Found Footage Friday: SAVAGE~! THUNDERBOLT~! FABS~! VOLS~! CHAIN WAR FROM BRAZIL~!

Randy Savage vs. Thunderbolt Patterson ICW 1983

MD: Bryan Turner's posting great stuff from the late 90s and early 00s, but he had an episode of ICW TV here that we seem to not have had and from 83 that episode had footage of a Randy Savage vs Thunderbolt Patterson match that Patterson commentated over. This isn't complete by any means. We get about five minutes of action, but it's still gold. A couple of minutes of that is Randy choking Patterson over the ropes and just staying on him. Patterson starts to come back and Savage is just great feeding into his shots and creating the motion for him. From there, it's typical thought out Randy stuff with Patterson jamming him on a suplex and then a pile driver and getting near falls. Patterson's description of how to stop a pile driver ("spread my legs and shake my stuff") is awesome. Savage heels it up by trying to get himself intentionally DQed by tossing the ref around but the ref is on to him and tries to keep it going until Randy just tosses him out of the ring. From there Patterson gets the DQ win and a phantom pin after an atomic drop and has to clock the ref too with him commentating that he shouldn't have done it but he hasn't had many opportunities in life and it was just a great piece of territory TV overall that we hadn't had before and a great look at what made both 83 Savage, on the way up, and 83 Patterson, on the way down, special.

Mr. Argentina vs. Aquiles Brazil 1980s?

MD: This is found, not new, but we've never covered it before. Depending on who you talk to, it's a pretty legendary match in Brazil, but it previously was online with worse VQ and in three parts. It's been put up a couple of times in one complete whole this year and everyone should watch it. It's a chain match in the country's traditional round system, which is kind of wild when you think about it. They take off the chain at the end of each round and then put it back on afterwards. We lose part of the last round and everything ends as a chaotic brawl after a draw, as well it should, and maybe that clip/finish keeps it from being an all time bit of footage, but it's unique and wild and very distinct. Argentina, despite any country-to-country animosity you might expect is the clear babyface, though the fans seem to at least respect Aquiles' guts as he absorbs blows in the back half.

Round one was Aquiles trying to use the chain as a weapon and Argentina out wrestling him. Round two started with Aquiles catching him with a choke with the chain and then nailing him with a haymaker with it wrapped around his head, changing the trajectory of the match. Everything's bloody from there as Argentina gets beaten around the ring throughout round two and after a brief respite, Round 3, where Aquiles uses the chain to tear apart his leg. Round 4 is the comeback and it's wild as Argentina refuses to get chained and just rushes in with big babyface offense. The chain's not part of the match after this, even with the round system, as things are just too heated. He drives Aquiles' face into the post opening him up huge and it's just a gloriously bloody mess through the final rounds. Violent, heated, bloody wrestling is universal and we're always glad to see another country's offering. This one stands well aside its counterparts from around the world.

PAS: Way of the Blade 2 contender for sure. I love the look of this match, wrestling is best when it feels like there is a film of grease over the whole thing. Hard violent shots, tons of blood and Argentina looking like an all time great babyface. His Round 4 comeback is top tier stuff, great looking headscissors, big right hands, just drives the crowd wild. When he opens up Aquiles on the post it is just toe to toe violent stuff from there out, reminded me of a great Perro Aguayo lucha match. Highest reccomendation!!

TN Vols (Reno Riggins/Steven Dunn) vs. Fabulous Ones MCW 1999

MD: This was the build up to the Lawler/Dundee vs Fabs tags we reviewed a few weeks back. My guess is that it's late April, early May of 99 as Cagematch has Lawler/Dundee working the Fabs in Memphis in April of 99 and the announcing mentions a big show on May 4. It starts off very much face vs face and it ends that way in the post-match, but the Fabs go de facto heel hard and without remorse to give the thing some structure down throughout. It's a bit of a shame as it was shaping up to hold up well against some of the better face team vs face team matches I can think of, like Martel/Santana vs High Flyers, with some solid opening exchanges and holds and overall oneupmanship. Around the first commercial they take over on Dunn and after that it becomes a lot of drawing the ref's attention, missed tags, cutting off the ring (especially after hope spots), and the occasional snuck in cheapshot. It's all effective stuff though I don't think the fans really wanted to boo the Fabs given how they were overall presented. You got the sense their heart wasn't in it even if they were entirely professional and merciless about it. Dunn made for a strong face-in-peril, believably going for the tag and believably getting cut off at the last second. The comeback was a bit stilted, probably due to time constraints, as after he jumped across the ring with a great hot tag, he was almost immediately back in there to lock in a sleeper when all the heels in the back came out to ambush him. The Fabs made the save with a chair and that was that. Strong TV southern tag but I kind of wonder what it might have looked like if they had been bold enough to try to wrestle it face vs face the whole way through. 

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New Footage Friday: Outlaws, Ladd, Piratenkampf, Kawada, Ishikawa, Shinzaki, Watts, Andersons, Thunderbolt

Dick Murdoch/Dusty Rhodes vs. Sailor Art Thomas/Ernie Ladd AWA 12/16/72

MD: This was on the Luce footage that was out there, but I haven't seen it and it's a classic match/angle. I'm pretty sure there's a reality where we talk about Dusty Rhodes as one of the great heatseeking heels up there with Buddy Rose and Negro Casas and Tully and Piper and whoever else. You watch a match like this and you can't help but feeling robbed of hundreds of matches where Dusty was just pissing off the crowd. He had this way of bobbing in and out, of taking up space and real estate in parts of the ring he shouldn't be in, only to dash back out to the apron. He was a disruptive force. Murdoch's great here too, but we've seen more of that. Maybe he spits a little more here, but he's the Murdoch we know already. Ladd was an amazing monster face. Thomas was pretty much all bearhugs but he was just about fifty at this point. I assume it worked for the crowd. As good at the turn at the end was and as great as conniving heel Ladd ultimately is, it's a bit like Dusty. It's a shame we don't have years and years more to see the other side.

PAS: The match was clipped up enough that it was hard to get a sense of it as a whole (we jump right to Thomas and Ladd arguing, without getting a sense why for example), but we did get to see a bunch of cool moments and performances. It is a real trip to see Dusty do all of his Dusty mannerisms as a heel, and it works just as well. Lots of bearhugs and headlock punches by the face team, but these are a great pair of stooging heels to be placed in headlocks and bearhugs. Man I wish I had a time machine and video camera to capture everything for all four guys.


Ole/Gene Anderson vs. Bill Watts/Thunderbolt Patterson GCW 6/24/77

MD: So here's something. We've gotten our hands on a lot of 70s territory wrestling over the last five years, be it Houston or what the Network has dropped, or new Memphis or dusted off CWF or what. As such, we're always able to reevaluate certain notions. One notion I always had was that old school traditional tag team wrestling was all the Arn/Tully mode: cutting off the ring, grabbing a hold, working a limb, distracting the ref, doubleteaming, the grindier version of the Southern tag, I guess. I think we've found that hasn't always been the case. It wasn't usually quite so locked down. With the Andersons, however, it was, and it's telling, then, how much they manage to stand out in that regard. I'm not going to go out on a limb and say 100% that they were more the exception than the rule, but relative to a lot of what I've seen lately, they felt exceptional here. There's not a lot else to say about this. Thunderbolt looked better than he would a few years down the line. Watts was Watts, portraying himself as tough as nails John Wayne and getting over for it. The finish was such BS that you could see the cops getting into position before it happened. They could have gone with the visual pin counted by Watts and just had it be a DQ after that, but instead they let the heels go over. The sound on this was virtually non-existent but I bet the heat would have been amazing.


Franz van Buyten vs. Frank Merckx (Belgium 1984)

MD: Sometimes you watch a wrestler for the first time and that ends up just being your image of him forever. That was the case with van Buyten. I love the Andre/Van Buyten/Ali Bey vs Isamu Teranishi/Rusher Kimura/Thunder Sugiyama IWE match from 72. It's just this amazing lengthy comedy match where van Buyten comes across as the most put upon guy in the world, a Belgian Basil Fawlty of pro wrestling. I've seen spatterings of matches with him since, usually from at least ten years later, and they're much more on brand Segunda Caida fare.

This is right down our alley. A Piratenkampf match (which if you're not familiar is a combination flag/chain match, something pretty unique to Europe). A huge chunk of this is Merckx choking or decimating van Buyten's face with the chain with Franz mounting heated comebacks only to end up back in that spot. If you're going to work hope spots in and out of a hold, having the hold be your face getting torn apart by a chain is pretty compelling. They have time to really let this build and lots of "outs" for believable comebacks as Merckx needs to allow distance to get the flag. It means when the actual comeback comes and van Buyten gets to bloody Merckx, the fans are more than ready for it.

I have no idea how much of this exists, waiting to be uncovered, but it does feel like one of those underexposed troves.

ER: Ah yes, the guy in 1984 Belgium who was taping an old man pirate battle. I love the feel of all this, tons of real grappling struggle, with the big bonus of a heavy chain being raked across eyeballs, noses, and gums. The crowd is absolutely on fire for this, and I really loved the cutaways to the crowd, filled with Belgian children and teenagers all going wild for two older guys bloodying each other up with a chain. It's so wonderful to me that this idea of pro wrestling is a form of entertainment that somehow was picked up and accepted all across the world, a real touchstone that people of all upbringings could respond to and get excited for. It's 25 minutes of two guys choking each other with a chain in a violent capture the flag battle, and boys and girls of all ages are hot for it. Merckx is a guy I've never seen before and for all I know I'm being tricked into spelling his name wrong. But he sure knows how to rearrange van Buyten's face with a chain, and we get some great handheld closeups of the chain smashing across the bridge of van Buyten's nose, ripping across his mouth, and great shots of Merckx throwing hammerfist blows with that chain wrapped around his fist. A lot of this match is basically in a phone booth, two guys locked together trying to choke each other to death with a chain. There aren't even many bumps, with one notably big one that sends van Buyten over the ropes to the floor, and I do wish we got more striking, as the blood and strikes don't really come until we're 20 minutes in. But that final visual was fantastic pro wrestling, with van Buyten climbing the buckles and reaching for that flag, holding the flag pole in a pose like he was planting the flag at Iwo Jima, while Merckx lies on the mat trying to pull him down off the top. I absolutely adore these snapshots into a pro wrestling culture that I didn't know existed.

PAS: There is something so grimy about a chain being raked across someones eyes with this yellowed film quality. The whole thing is kind of icky in the best possible way. Merkx is a burly barrel chested guy and makes this whole thing feel like a fist fight, this is van Buyten's match, and he has a bunch of interesting ways to work within the oddball gimmick. Actually climbing a pole with a chain is cooler visually then trying to touch turnbuckles, and I really liked how van Buyten used leverage and the finish was really exciting. Loved this, and Europe is really an undiscovered mine.


Toshiaki Kawada/Maunakea Mossman vs. Jinsei Shinzaki/Yuki Ishikawa AJPW 7/11/00

PAS: This is the only time Ishikawa and Kawada ever faced off, and you get the sense in an alternate universe this would be an all time legendary match up. It is really fun to see the indy team slotted into an All Japan tag, Shinzaki toned down a bunch of flourishes and really went in on uppercuts and leg whips, he and Kawada have some really fun exchanges, including Shinzaki doing his praying top rope shoulder block directly into a Kawada face kick. Shinzaki and Ishikawa sensibly tried to keep Mossman in the ring and went after his knee, Ishikawa had some very cool leglocks, although he left himself open to a Kawada jumping kneedrop so nasty that I imagine it made him nostalgic for Ikeda. I would have liked to see a bit more of an aggro finishing run to make it a real classic, but what a fun treat to show up randomly like this.

ER: Man, Phil is really underselling that this is the only time Ishikawa and Mossman ever faced off. I think a bunch of us were aware this match happened, because Ishikawa really only worked All Japan a handful of times, and knowing there was potentially a match opposite Kawada was just a cruel tease. And now we have it and it's still kind of a cruel tease. It's a long match (nearly 25 minutes, even with some clipping in a couple spots) but doesn't really ramp up to much, with the last few minutes not really feeling any different than things that happened in the first 10 minutes; and there were some odd stumbles or miscommunications or power plays, like Kawada popping right up from a Shinzaki powerbomb, causing Shinzaki to start selling giving a powerbomb, and then Kawada notices Shinzaki is selling for some reason so then kinda just sits down. So there were some awkward moments. And, Yuki Ishikawa is in this thing far less than the other three guys, including a really long stretch at the finish where he was just kinda watching from the floor after getting dumped there by Kawada minutes before. So, the match has issues, it isn't great, but I still would have watched it with a smile had I known all of those things ahead of time. It was totally worth it to see the moments of Kawada and Ishikawa squaring off and rattling jawbones. Ishikawa has such powerful elbow strikes, these short unwavering blows right to the jaw, and Kawada is a guy who is going to react great after getting his jaw rattled. I liked Team Indy working over Mossman's leg, though I wish it would have gone somewhere more interesting. Mossman is a guy with some cool kicks, and clearly those kicks were going to happen no matter what, and I loved Ishikawa eventually catching one at chest level and dropping down into a kneebar. Kawada had several fun bits with Shinzaki, my favorite being him doing an absolutely all time Kawada sell after taking an enziguiri and then stumbling slowly backwards halfway across the ring before plopping on his butt. It's my favorite Kawada sell, and this is one of the best ways I've seen him utilize it.

MD: Coming in behind Phil and Eric here, this was NOT the only time that Shinzaki and Kawada faced each other. That said, what's going to stick with me on this one months from now, past Shinzaki and Ishikawa absolutely demolishing Mossman's leg, are the interactions between the two. Yeah, that's not why we looked forward to this. That's not why we put this at the top of the list. There was just this amazing dissonance to it, as if the existed in a slightly different reality. Kawada had this tendency of just stopping before Shinzaki was about to land something. With Kawada, you have to suspend disbelief far less than with other wrestlers (that's true with Ishikawa too, for instance, which was part of the appeal). That's the long and short of it, right? That's one reason we all love these guys. That's why I sort of get short circuited by the mid-late 90s AJPW when it gets just a little too kickout/excess heavy. With Shinzaki on the other hand, there's an additional level of suspension necessary. Everything is a bit more stylized and affectated. That, in and of itself, is fine. It can be great. If you're willing to go along for the ride, it can be a hell of a ride. Kawada rightfully wasn't willing to go along for the ride and that made for a bunch of great little spots of him just accepting no nonsense, even as Shinzaki kept going back to the well. That part ended up way more enjoyable than you'd think.

Overall though, the match itself was problematic at times. It was a lot of the same, even with the limbwork. The clips meant that we lost a transition, which is the truest sin of all clips. I don't feel like the finishing stretch had enough to it. It was feels like a great find, just maybe one that wasn't as great for the reasons we were hoping for.

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