Found Footage Friday: AJPW HANDHELDS~! TIGER MASK II~! FURNAS~! SNUKA~! TAKANO~! TENTA~! SPIVEY~! ACE~! RICH~! SLATER~!

Tiger Mask II vs. Doug Furnas AJPW 10/28/88

MD: This was a sprint that went just a little over five minutes, but if I was Baba, I would have come out of this wondering if I hadn't found the Dynamite Kid for my Tiger Mask. They'd teamed against each other during the tour (with Furnas teaming with Kroffat and an Oates trainee "Greg/Craig Brown"), but this was their first singles match. I'm not saying that the same sort of chemistry was there because Misawa just didn't exactly have a ton with anyone while under the mask, and Furnas was more dropkicks and backflips than anything else, but he had that explosiveness when he landed on his feet that made me wonder if there might not have been some money in the pairing as they were at this point. In Furnas, Misawa had someone to bounce off of who could also keep up with him. After this (and partially due to Misawa's injury in 89) they wouldn't face off again until 90. By that point, fate had them moving in very different directions.

John Tenta/Shunji Takano vs. Tiger Mask II/Jimmy Snuka AJPW 12/16/88

MD: They told a little story here by having Tenta take out both TM and Snuka with dropkicks only to errantly hit Takano at the end, which led to a neat moment of Tenta catching Snuka off the top (no small feat!) and Misawa following it up with a missile dropkick to knock him over for the win. Takano looked sharp in there. I think he'd have a better sense on how to use his size against varying opponents a year later, but he was big and lanky and agile with a nice dropkick and superkick. He took the Snuka leapfrog/chop shot with a skidding bump across the ring too. Tenta was further along sooner than I remembered too, having a couple of surprising agility spots but generally just asserting himself like you'd want him to and he had the elbow drop already. The best bit by Misawa here was a stubborn assault on Takano, knocking him out of the ring with a baseball slide, doing another, and then not quite hitting a tope but just charging at him between the ropes headfirst never leaving the ring. Snuka didn't do much, but then he never does at this stage of his career, just his signature spot, grinding things down with a hold, and then whatever's necessary for the finish. He did get a run of throat shots on Tenta followed up by a bodyslam but it didn't have the build you'd want for such a momentous spot. This was more of a novelty than anything else, but it was a fun one.

ER: I liked everyone here and even though it was overall inconsequential, everyone had cool moments, and there was one incredible spot that I don't think I have ever seen before. Tiger Mask is my least favorite Misawa era, but it's cool seeing him as more of a big bump guy than a shutdown strike guy, and the way he leans into a takes Tenta and Takano's great dropkicks here is just a perfect take of a dropkick. I like how he sticks and moves, and the way he finally goes after Takano gave us the match's incredible moment: he hits a baseball slide to roll Takano to the floor, a harder baseball slide to knock him into the guardrail, and when Takano makes it back to the apron Misawa just hits him with a Pete Rose slide. I don't think I've ever seen someone do a baseball slide headbutt before. It wasn't a tope, it was clearly intentional, just diving into a head first into Takano's face. Snuka took two big bumps to the floor, including a really fast one over the top, and he absorbed several nasty swinging strikes from Tenta. Takano feels like a man out of place in All Japan, but in a cool way. He's a New Japan style worker crowbarred into All Japan and he feels like if Nobuhiko Takada if he got into pro style instead of shoot style. I don't know. I liked all of these guys in this. I'm glad some guy recorded it and immortalized the baseball slide headbutt. 

Dan Spivey/Johnny Ace vs. Tommy Rich/Dick Slater AJPW 12/16/88

MD: RWTL action. That's where you got some of the most hierarchy bending and most interesting match-ups, many of which only survive today due to handhelds. I'm getting flagged that Spivey and Ace came out to a song from Bubblegum Crisis which amuses me for some reason. I don't think it was anything associated with either of them in general. Ace was like a leaner, more fiery version of Spivey here, just a force of mullets between them. This morphs into a southern tag where they work over Ace's arm pretty well and cut off the ring through hope spots but it resets once Spivey gets in there. I'm not used to Spivey working as so pure a babyface in Japan so it's a bit off-putting. Spivey grinding down on de facto heel Rich's arm isn't as interesting and would have worked better as a shine instead of a mid-match reset. At least 88 Rich isn't afraid to headbutt Ace right in the face. Once Rich starts stretching for Slater, Dick wakes up from his tuned out slumber and decides that they'll be babyfaces too for a while, so I guess that was funny. That only lasts long enough for them to start punching Ace in the face again, but then who can blame them. It has a pretty solid finishing stretch though. Rich and Slater could still turn it on when they had to. Unfortunately a lot of the rest of the match was all over the place given how much time they had to kill. 

ER: This tag and the Tenta tag was on the same card as the legendary Hansen/Gordy vs. Tenryu/Kawada RWTL final, a match that is literally the greatest match of 1988. This was a throwaway RWTL match on the same card as the RWTL Finals, and that probably didn't help this match feel like much more than filler. The one story the match had going for it (other than Match With Four White Guys) was this was Tommy and Dick's last chance to win one Tag League match. Crusher Blackwell & Phil Hickerson also finished with 0 points in 1988, which is pretty fucking stupid, and no other year of the Tag League ended with two 0 point teams. So Dick & Tommy knew that a win would keep them out of the basement, which makes them the underdog babyfaces, but Spivey & Ace are the more popular team so that's how we kind of wound up with a time killing tag with constantly shifting roles. But I also happen to find time killing Kings Road matches to be calming comfort food. Not every one of these things needs to build to something. I wish we got to see Tommy Rich kill more time in Japan. Tommy Rich takes a backdrop bump and hits two different great middle buckle fistdrops: one late in the match after he and Dick did a tandem clothesline to Johnny Ace's neck that caused Ace to drop straight to his knees, and actually hot tagging into the match with one on Spivey. Rich gets one excellent nearfall down the home stretch, taking abuse from Spivey and nearly getting to 2 points with a tight backslide, and it was the loudest the crowd got all match. 

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New Footage Friday: All Japan 1/8/90

FULL SHOW

Tsuyoshi Kikuchi vs. Mitsuo Momota

MD: For a first match young guy, Kikuchi looked to have a ton of promise here. The dropkick stands out but he sold well and just looked like he belonged in there for the most part. Momota is a guy you want to see as an underdog, so watching him tear apart an arm in interesting ways is compelling but not what I enjoy the most out of him. They dropped the arm stuff in the last third which didn't necessarily do the match justice but you could see hints of the wrestler Kikuchi would become here.

ER: This felt more like a 1990 WWF house show match than a 1990 All Japan match, which still has some pluses. Much of the match is Momota grinding at Kikuchi's left arm, and Kikuchi's screaming during the arm work really made a lot of it resonate. But once you know that the left arm is never going to come up in any way once they go into the home stretch, it kind of renders the bulk of the match as "lets see if these front rows fill up a little more before the bigger matches". So you lop out the long arm section, and you're still left with a couple of cool things. Kikuchi's dropkick is fantastic and the way Momota sells it makes it seem like it hits with as much force as it looks like it's hitting. Later in the match Momota merely tosses Kikuchi to the floor and Kikuchi flies through the ropes as if he's hitting a tope on an invisible man, just a nutty bump to be taking in a "work the arm" match. I really loved how Momota blocked a Kikuchi hip toss by holding the ropes in the corner, then violently shoved Kikuchi to the mat. But I just can't by a single DDT finishing off Kikuchi, not after I seeing the decades of coconut clonks his head would end up enduring. 

Goro Tsurumi vs. Steve Gatorwolf

MD: Man, Gatorwolf's chops suck. I'll just lay that out there. He's big, has some presence, but Wahoo he is not. You know who could have had a good match against Tsurumi? Wahoo. Tsurumi's stuff is all good though. Good knees, took up space well, etc., but this was too long and Gatorwolf disappoints. We go deep on these cards, look under the overturned rock, but there maybe should be some limits? This feels like a match that no one's ever seen certainly, including the people that were actually in the crowd that night.

ER: I liked this more than Matt, and disagree about Gatorwolf's chops. Bad kneedrop? Sure Gatorwolf had a bad kneedrop. But All Japan fans had different ideas of what overhand chops to someone's forehead were supposed to look like and I think Gatorwolf's chops worked really well within the context of All Japan. What is kind of odd about Gatorwolf, is that his overhand chops are easily his weakest strike, but also the strike he uses 75% of the time. It would be like a pitcher with a terrible curveball who still used his curveball almost every pitch. There's a traditional chop exchange out of the corner, and Gatorwolf really blisters Goro's chest with a couple. He also threw this short right hand to the jaw a couple times that looked really good, but mostly it was the tomahawk chops. Goro Tsurumi is always an entertaining low card guy for me, but I think of him as a mid 80s AJ guy, not a 1990 AJ guy, and his offense that is primarily eye rakes and punches doesn't seem like anything that would fit into AJ (outside of Rusher Kimura). 

Tsurumi essentially works like Tarzan Goto working as Rusher Kimura, and that is a thing that I like. His punches look really great (and I love how he shook out his hand occasionally), he has a nice jawbreaker (which Gatorwolf bumped nicely), a couple of fun kneedrops where he just dropped both knees down into Gatorwolf's stomach, and a few eye rake variants. I couldn't believe Gatorwolf got the win here. Early 90s AJ had this weird habit of bringing in WWF job guys for tours, but it's not like they were giving those guys wins! Gatorwolf worked Tsurumi far more than any opponent on his tour, and was 8-2 against him! He lost to everyone else, so this might have been Baba really blatantly saying "You do not belong in All Japan any longer, Goro. Also you will be losing to David Sammartino and Joel Deaton in a couple months."  

Yoshinari Ogawa vs. Rip Rogers

MD: Rogers was just infinitely entertaining. If I was Baba, I'd have put him right in the comedy six mans (That weren't quite comedy six mans yet, but we'll get to that). He's a super over the top parody babyface here with lots of clapping and oh yeahs! He carried a kid around the ring on his shoulders before the match, which felt unique but was something he did multiple times on the tour. And if this was 1997 Ogawa or 2002 Ogawa or whatever, he would have been able to react and respond to it and it would have been amazing. 1990 Ogawa? He played grumpy with a chip on his shoulder as Rogers is just having a good time. I liked this a lot better than his Kobashi match a couple of days later, because Kobashi, in the midst of a big 7 match series against various opponents (including allies like Kabuki and Yatsu) just took it all way too seriously with the ability to take it to Rip, forcing Rogers into more of a heel role, where here he felt like a bizarre attraction. 

ER: I love the Rip Rogers All Japan tours, and Rip really should have been a regular undercard gaijin for the rest of the decade. Mike Modest basically secured a long term NOAH gig by getting a simple thumbs up gesture over, and Rogers has 5 or 6 different bits that are a definite hit with the AJ crowds. I've looked at some of his other matches from his two tours (here are matches against Fuchi and Sato, and here are matches against Kobashi and Eigen), and the act is a hit. Clapping, toting around kids, taking an eternity to hand off his robe, checking out his hair in his hand mirror, it gets a reaction every time and I have no doubt that he would have added to the routines with a longer stay. Rip has the shtick (which Ogawa plays into a little, mussing up Rip's hair), but he also works stiff, and this was when Ogawa was more of a stiff younger worker too, so we get a great mix of goof off yelping from Rip and then some stiff arm lariats from both. Rip has great punches (and he shakes his fist out too! A bunch of guys after my heart on this show...) and both bumped convincingly for the other. I loved Rip finishing with a superplex, too, but I just couldn't shake the idea that this guy should have been a gaijin undercard star.  

Mighty Inoue/Isamu Teranishi vs. The Fantastics

MD: Inoue was really good. I don't think he gets enough credit. Huge energy. Everything's crisp. Everything's mean. He has something special in how he moves and hits stuff. Teranishi, on the other had, does not. He was in there to lose offense and get beaten on. Fantastics kept taking advantage on him with teamwork and then Inoue had to come in and fix things. Fulton and Rogers had good stuff, like always, and fed well for Inoue, but I like them more when they get to lean into either face or heel roles generally.

ER: The Fantastics are so great during their 90s All Japan run that I have to imagine a ton of people just weren't seeing their matches, or else they would have been talked about as one of the greater 90s tag teams. The are total asskickers in All Japan, small, but packing a wallop. Matching them up against the still very fast and hard hitting Mighty Inoue and the super tough sumo Teranishi is just a super fun pairing. Fulton kept cutting off Inoue and Teranishi with his great right hand, Rogers had a lot of force behind everything he did (he hit a legdrop on a hot tag at one point and it felt like he was trying his hardest to destroy his tailbone), but perhaps his greatest strength is in taking all of Inoue's nastiest shots. Inoue sticks Rogers with a disgusting gutbuster/senton combo and looks like a truck tire rolling over Tommy. Teranishi hits a great kneedrop off the top and it felt like a possible finish. But the Fantastics were too good with cutoff spots and watching them peel Teranishi far enough away from Inoue was great, loved their Drive-By finish, and Fulton's running punch to keep Inoue from breaking up the pin was the sweetest icing.

 

Giant Baba/Rusher Kimura/The Great Kabuki vs. Masanobu Fuchi/Motoshi Okuma/Haruka Eigen

MD: You can't say that they didn't make good use out of Fuchi in these matches. He was able to switch on a dime between hanging with his legendary opponents and stooging all over the place for them. Due to the HH, I had a hard time telling Fuchi's side apart at times, but that's more on me. Baba's more mobile here and Rusher hasn't shifted over completely to the bit where he just stands around stoically as people hit him, but I'm not sure that's even a good thing. The matches get a lot funnier a few years later even if they're probably more technically sound at this point.

ER: I thought this was great, and maybe the best fusion of comedy and the guys still being able to work. Everyone in a trios having the average age of 45 just feels like a modern WWE match, and most of these guys could still go in the ring. It's much more wrestling with some comedy, as opposed to comedy with a little bit of wrestling like this style of trios would become. A lot of these guys (Eigen, Fuchi, Kabuki, Okuma) are still real ass kickers, Baba was still able to hit with a surprising amount of force and was still quite spry, and Rusher was inflexible but still had several cool tricks. 

Baba and Fuchi were a great match, with Baba hitting him with some really impressive stuff for a 52 year old giant. His Russian legsweep makes him look like an actual powerful giant, he hits one of the loudest Baba chops I've ever heard to the side of Fuchi's neck, Fuchi runs super fast directly into Baba's big boot, it honestly looked like they could have had a great singles match in 1990. But for some reason Fuchi hardly worked singles matches in 1990, not defending his World Junior title for a six month stretch. It's not just those two with chemistry, everyone works really well with everyone else, all get nice moments to shine. Kabuki looked as violent as ever, starting a match long trend of Eigen and Fuchi getting kicked in the shoulder blades. Kabuki makes kicking guys in the back and look so fun that Baba throws several great ones of his own. Eigen is really spirited and mean here, throwing stiff chops, slapping the taste out of Rusher's mouth with a hard fast combo, taking a quick flipping bump to the floor; he didn't look too old to be out to pasture, but he was working 90% tags and trios as one of the lowest totem pole guys on the roster. It's a real testament to how deep the native roster was. 

Okuma is a guy I always forget about, but contributed nasty headbutts (including a big standing splash variation) and has some great battles with Rusher and Baba. Even Rusher has his vicious moments, taking a ton of headbutts and throwing heavy chops, choking Eigen hard in the ropes. The comedy is well integrated and smartly played, not nearly so much a focal point of the match style, but a fun added feature of a quicker paced match than you'd expect. There was a lot of movement for a match that would become the old man style, and the few comedy spots provide nice breaks in the action. We get the Eigen spitting spot, except nobody has newspapers and he makes it to the 3rd row. And we get a great comedy callback spot to play off an earlier Baba moment. Kabuki had hit a hard bodyslam on Fuchi and Baba stepped firmly down onto Fuchi's stomach with his gigantic foot, then firmly walking on and over him. Fuchi later tries to do the same, only to get his foot grabbed, tripping him on his way over. The finish is a bit abrupt, which is a funny thing to say about one of the longest matches on the show. But I thought this was really one of the best matches from a style not known for it's high end in-ring. 

Shinichi Nakano vs. Randy Rose

MD: You feel a little bad for Rose to have to follow Rip on the card. He tried hard, though, including hitting an axe-handle off the apron, but his stooge stuff (like getting pulled off the ropes in a double leg or teeter-tottering like Funk in the ropes while getting chopped or getting atomic dropped onto a chair) wasn't going to play post-Rip. Nakano, like usual, was just there. This was fine but the crowd didn't come along.


Shunji Takano/Akira Taue vs. Abdullah the Butcher/Ivan Koloff

MD: A nothing match. This was a good tour for Koloff, but you don't really get to see that here so just take my word for it. Taue wasn't even close to being The Taue at this point, and watching him here, you couldn't be blamed for thinking he'd be another sumo guy who didn't make it. Takano (who was a couple of years younger actually), on the other hand, seemed like he would have been a player.

Yoshiaki Yatsu/Kenta Kobashi vs. The British Bulldogs

MD: This was mostly Davey Boy putting young Kobashi through his paces, but that was a lot of fun to see. Davey looked great and like he could have been feuding with Jumbo or Tenryu for the Triple Crown if he didn't go to the WWF towards the end of 90. I'm iffy on late Bulldogs matches because it's not very enjoyable to watch broken-down Dynamite, but he wasn't in much and mostly threw headbutts or did a little bit of grinding on Kobashi when he was in. Yatsu got to clean house towards the end but this felt about getting some more miles on Kobashi.

Jumbo Tsuruta/Tiger Mask II/Isao Takagi vs. Genichiro Tenryu/Toshiaki Kawada/Samson Fuyuki

MD: This came just a few days after Takagi brutally ambushed Tenryu before a singles TV match with Koloff. It's also one of Tiger Mask Misawa's first matches back after missing most of 89 with an injury. Tenryu had faced Jumbo dozens of times over the last year, but generally, Tenryi had the younger guys (in Footloose) on his side and Jumbo would have older warriors like Kabuki or Yatsu on his. There wasn't a lot of opportunity to see Tenryu be a grumpy bastard against the youth. He made up for lost time here. Every time he got into the ring and got his hands on Takagi, it's great. He just brutalizes him for a few seconds and then dismissively tags out to one of his partners. He's equally a jerk to Tiger Mask (chopping him for no reason whenever he gets too close to the corner while he's on the apron) and, of course, Jumbo (just leaping into the ring, running across and tagging him). 

My single favorite bit was him wrecking Takagi after Isao had the impudence to pull Tiger Mask out of the way of the Tenryu top rope elbow drop. It was obvious that he took it personally and no one was better at taking things personally than Tenryu. Even though that was my favorite, the match was just full of great Tenryu moments: dropping a table on Takagi from the outside, eating some Tiger Mask kicks only to yank him down to the mat by his mask, smugly dodging a double knee by Takagi and Jumbo. All the while, he's incredibly giving, letting Tiger Mask and Takagi both have big moments against him. Jumbo and Footloose play their parts well and this ends up being as a really nice piece of business and a great lost match.

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New Footage Friday: 1986 Crockett Cup!!

MD: Anyone reading this site will know the backstory here and how we thought it was always possible we were going to get this but never entirely sure. I know second-hand that people like Cornette had doubts as late as this year whether or not it existed. We lose five matches here, including Dundee/Landell vs Doc and Taylor and the Sheepherders vs the Guerreros, but what we got was great. Obviously we dropped everything to review it.

Fantastics vs. Fabulous Ones

PAS: This is a cool concept with heel Fabs facing the team that ripped off their entire gimmick. I didn't think there were any particularly excellent performances in this match, but the Southern tag formula is so solid, that even a baseline match in that style is going to be entertaining. I did like how vicious the Fabs were, gouging at eyes and spitting. I would be pissed if some LSAT tutor named himself Bill Schriber and stole all of my test tricks. Tommy Rogers had this weird open eyed smile on his face for much of the match like Forrest Gump, and Bobby Fulton sold pain with this over emotional cry face, I have a feeling the close up filming of these matches will do the Fantastics no favors. I really liked the finish, with Rogers doing a blind hot tag blocking a backdrop and rolling up Keirn

MD: Quick spoiler. This was the Fantastics' night. I can imagine other people are going to disagree, but out of their three great matches, this might have been my favorite. It was the most traditional of the three. There was such a novelty to see them against the Fabs, and picture perfect, totally on point, scraggly heel Fabs. I write this at the back end of four hours of wrestling, most of which being tags, so my memories aren't great, but this was just solid, solid tag work with two teams that were, on paper, mirror images of one another.

The shine was beautiful. The transition with a Lane superkick over the top rope while the ref was distracted was great. This was a show where every limb in the world was going to be worked over. Here it was the neck including the first of ten neck-clotheslines-over-the-top rope. This was the only one that ended with Keirn mocking the Fargo Strut though. Fulton, as much as almost anyone I've ever seen, was the distilled embodiment of (endearingly folksy yet somehow still emotionally true) Southern Pro Wrestling. Sometimes it's almost too much, almost too engaging. The look on his face after a hope spot when he realizes Keirn still has his leg so he can't make it to the corner is perfect Pro Wrestling. The finish was one of the freshest and most interesting on the whole show, with a blind tag and complex body positioning for the roll up.

Buzz Sawyer/Rick Steiner vs. Koko B. Ware/Italian Stallion

PAS: This was an awesome bit of business. I love that the WWE Network has become a Buzz Sawyer delivery system. Sawyer was incredible in this, just so many cool moments. He takes an insane bump into the ropes from a Koko dropkick, does this great amateur drop down instead of leapfrogging Stallion, suplexes Koko on the floor, misses his huge superfly splash, and does this awesome catch of Stallion leapfrog into a power over powerslam. Just an awesome show, everyone else was fine, and Koko takes a great bump to the floor, but man was Sawyer electric.

MD: This was really good. For some reason, it always amazes me just how giving Buzz Sawyer was considering all the stories about him. The way he bumped for Koko here was out of this world, or at least the normal physics for this world. He was an incredible stooge too, and not just with the big motions. There's a shit-eating grin on his face after a leapfrog but before he takes a body press by Koko that's top notch.

Here I thought at first that the shine might have been a bit too long, but ultimately, it just made the transition, a brutal suplex on the floor, one of the worst you'd ever see, all the more weighty. Koko's selling of the back was completely engaging and Buzz targeted it enthusiastically. Steiner and Stallion were fine in their roles, but this was the Buzz and Koko show.

Brett Sawyer/Danny Peterson vs. Gorgeous Jimmy Garvin/Black Bart

PAS: Shortish semi-squash, Sawyer and Peterson get in a little offense early, but basically go down pretty quickly. Bart had a nice clothesline, and Garvin's short brainbuster was super nasty looking, neck trauma for Peterson.

MD: I have a soft spot for Bart, having started watching wrestling in 1990 and watching as much as I could. He was all over WCW, WWF, and GWF if you watched everything in the year or two that followed. That said, I was not a fan of him on this night. Sawyer gave everything he had and frankly, for this part of the tournament, it was too much. He hit both an Alabama Jam and a top rope kneedrop onto Bart's arm, two of the biggest moves of the whole show, and they meant nothing. I thought it was too much even before Bart decided not to sell any of it. The most over thing in the match wasn't any of Sawyer's big offense but when he spat towards Garvin. That tells you something. Anyway, Garvin's brainbuster was great though.

Midnight Express (Bobby Eaton/Dennis Condrey) vs. Nelson Royal/Sam Houston

PAS: Really short match with Houston really getting fed to wood chipper. MX really moved through their stuff fast and violently. Houston does get a tag in, but Royal puts on a abdominal stretch and gets hit with a axehandle and pinned. Maybe 2 minutes.

MD: This was a whole lot of nothing, just a minute or two, but that whole lot was the Midnights looking amazing. They were the team you wish that you saw more of on this night. Eaton had the best punch of the night and that was saying something.

Magnum TA/Ronnie Garvin vs. Buzz Sawyer/Rick Steiner

PAS: This was only about 5 minutes, and I really wish it went longer. Just love both of these teams. Garvin is pasting people as usual, and it is really fun to watch him treat Rick Steiner the way Rick Steiner would treat everyone else he wrestles. The Maddogs beat on TA for a bit, including some punches to the forehead which seem to bruise him up good, then we get a great hot tag to Garvin who is throwing taters, and a quick belly to belly pin. These teams had great chemistry, and I wish we got a longer run from Sawyer and Steiner, what a pair of asskickers.

MD: The most interesting part of Magnum's game to me is always his selling. This is a guy who is supposed to portray a double-tough leather jacket Americana mustache biker ideal and he's not afraid to give and give and give. I think some of it is the explosiveness of the belly-to-belly which he can hit sort of out of anywhere, but I wonder if it's something he got from tagging with Wrestling II and being groomed by Dusty. The fans went along with him for the ride here. My favorite thing in all of this was probably Garvin slapping Steiner in the face after he wouldn't budge on the shoulder blocks. His peppering in of punches after the hot tag was good too. Steiner seemed a little lost at the end and that Belly to Belly sure was close to the ropes. This was perfectly fine and perfectly fun.

Road Warriors vs. Wahoo McDaniel/Mark Youngblood

MD: Not a lot to say here. You get the sense that Wahoo just wanted to get out of there before the crowd booed him too much. The best part of this was Tony and Ross trading off on the mic to open the evening session. I did like when Ross started to mention piledrivers and off the top rope moves and everyone booed until they realized he was saying they were legal on this night.

Ivan Koloff/Nikita Koloff vs. Jimmy Valiant/Manny Fernandez

MD: All of the pre-match stuff was fun. For a totally unnecessary moment on a packed show, Shaska cut a good promo on Valiant. I liked the Russian solidarity trying to get Gorchenko over. The Russians' formula was a bit bonkers by this point, with Ivan 1970s stooging and Nikita coming in to dominate. Obviously the fans loved every time he ran into Valiant's fist, but it's pretty dissonant. More about that the next time they show up.

Sheepherders vs. Rock and Roll Express

MD: Ah, our hated enemy, New Zealand. The Rock'n'Roll stuff with the flag at the beginning was great. They felt like such a big deal even though this was only sort of a cameo appearance for them. I caught this one on the bus, sans notes. Robert was FIP (body part of choice: shoulder/arm after a missed corner charge). Lots of interesting varied, relentless offense by the Sheepherders, including a bit second rope hammer to a prone Robert. The hot tag was super hot but the finish was BS as they hit an interfering Victory with the flag, not even one of the Sheepherders. They start a solid bullshit chant, complete with a "Blind Ref" sign in the crowd, after the fact though.

PAS:  Pretty by the numbers R+Rs match which is a great number to listen to. Sheepherders are pretty basic, but their basic stuff looks good, if you are going to stomp a shoulder,  stomp that shit. Gibson is as good an FIP as Morton and Morton is an all time great hot tag. That was an awful finish though, lots of ways to have the R+Rs lose and look strong without that fart.

Fantastics vs. Arn Anderson/Tully Blanchard

MD: This was excellent. They were laying it in to one another, especially Tully. I liked the comfort food and novelty elements of the Fabs match, but this was worked as hard as possible, with everything basically hitting. What really took it over the top, though, was just how committed everyone was in their reactions. If it comes off like it matters to the wrestlers, it's going to matter to the crowd, and no one could make it feel like it mattered quite like Arn and Tully. When Arn really gets to come in against Rogers, we hear him say "I'm gonna enjoy this" while rubbing his hands together. The sheer offense he manages to express a moment later when Rogers tells him to kiss his ass popped the crowd huge.

I loved the comeback here. They just couldn't put Fulton away, so everything finally escalates to another suplex attempt on the floor. Fulton's able to escape by the skin of his teeth and after some real hard work, a minute later he's rolling for the hot tag. They went around the loop one or two times more before the finish (with the heels reacting again, JJ flying into the ring, Arn slamming his own head repeatedly onto the turnbuckle in frustration. These guys made you care).

PAS: This was really good, you don't think of Tully and Fulton as all time great punchers, but they looked like Dundee and Lawler here. Tully and Arn are great vicious pricks, and we have J.J. wandering around outside being a sleazy fuck. God is JJ great, he feels like a Southern Preacher who preaches about Jesus while owning 50 percent of a Miami youth hostel with a pool boy he met on vacation. Arn's two big spots, the spinebuster and gordbuster are both huge spots that always feel like finishes, and I love how sure he is of himself when he hits them.

Giant Baba/Tiger Mask vs. Jimmy Garvin/Black Bart

MD: This felt surreal, though not as surreal as the next Baba/Misawa match. The biggest thing to point out here was how the fans more or less booed or were indifferent two the Japanese wrestlers to start and how thoroughly Misawa won them over with his big spots. Bart probably didn't earn a trip to Japan with his selling. If Precious had swung at Baba post match like it looked like she was going to, she might have though?

PAS: It is weird how Jimmy Garvin worked both Misawa and Hashimoto in tag tournaments. He actually was a pretty good foil for Misawa's fast stuff, and Baba worked hard for mid 80s Baba. Not a great match but a pretty fun one.

The Road Warriors vs. The Midnight Express

MD: I sort of liked the story here where the Midnights were good enough to keep getting opportunities but just couldn't hold the offensive against the Road Warriors, which led to Cornette trying to escalate things with the tennis racket and getting caught. There's not much else to say here except for how good the Press-into-the-Ring spot with Eaton was.

Steve Williams/Terry Taylor vs. Nikita Koloff/Ivan Koloff

MD: First of all, it's a real shame we didn't get Bravo/Martel vs Williams/Taylor. Ah well. This was ok, but definitely worked towards a draw. It's also a shame, because in another setting, it could have been built to Doc and Nikita matching up with the crowd wildly behind Doc. As it was, the heel-in-peril on Ivan lasted forever and when they finally got to Doc vs Nikita, they defused it too much with stalling. I thought they could have worked the last minute of the draw a little more excitingly too. The post match carnage was something else though, just a total heel mauling in the Bill Watts style.

The Fantastics vs. The Sheepherders

MD: This became a bloodbath and an outright brawl towards the end. It's a heck of a spectacle and a testament to both the Fantastics (who wrestled three very different matches in one night) and the Sheepherders (who we only have a few minutes of vs the Guerreros). Phil will probably disagree with me, but I'm not sure it quite had the narrative meat it needed to stand up to the other two Fantastics matches on the show, no matter it's rep over time. They got some solid heat on Fulton on the outside but the comeback turned into a big blur. Blood's an awesome tool and it was used well here (as was the king of the mountain stuff we didn't see in the other tags), but all anyone's going to really remember is the pledge at the beginning and the flag shots and bleeding at the end (especially the blood on the bottom of Fulton's heels on that last dropkick. Wow). Near the end of an exhausting day of wrestling, I think this shut down the crowd for the next couple of matches.

PAS: I was surprised at how much of this was a standard tag until the blood started flowing. Once Fulton is cut the match skips a gear and we get a pretty exciting bloody brawl. Fulton's OTT selling work better here, as I bought his seizure selling as  guy bleeding to death more then I bought it when he breaks in out in random tag matches. By the end it got pretty out of control, but I wouldn't call this match legendary, the juice was a nice touch, and I like the match being thrown out, but for a match with the big rep it was more unique in context then in execution.

Magnum TA/Ronnie Garvin vs. Giant Baba/Tiger Mask

MD: Totally surreal. Some of the biggest stars of decades and this felt like a piss break match that had to take the crowd back after what they had just witnessed. You got just the tiniest hint of Garvin and Baba firing back and forth on one another and an amazingly cool finish with Magnum just barely catching Misawa off the top with the belly-to-belly, but this was mostly dead, and I'm pretty sure I was too by this point.

Hacksaw Jim Duggan vs. Dick Slater

MD: We had this before, I think. Duggan was really over at this point. Slater had real heat at this point. The crowd remained dead for most of this. I liked the transition cementer with Duggan going through the rail. I liked the hope spot with Duggan chasing Slater around the ring. They started to wake up a bit for his big comeback and did light up for the finish.

Dusty Rhodes vs. Ric Flair

MD: Paul Boesch is the best. This we only had 15 minutes of before. Back in late 92, WWF did these "Manager Cam" segments for CV, including one of the only Dibiase vs Santana matches we have in WWF on tape, where it's entirely focused on the manager. I love that we got this show without commentating, but there's a chunk of this that felt like the Baby Doll show. To their credit, the fans were back up for this. Dusty bled. Flair missed the knee drop to cause a transition and then missed the butt down on the leg in the ropes for another, which were both good inversions that you didn't see ALL that much. Flair bled. Dusty was smart enough to not lose on the boot shot, but to lose on the DQ and get to take out the ref as well. It's Dusty vs Flair. You've seen it.

The Road Warriors vs. Magnum TA/Ronnie Garvin

MD: We had this before as well. I don't have a lot to say about it. It didn't feel like a dream match but it did feel like a culmination to a degree. I think nothing wore out its welcome (they could have spent too much time with the arm control work early, for instance, and they didn't). Magnum gave up a ton and the back focus was good. For the most part, until Animal's late chinlock, they kept it varied and interesting. I'm not sure this was the right match up to end the night. The fans seemed split. They popped somewhat for the belly to belly, but less for the hot tag that followed. Then they popped huge for the finish. Mrs. Crockett calling them the "Road Runners" at the end made the entire night worth it.

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On Brand Segunda Caida: Bossman in Japan!

Big Bubba/Tom Magee vs. Jumbo Tsuruta/Tiger Mask II AJPW 4/4/88

ER: It's kind of amazing how much one guy can drag down a match with three legends, but there really isn't much you can do with 1988 Jumbo. Hey folks, we have a lot of fun here. Magee was truly one of the most clueless wrestlers in history, a clearly athletic guy who couldn't get up for a move to save his life. He's like if David Flair had enough athleticism to get himself into trouble. But this match is entirely worthwhile for every single second of Bubba and Jumbo in the ring together. It's fantastic. We get some fun work around shoulderblocks, with Bubba absorbing a couple before taking down a suspender strap, and while he preps to absorb a third that's when Jumbo surprises him with a leaping knee right to the face. Hell yeah. Watch the awesome moment late in the match where Bubba whips Jumbo hard into the ropes, hitches his pants up like a big fat guy does, and is right back in position just in time to yoink Jumbo up into a bearhug. Bubba was so good with barely a full year under his belt, and '88 Jumbo was really great, my favorite Jumbo time period. Bubba's positioning throughout the match is impressive as hell, and he had this great way of bumping expertly right to the spot he needed to be. This whole thing is worth it just to see Bubba whip off his XL belt and start choking the life out of Jumbo. What an absolute monster!! Bubba also has a bunch of impressive tricks for a guy still under 25; my favorite is his missed clothesline. He whips his huge arm so low and fast but it's 100% safe. He holds his arm out for a big lariat and the split second someone passes it he swings it hard, guaranteeing a miss but making the miss look great. So, Tom Magee. Well, Magee throws a nice dropkick and a couple surprisingly nice body shots...and the rest of the time it's almost impressive how completely baffled he looks. He had no idea how to stand, no idea how or where to fall, there's a beyond embarrassing mat section with Misawa tries grounding him and works a figure 4, but Magee is arguably more clueless on his back than on his feet. Jumbo tries his best with him and the guy can't even get up for a bodyslam. At one point Bubba seems like he accidentally tags Magee in and instantly regrets it, like he just stumbled into a carefully arranged stack of plates. The frustration from everyone is palpable, though Jumbo and Misawa keep it pro and don't rough him up, in a way that seems like they just felt bad for the guy. Before this match Magee was a relatively protected gaijin, winning more often than losing. After this match he lost every one of his last 14 matches on the tour, and never returned to Japan.

Big Bubba/Jimmy Snuka vs. Genichiro Tenryu/Yoshiaki Yatsu AJPW 4/15/88

ER: This was not exceptional, but it was filled with near constant moments of near joy. Bubba was so massive at this point, like a giant mean teddy bear, like a guy who seems like a cool fat young dad, but also a guy who would work perfectly as one of Ben Gazzara's goons in Road House. I love his swinging double axe handle attacks, and the finish with him being assaulted on all sides by Jumbo and Yatsu before being dumped by a man sized back suplex was really cool. There were small moments throughout that made this worthwhile even without a man who looks like a gigantic short order cook on a job interview, such as Snuka lying on his side with a "man, REALLY?" look on his face after Jumbo yanks him off a Yatsu pin, or Snuka hitting a great diving headbutt that kind of just looked like he splashed Yatsu's face. Inessential, but needed.

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New Footage Friday: Brisco, Flair, ROBLEY, Hansen, Bruno, Baba, Idol, Race

Since the Network only dropped one gem this week (although it is a shiny one for sure), we supplemented this post with a couple of cool All Japan Handhelds from the deep well of cool handhelds unearthed by Pete.

Giant Baba/Bruno Sammartino vs. Harley Race/Buck Robley AJPW 10/8/81

MD: The video quality on this handheld is washed out to the point where Robley's trademark yellow shirt barely looks yellow. I'm not going to say it helps, but it is sort of cool to see Baba as this looming, giant presence in poor VQ. This had a ton of novelty. It's not every day you can see Race vs Bruno and even Bruno vs a guy as slimy as Buck seems rare.

If I'm reading the date right here, this was a few days after Bruno's retirement match with George Steele, him finishing up with his last commitment to Japan. I have no idea where this was on that tour, but he must have felt good about it because he was incredibly spry here. He looked like a wrestling machine against Race early on and when he was tagged in later, he was moving so quickly and bringing so much intensity that I had to check to make sure I wasn't on 1.5x speed. Everyone else looked good too, with Robley sneaky and mean, Race bumping and bringing down hammers, and Baba so good at utilizing his size for big, visual comeback moves, but this was the Bruno show. There's not much better in wrestling than watching a washed out, unearthed video of Bruno repeatedly deadlifting Robley from a grounded armbar.

PAS: I thought this was awesome, it isn't technically an all time great match, but for pure enjoyment it is just a blast. Bruno was off the charts in this, he was moving like one of those Shaolin guys CIMA is training, super fast armdrags, great powerful takedowns and reversals, the armbar deadlifts. What a bummer his retirement was, it is too bad he didn't just spend the next decade working UWA and CMLL cards. I really enjoyed the Race and Robley team too, they were nasty cheapshot artists in this, great looking sneaky jabs and elbows, both guys are master dirty boxers, they would always find a way to sneak in a shot. I told Eric we were reviewing this match, and he kept referring to it as "The Robley match" despite having three of the biggest stars in wrestling history, and it is kind of justified. Robley is a guy we don't have much of, but is kind of an American Kurisu, balding sleazebag who will just kick your ass, and he totally feels like he belongs with the all time greats.

ER: Hahaha it didn't even cross my mind to call this match anything other than "The Robley match". Buck Robley turning up on tape is going to be something I'm going to want to see. He's a great guy to turn up in All Japan, as Robley looks like someone who would be in Clint Eastwood's stock of character actors that he would bring along on movies, like Bill McKinney or Paul Koslo, like you'd see Robley turn up as a bartender in Thunderbolt and Lightfoot or as the camp cook in Joe Kidd. He had those narrow mean eyes and shabby muzzle, and looked like someone who would try to rip the nose off your face if he misheard you. If this match was a western and he was the star, then the fans would clearly be watching Buck Robley in: The Man Who Would Be Pinned. And he's awesome in this as Race's scrappy lackey (and would most certainly try to rip my nose off if he heard me call him scrappy), always flying in and dropping elbows on necks, dropping a knee right after Race drops a knee, running interference so Race could sneak in a punch to the eye, kicking Baba in the head to break up a pin, getting ragdolled by Bruno on a great bearhug, essentially wrestling as if he were a man starting a bar fight on Deadwood. He's a proto Necro Butcher who doesn't have the physical gifts or athleticism, so works messy and mean instead. Bruno had a fantastic hot tag here, one of my favorites in recent memory, running in quicker than a cruiserweight and just overwhelming Robley, Robley looking like a guy barely able to keep his head above water, Bruno just effortlessly muscling him around the ring. Bruno was working like if Danielson had packed on 40 lb. of muscle but still wrestled the same. His hot tag reminded me of WCW Finlay matches where he would work really fast for a minute to almost try and trip up his opponent. Bruno looked iconic here. I love a good bearhug and this was a masterpiece, looking like he could snap Buck in two, and Buck selling it like a panicked animal in a trap. Awesome find.

Ric Flair vs. Jack Brisco GCW 4/7/84

MD: I think we were all hoping for another dump of multiple matches, and maybe even expecting at least a few, but if you're going to get one match, a 20 minute unearthed GCW Brisco vs Flair NWA Title Match is a good way to go.

It was Flair as heel champ against a legendary technical babyface, so you know exactly what to expect coming in. Let's face it. By 2018, with the amount of footage we have at our disposal, the old Flair adage is spot on: "Learn to Love It." You know what you're getting from Flair, so come in looking for the positives and be prepared to forgive the negatives. In short, enjoy and take in what unique elements are you going to get from the specific opponent and setting and lean into what we know Flair does as well as anyone: work from underneath during the first act matwork (ignoring the fact that none of it will ever matter for the rest of the match), hit his stuff (and he had more stuff at this point of the 80s than he would later) well, and have a hot finishing stretch that the crowd would be 110% into.

As such, I was pretty happy with this. Brisco had won a TV tournament (over Sweet Brown Sugar and Brad Armstrong) to get the shot. He was working TV as a tweener-heel, refusing, for instance, to give Brad extra time to prepare for the finals after he took an errant shot from an angry Hawk during his semi-final match vs Horner. Unfortunately, he wrestled this as a total babyface. That first act consisted of a nasty headlock and a short-arm scissors, which is one of my favorite holds in general. Brisco kept rolling with it as Flair tried to get out. Good stuff. Like I said, Flair had more offense for his mid-match control here than he'd have a few years later, including a killer neckdrape over the top rope. Brisco did his part, selling well both here and especially in the stretch. The finish was this great cradle/roll up (really, almost a crucifix) reversing a fired-up hiptoss attempt, which was something so good it's crazy Flair didn't use it more in later years. So, as far as basic Flair match grading goes, this hit all the marks really well.

Where it excelled was in the little things. That early headlock allowed a tease for the shin-buster, which was paid off late match when a far-more-tired Brisco would go back to a headlock. Flair then hit the shin-buster and got the figure-four for a finishing tease. The transition to Flair taking over was beautiful. Hebner stopped a Brisco punch in the corner (one that was well deserved as Flair had gone to the dirty breaks first) and Flair got a knee in. Normally, it'd be iffy, because a lot of the heat ends up on the ref, but Flair was savvy enough to follow it immediately with a shoving match with Hebner. In later years, the ref stuff, while always getting a pop, tended to be detrimental. Here, it ensured the heat would stay on him and not Hebner, even as he took over on Brisco. It's small things that would get homogenized later, like Flair making sure to raise his hand as he reached the top rope, as if he actually intended to hit a piece of offense instead of just getting tossed off because it's what the fans expected.

Again, I was hoping for multiple matches/surprises, but if they can manage to post something at this level every week, I'll be happy.

PAS: For a guy who I completely adore it is hard to get excited about unearthed Flair gems. So much of his stuff has been available and picked through over the years, that I would really only be excited if he was against a idiosyncratic opponent. While there isn't much Jack Brisco footage out there, I kind of get his gist. Despite some subdued expectations I did enjoy what both guys brought to the table. I am a total mark for a short arm scissors, and I loved Brisco using that rolling short arm scissors as a control method, rather then just sinking in a headlock or leglock. The match really got rolling when it turned into more of a brawl, both guys have great looking punches, Flair chopping downward shot to the nose is a true classic shot and it looked like he really watered Brisco's eyes with it. That finishing cradle roll up was really awesome looking and such a cool flash pin, really great way for a heel champ to win clean, while still making the babyface look good. Neat match, although the fact that they have this footage is probably the most exciting part of it.

Austin Idol/Stan Hansen vs. Tiger Mask 2/Jumbo Tsuruta AJPW 8/28/87

MD: Good ten minute match. I thought Idol brought elements you don't always see in AJPW to the table. Occasionally, he was there as a random, chaotic element while Hansen was doing his thing, stalking around ringside with a chair getting a cheapshot in. When he was directing traffic, however, it was more of a southern tag. There was a significant section where they were controlling Jumbo by working his arm and that was all Idol. He was practically forcing Jumbo up for moments of hope only to pull his hair to get him back down. I'm not sure the fans were buying it and the eventual hot tag wasn't as hot as you'd hope.

It's striking to see how well Tiger Mask II would, even in 1987, make sure not to get swallowed alive by Hansen in a way that his peers couldn't always manage. He'd reverse a whip or drag him to the corner in a way you wouldn't expect. Best moment of the match was probably Hansen having enough of his kicks against the ropes and taking him down brutally for punches and headbutts. Still, whenever I watch these 80s Hansen matches I wish they were just a few percentage points more collaborative. There's a spot where TMII reverses the whip on the outside into the rail and Hansen chases him back into the ring. TMII sputters out with a few kicks that Hansen ignores. If he had eaten a dropkick instead, popped up and goozled him again, it would have meant more. Likewise, after an assisted slingshot splash on Hansen, there's just a kickout by the ropes. If this happened in, say 1987 JCP, there's a far higher chance the kick out would have sent TMII flying out of the ring, which would have been a much better visual. You never want wrestling to be overly cooperative, but sometimes a little bit of working together goes a long way.

PAS: I am a bigger fan of uncooperative Hansen then Matt. I agree he doesn't work with his opponents very well, but I think there is something viscerally thrilling about how he makes everything feels like an jagged fist fight. My favorite spot in the match is where TMII is whipping out a kick combo, and Hansen just grabs the leg and violently double legs him, and starts wildly pounding on him. The Universal Heartthrob was more of a bit player in this, but he was fun running around and cheap shotting folks, I loved Idol but his real strength is with his connection to the crowd, and this is a crowd who doesn't care about him. Jumbo vs. Hansen is a match up which is a little underrated by fans of All Japan, but I always enjoy how Jumbo stands up to Hansen's stuff, he is an ace and he will not be enveloped.

ER: Uncollaborative Stan Hansen is one of my favorite things ever, I love that when you're getting your shots in on him there's that feeling that your luck could run out at any second and he would just walk through your shots to maul you. I love when he walks through shots to attack, and love when he starts to subtly sell shots like a giant gorilla shot with a tranq dart. He'll run through a punch or a big chop or a lariat and you can tell it hurts and he slows and staggers a bit through clenched teeth, all while continuing to move forward. Earned shots against Hansen are the best, and I loved the spot where Hansen chases TMII. If you pissed off that grizzly enough to get him to chase, it means that you've gotten to him; reversing that whip and then the ensuing chase might have ended with Hansen walking right through kicks to get his mitts on him, but I thought it established a very early vulnerability that doesn't always happen. Hansen always feels the right amount of generous to me, which makes runs of offense against him very special. Once Jumbo tags in and slaps him a few times he seems like a guy who could presumably be tangled with. Idol is the tour's "new white Hansen tag partner", and you could probably make a pretty excellent comp of all the random Americans who were brought in for a tour or two to primarily team with Hansen. Idol doesn't work the crowd at all, which is a shame as the unearthed Rip Rogers footage shows that you can bring your sleazy flash Memphis persona to AJPW and make the fans connect with you. Maybe it wouldn't have felt right in the match, but it would have been interesting to see. Anyway, we got to see him scrape the bottom of his boot over Jumbo's face before grabbing an arm, and that's pretty great in itself. I liked the "not clean" breakdown of this tag, there weren't a lot of pretty moments, whenever offense would be done to Hansen he would kind of thrash like a child trying to avoid a bath, and I like the frustrated "Fuck it I'm just getting the bullrope and choking someone" finish. Also, it should always be noted, these handhelds make Hansen matches even better, as you aren't really sure where he's coming from, and then out of the corner you see a chair fly through the air, and then a bullrope whip through the air, and it's like when Bugs would see the Tazmanian Devil approaching and just stand there watching as trees get toppled and animals get stripped of their fur. Hansen is the greatest.

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