/Dragon C&A, seeing these two nutbars come back and still bring their specific brand of rich kid stoner crazy was so much fun, I called Phil and suggested we revisit their entire output. We were both fans of the early 2000s NE indy scene, and shoot one of our earliest interactions was me buying Phil's Low-Ki comp tape off him. It feels appropriate. Skinhead Ivan really should be wearing a khakis and a white polo these days, needs to be more in touch with his people (though their uniform hadn't changed at this point, so he gets at least a pass on the uniform, nothing else). Deranged hits a deranged flip dive that flings him hard into his opponent AND the guard rail, Magic is still a compact powerhouse, and Izzy and Dixie still know how to die. That Tiger Driver '98 was just an insane bump to be taking, and I'm glad these guys haven't changed.

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