Segunda Caida

Phil Schneider, Eric Ritz, Matt D, Sebastian, and other friends write about pro wrestling. Follow us @segundacaida

Friday, June 28, 2024

Found Footage Friday: TEAM USWA~! TEAM WCCW~! THUNDERDOME~! BRET~! FLAIR~! MONTERREY DEEP DIVE~!


Thunderdome Cage Match: Team USWA (Bill Dundee/Danny Davis/Jeff Jarrett/Billy Joe Travis/Gary Young) vs. Team WCCW (Eric Embry/Tom Prichard/The Awesome Kong/El Grande Pistolero/Steve Austin) USWA 1991

MD: This is going to be a found week. I swear I've seen this before but it could just be a phantom memory or I'm getting it confused with some NWA Anarchy match or something. Everyone's in the cage to start and there are handcuffs set up around the cage. Whichever team gets handcuffed to the cage first loses and the survivors get the key and get to unlock their partners for five minutes of pure, unfair violence. There's also a pinfall stip but it's confusing to everyone how it works even if it plays into the finish. 

Kong gets handcuffed right as the match starts, which gives the babyfaces an advantage from the get go and also takes out of play the biggest physical threat in the match. It's a choice, I guess. There is that sort of danger you get from let's say a NJPW elimination match, where if you get too close to someone who's handcuffed, you can get disrupted or grabbed. That too plays into the finish. In general though, Kong is a non-factor here. There's one solid visual of all of the USWA guys attacking him post match (which gives away the finish, sorry), but in general, he's gone from the get go. Pistolero might have been Gypsy Joe. If that's the case, it's a shame he didn't get to do much either as he's one of the first guys to get handcuffed. 

They cover a lot of ground in less than ten minutes here, though. Everyone gets bloody pretty quickly. People get slammed into the cage. They change dance partners and make some use of numerical advantages when they come up. the USWA side is pretty solid and you have at least Embry and Prichard on the other side, given who gets taken out early and the fact that Austin is green but game. It comes down to Travis and Prichard. Prichard gets too close to Jeff who nails him. Travis rolls him up but he's too close to Embry who breaks it up. Prichard is able to handcuff Travis and get the key. Dundee kicks Prichard who loses the key. Young gets it. The heels win but the babyfaces get free and the fans are delighted by the beatdown that follows. Pretty clever stuff all around. I think there's room for this gimmick in 2024.

PAS: This was basically an all punches match, and luckily we have 6-8 of the greatest punchers in wrestling history throwing hands. If all it is is Bill Dundee and Eric Embry throwing hands, Dayenu. Add that to Billy Joe Travis uppercuts, lots of blood and a crowd pleasing finish. Pure candyfloss pro-wrestling pleasure. I am not sure it would work in 2024, who even throws good punches anymore, but shit it worked in 1991.

ER: I thought this was incredible. I can't believe how much they did in 10 minutes, and I never expected it to swell to an insanely sadistic babyface conclusion. There are seven great punchers doing literally nothing but throwing punches and literally everybody bleeds. The Thunderdome stipulation is low key brutal and actually more violent than anything in the PG-13 Beyond Thunderdome. They did these matches with Robert Fuller and Eddie Gilbert replacing Gary Young (that's a plus) and Billy Joe Travis (that's a lateral and a totally different vibe). I get Kevin Nash being unavailable but I wonder if they tried to get Al Green...

On paper I wouldn't have thought handcuffing every one of your opponents to the cage would work, but then I laughed the moment Amazing Kong got cuffed 1 second into the match and spent the rest of the time hoping someone would come near enough to kick out at. Everyone else was too busy throwing punches. They all looked great, but my favorite bit was when Dundee (who looked incredible all match) finally got cuffed and Eric Embry was trying to line up a punch on someone, but he back into Bill Dundee who caught him with a short punch to the cheek and then a harder punch while he was stunned. Jarrett had tremendous fire throughout, Nightmare Danny Davis always comes off like Rutger Hauer in a street fight in these kinds of matches, and Billy Joe Travis is an incredible dirtbag with real babyface fire. You can tell by looking at him that he's a dirtbag, but the man is a fighter and when he's on your side you want that. 

The finish is downright sadistic. The winning team - the team who cuffs every opponent to the cage - then gets 5 minutes to beat their extremely disadvantaged opponents without mercy. Prichard wins the handcuff key for WCCW but Dundee kicks it away, meaning Gary Young gets it and uncuffs all the USWA guys, who - despite losing - proceed to fuck up every member of World Class to a rousing babyface reaction. This is such a long beating that I kept waiting for the Memphis fans to turn on their own. Seriously, after the match it's just 5 mean being beaten bloodier and bloodier by the good guys, desperate to fight back but chained to a cage, the Good Guys lining up shots at sitting ducks. When the halfway announcement of 2.5 minutes comes, it's already felt like this beating has gone on far too long. This is a merciless beating and the blood flows freely as Team Memphis just stomps on dead bodies like total psychopaths, never once stopping to consider if what they were doing was the correct choice. Ethics aside, every second of this was amazing. What I thought was a silly gimmick that would get in the way of what would have been a better 5 on 5 tag, turned out to enhance every part of it. 


Tigre Universitario/Principe Franky vs. Bello David/Bello Guerrero CMLL 12/92

MD: Deep into the crates here, as Roy didn't even break the matches out of these episodes. I'm going to try to go through each and every one however. Between the pre-match interview and the primera, I got the sense that David and Guerrero were in the midst of a gimmick change maybe. David had a Millionaire name as well and he might have recently lost a match? Luchawiki isn't much help there. Tigre and Franky were in matching gear and worked well as a tandem.

This was crowd-pleasing, action-packed undercard lucha though. There are a few clips; when we come in, they're hitting a foul on Franky and control for most of the primera. Lots of well put together double-team stuff, mostly double clotheslines and back body drops and elbow drops and the sort. The tecnicos come back and hit some flashing stuff including a great rowboat to win the caida. There's some fun stuff with Guerrero accidentally hitting the ref on the outside as well. The rudos got their fall back in the segunda (and showed more exotico tendencies) and everything built to cycling and a pretty exciting finishing stretch where Tigre and Franky continued to work well together (both with an alley-oop into a double axe handle in the corner and the tandem topes into the seats towards the end). The finish had each side getting a fall but Franky accidentally hitting the ref as David kept dodging dropkicks; he locked in a submission but the ref DQ'd him as David was tapping. Entertaining stuff all around.


Bret Hart vs. Ric Flair WCW 2/20/98

MD: Again, this feels like something we would have seen at some point, but it's still worth watching. MGM Grand House show from early 98. They fit a ton into the first few minutes, with Bret sort of stumbling bemused through Flair's act. It's entertaining but I'm not sure I'd call it particularly great or resonant. Definitely entertaining though. That means he has a slap fight with Charles Robinson, trading inverted atomic drops, eating an eye poke in the corner off a break, putting Flair in a figure-four, that sort of thing. Bret got serious fairly quickly once Flair took over, working from underneath as Flair hit some vicious stuff on the floor and a really nice belly to back. We get what I assume to be a brief cut so we never see how Bret gets out of the figure-four but he goes full Lawler for the finish, dropping his strap and fighting out of the corner before hitting some moves of doom and locking in the Sharpshooter. Definitely a moment in time and certainly crowd-pleasing.

ER: There were a lot of Bret/Flair matches that happened, but we don't have as many of them as I assumed. Most of what we have exist as handhelds (I believe Souled Out '98 and the excellent Smack 'Em Whack 'Em title change are the only two officially released bouts) including the great '93 Boston Garden iron man. But almost all of the handhelds was during their long series of '92/'93 WWF house shows. WCW, despite running Hart/Flair within a month of Bret joining the company, rarely ran the match. This happened the month after Souled Out and then they didn't interact for nearly two years. This match is the weakest of the Bret/Flair matches we have, but I don't think that's really an insult. The WWF matches are all great, and while it's been some years since I watched Souled Out '98, that match was at minimum praised at the time. 

This is nowhere near as ambitious as their WWF house show title matches 5 years prior, and it worked much more as a compact greatest hits. We're missing a portion that may or may not be significant (I am leaning towards Somewhat Significant, as the crowd is rather loud through Bret's struggle in the figure four, and when we clip to them standing in the corner they have gone quiet. We could have missed 30 seconds or 8 minutes), and the focus their title matches have isn't really here. The ending, especially, seems a bit too simple: we clip to Bret taking down both straps, backbreaker, Hitman elbow, suplex, sharpshooter with no fight. It was too tidy for the drama they are each capable of. They were both such more compelling during Flair's control segment. Flair and Bret are each guys who are good at yanking on a leg, Bret's inside cradle and backslide were each strong nearfalls, and I popped for a Bret enziguiri while working underneath that felt like an underutilized Bret tactic. The smaller moments of this were better than the broader moments. I particularly loved the way Bret sank to his seat in the corner after getting Flair cheapshots him in the eye, and how he recoiled when Flair did it again standing. 



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Thursday, June 18, 2020

On Brand Segunda Caida: Heavenly Bodies!

Heavenly Bodies vs. Abdullah the Butcher/Giant Kimala AJPW 6/4/94

ER: I really wish more of the Heavenly Bodies' lone All Japan tour had made tape. The tour was filled with intriguing pairings, including several matches against Fuchi/Ogawa and The Fantastics, and a Holy Demon Army vs. Stan Hansen/Bodies match that has me drooling. They also had several matches against Abby/Kimala II, and one of those was taped for TV. It's JIP, and for the Bodies' sake I hope the early part of the match that we didn't see went better than the match we did see. Because this was a couple of big fat beasts absolutely decimating the Bods. And it's kind of great. It starts with Abdullah and Kimala working over Prichard's leg, and that leg gets worked OVER. I mean we get several minutes of these two chunks just falling directly onto that leg, with Prichard yelling "My leg! My leg!" the whole time. I love it. Abby is dropping his elbows on the leg, Kimala is dropping fat man Ernie Ladd legdrops on the leg, and my favorite part is that Kimala and Abby are both guys who take forever to stand back up. So one holds the leg, the other drops their piano body onto it, and then we see a lot of loose flapping body parts as they get up and do it all again. Kimala goes up top for an epic big splash. Giant Kimala is shorter than Kamala, but he is definitely fatter, and he doesn't even use the turnbuckle! Every single part of this splash looked hazardous as hell, and he just crushes Prichard with it, his giant godless savage momentum sending his body weight crashing forward and nearly making him faceplant. When Prichard is finally allowed to his feet, you better believe he was selling that damn knee. We get an incredible double team, where Kimala smooshes Prichard with a rewind worthy avalanche, and as he backs away Abdullah shoves him in the back to press him back into Prichard. Abdullah must have had awesome shoving strength, because Kimala really flies back into Prichard. Poor Prichard, just spending every second of his ring time getting flattened by these two.

Del Ray finally tags in, every bone in Prichard's leg turned to cornmeal at this point, and Del Ray goes right after Kimala. He drops Kimala with a nice DDT (Kimala takes a cool rolling bump off the side of his head), but Del Ray gets much too confident and splats hard on a missed moonsault. I like that aggression, and the DDT came off triumphant considering the completely one-sided beating that had taken place. After the DDT and missed moonsault, Del Ray only fares better in comparison to Prichard because his leg does not get pulverized into chalk dust. But Del Ray has no chance, as once he's laid out for Abby's running elbow, Prichard can't do a damn thing to stop it. The second Prichard gets in the ring, Kimala runs over and flattens him into his own corner. Prichard couldn't even make it past his corner. This is the kind of beating a team takes when they're moving on to a new territory, or a team is being punished, but you don't usually see these kind of one-sided matches in All Japan. I'm not sure what kind of deal they worked out to go on an AJ tour while they were in the middle of working WWF, but I can't imagine this is how WWF wanted them portrayed on TV. Doesn't bother me a lick, because this was nothing but two planet sized fatties crashing into two Heavenly Bodies.


Heavenly Bodies vs. 1-2-3 Kid/Bob Holly WWF Raw 1/16/95

ER: I started this episode of Raw for a different reason, but when I saw this match I clearly wasn't going to skip past it. It's a real hot showcase for the Bods, but I'm getting the sense that a ton of their tag matches were total showcases for them. I don't think it necessarily takes away from their opponents, but they seem to be filled with so many ideas that it's easy for opponents to get swallowed whole. Jimmy Del Ray usually feels like the standout in these matches, but this was more of a Prichard show. Del Ray had a great superkick, Prichard threw a cool gutwrench powerbomb, and the double teams always look great. Look at how damn hard Jimmy plants Prichard on the atomic legdrop, how precise the aim was; this could have easily been Prichard getting his tailbone slammed right into Holly's eye socket, instead it's a picture perfect brutal assisted legdrop. There are a couple things I don't like: It's a 5 minute match, structured with the Bodies mostly dominated the first 4.5, with the Kid hot tag signaling the near immediate end of things. So it felt like half a match. Also we had a spot I almost always dislike, one of those crossbody flipover reversals that just looked like Holly ate a full force crossbody...and then flipped over. It rarely looks like a guy is actually rolling through with the momentum of a move. The Bodies were so synced up though, a real treat to watch as a team. They have great tough guy spots, and great stooge spots. The best stooge spot in the match (and a great spot you don't see often past the territory days) was when The Bodies joined hands to run at Holly with a tandem lariat, only for Holly to dive onto their arms, which forces Tom and Jimmy to clonk heads. The best kind of spot to lead to a hot tag. Kid's hot tag is too cruelly short, a couple spinkicks (love how Prichard ricochets off the ropes after taking his) but the finish is MIGHTY inspired, a GREAT tag match finish. Bodies have Kid up for a tandem vertical suplex, and Holly spears one of them out of nowhere, allowing Kid to hit a fisherman's suplex variation. That's an awesome finish to a(nother) great Bodies showcase.


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Friday, February 07, 2020

New Footage Friday: TULLY! BAM BAM! KERRY! THE KING! THE IDOL!

TWA Spring Spectacular 3/31/90  Pt. 1   Pt. 2


PAS: This was an awesome, loaded pre-ECW Philly indy show. I always used to read about these shows in Wrestling Magazines, and it is cool to actually check one out.


Jules Strongbow vs. Randy Lewis


PAS: This wasn't good, but at least it was long and had a shitty ending. Lewis looks like Lex Lugarcito, without any of the talent. There was a moment of Strongbow firing up with tomahawk chops and I enjoy fired up Tomahawk chops, but this was stinky and I advise my friends not to watch it.

Rockin' Rebel vs. CN Redd

PAS: Oof these first two matches are rough. CN Redd had some fun stooging spots early, including flying over the top rope on a missed punch. Rebel is as terrible as a young guy as he was as a guy forcing his way onto early ROH shows because he owned the ring. He murdered his wife and killed himself and is an all time wrestling history piece of shit. This was a fed with really long prelim matches for no good reason. 

Johnny Hot Body vs. Tony Stetson 

PAS: This was actually really good, these were two of the Wrestling Magazine guys you would see in picture spreads, but outside of some Taz squashes I am not sure I had ever seen either guy wrestle before. This was a taped fist first blood match, and was a really fun Memphis style brawl. Both guys threw really starchy punches, and took painful looking awkward bumps on tables, chairs and the ring apron. Nothing looked set up the way later ECW brawls could, it just looked like two guys trying to kick each others ass, which is something I appreciate. It wasn't at the level of the FMW Onita//Goto vs. Kurisu/Dragonmaster tag brawl but it had that sort of feel to it. I really liked the finish with both guys just tumbling painful to the floor and pounding on each others heads till they were both opened up.

ER: I thought this was great, a Philly style brawl that never settles in the ring and keeps the fans hot. There are hardly any moves to speak of, but Stetson and Hot Body locked in meaty armed side headlocks, thumping forearm clubs, and great punches to eyebrows, and none of the bumps look clean. They fell really painfully into everything, body weight thrown off, hard landings onto concrete or tables; it's the kind of off balance bumping that happens when I step heel first on a cat toy in the dark and fall shoulder first into the side of the couch. Johnny Hot Body and Tony Stetson reside in that same part of my brain as some like Chad Austin, the part of my brain reserved for Wrestlers Who I'm Pretty Sure I Saw Get Chokeslammed By 911 At Some Point, but this is the first time I've seen these two unleashed. The longer things go the uglier (i.e. better) things get, as they've now grabbed a couple drinks from ringside fans and bounced them off each other's heads, so the floor is now slippery and you get some great ugly hockey fighting moments of them slipping and punching. Early in the match I notice a great Philly woman in the front row, dressed in all black, perfect fried blond curls, having the time of her life yelling for Stetson. And I see her again at the end of the match, after Stetson and Hot Body have been rolling around the floor punching each other while interlaced at the shoulder, and Stetson grabs Hot Body by the waistband of his jeans and flings him directly into that woman. Hot Body's head was covered in blood, and the woman stands up looking 1 part repulsed and 2 parts furious, hitting Hot Body and telling him to get the fuck outta there. I wish we had gotten more shots of the blood, but we also got two dudes in old shirts, kneepads over jeans, jeans tucked into work boots if an option, and once you throw in aggressive mic cord choking that's really all you need.

Tom Prichard vs. Cheetah Kid

PAS: This was really fun, Cheetah Kid is Rocco Rock in a Cheetah mask, basically working as a US Indy Tiger Mask. I ended up enjoying this more then 90% of the actually Japanese Tiger Mask matches. Prichard has an incredible blond permullet, and is unsurprisingly great at filling in the time between Cheetah's big spots. Those spots were really big, some cool bridging suplexes, three really crazy bumps to the floor (including one into a row a chairs which would make a crazy indy luchador proud) and a big tope con hilo. Paul E. was with Prichard and got some good heat, but the finish was a bit messy, with an awkward ref bump and a phone shot. But the crowd was going nuts for the Kid, and it was totally understandable.

ER: I thought this was awesome too. I thought the taped fist match was hot (and it was), but the crowd got louder and louder for this one, with good cause. Prichard is the perfect kind of pro for a match like this, and seeing him in this environment makes me like him even more. Plus he has incredible 80s back up singer hair, the bleachiest blond you've seen, looking like Suzi Carr from Will To Power. This would have been plenty enjoyable if it had just been Prichard stooging, taking long walks on the floor, Paul E. running distraction, with the big spots being a sunset flip and Cheetah Kid's really nice bridging back suplex. That would have been a good match, because Prichard is good at gluing matches like that, and watching nice forearms shots to the chest or a sunset flip blocked by a punch would have been cool. 

But then Cheetah Kid starts flying to the floor in different ways, each bump bigger than the last. The first one just confirms how much I love a guy getting yanked by his waistband into stuff. We saw it in the taped fist match, and here Prichard yanks Kid to the floor quickly and efficiently. It's a logical and simple move that I remember seeing Lawler use a lot, and it's an action that doesn't really exist in modern wrestling. What could be easier and smarter than hooking someone's waistband and tossing them? Cheetah Kid also does essentially a tope to nothing, stumbling (as part of the spot) on a Prichard drop down and flying again to the floor. For the third Prichard got a major head of steam and sent Cheetah over the top so hard with a lariat that Cheetah flew backwards and crashed over the announce table, into the crowd. At that point that fans were on their feet cheering for Kid, recognizing the insane effort he was making and getting fully into his imminent death. Kid hits a great tope con giro (with a perfect catch from Prichard) and we get a gorgeous VHS slow motion replay of it, clearly an effect done in-camera as we have the awesome blinking "slow motion" at the bottom of the screen. The finish is a shame, as the ref is clearly out of place on the spot that was supposed to bump him, so they run it back and re-bump him, and that always comes off deflating. But this whole thing was fun as hell. If there are two matches as good as this one and the taped fist brawl on an indy card today, I go home thinking I saw a really good show. And we still have Tully, Lawler, Bam Bam, KvE, The Idol, and Orndorff. I like these odds.

MD: The Prichard/Paul E combo is fun. I'm blanking if they were paired together elsewhere but I'd be happy to watch more of that. This was definitely of its time. Rocco gets an A for effort, constantly trying to do stuff that was just beyond his physical prowess, but that tinge of sloppiness made everything seem more earnest and dangerous. It reminds me a bit of the big WWE women's gimmick matches of the last few years where you always have the sense they're about to kill themselves to win. He'd do an amazing flip into the ring and then stumble his way through his attempt to take advantage of it. What really made this work was Dr. Tom there to base and ground it all. There were a few too many unnecessary ref bumps at the end but I can't imagine being in this crowd and not being delighted by this thing.

DC Drake vs. Larry Winters

PAS: This had a bunch of cool stuff, but was dragged down by its length. It is hard for a heated brawl to keep its momentum for over a half an hour. Winters comes in with a big wrap on on his elbow and Drake goes after it pretty hard and focused. They climb to the top of the arena and Drake tries to toss Winter off a super high balcony, which I am sure made a cool PWI photo. There are some dead moments, and the match picks up again when Winter busts Drake open with a post shot. They went back into the crowd, and then had a cool spot where Drake puts on a figure four, and Winters breaks it by whipping him with the ring mic cord. Winters ends up Quitting when Drake and his manager work over his arm. This was a cool fifteen minute match bloated up to 30+. We needed an editor. 

Misty Blue Simmes vs. Kat LeRoux

PAS: This was a pretty basic 80s/90s women's match. A couple of gals who look like Def Leppard video vixens throwing open hand chops and hair whips. I imagine these two worked each other 10 times a month and it felt very polished if unspectacular. I liked the Simmes' finish of an airplane spin into a top rope splash, felt like a fine 1990 highspot.

Paul Orndorff vs. Austin Idol

MD: Complete glorious BS. I'm sure there were moments in 86 (or even 88 and in other earlier runs like in Mid-South) where Orndorff was more over as a face, but he had a different mindset in 90 and he was milking it for all it was worth. This was mic work, stalling, an impromptu arm wrestling contest, chicanery from Idol, and Orndorff's comeback. The heat was more on Paul E than on Idol but since the finish was all about him, that generally worked out. If the crowd hadn't been into this, the lack of action would have been an issue, but they were and these two were masterful in playing off of it all.

ER: I am all here for early 40s BS indy show match Austin Idol. This is 20 minutes of two consummate professionals working smart, and not bumping, but done so in a way that nobody could possibly call it lazy. These were two energetic performances from two charisma fireballs, with moves made unnecessary. Idol takes multiple powders, stalls, lands a perfect headlock punch and bails, comes back in and eats a half dozen headlock punches and bails again, locks in a long chinlock that's mostly about flexing his still impressive arms, all building up to a long arm wrestling challenge. I love a good pro wrestling arm wrestling challenge, and can't say that I've seen one done during a match. But Idol was hilarious getting into the ring and lying on his stomach, arm flexed, challenging Orndorff to a battle of guns. 

Idol is so great at milking heat for things like this, and I was skeptical that Memphis style heat and stooging would work in front of a troglodyte Philly audience, but it does. This show is the first time Lawler had ever worked Philly, and in some ways bringing in guys like that could lead to the confused reactions of 1997 WWF crowds watching AAA luchadors. Outside of early career job work, Idol had never worked Philly either, certainly not since becoming a marketable regional star. So its great seeing the act succeed immensely, great seeing him turn the arm wrestling challenge into a choke once it becomes clear that Orndorff is winning. It's great seeing fans eating up shtick. I love shtick in a vacuum, but shtick that has the crowd hooked is absolutely the greatest. We get a hidden weapon punch and an incredulous Idol after the kickout, we get Orndorff throwing fantastic uppercuts from his knees (Idol sells them the way boxers sell punches in Bugs Bunny cartoons, so, perfectly in other words), and Idol goes down when Paul. E comes off the top with an errant cell phone shot. Paul E. going off the top rope? Hell yes. Loved all of this.

PAS: In many ways Orndorff was always kind of a dime store Austin Idol, and it was cool to see him in with the best version of himself. Idol is a master of this kind of stally shticky match, and he is so amazing at the the little things which makes a match like this. For a guy who doesn't do much moves wise in this match, he makes it all count. Lots of super violent eye rakes which look like he ripped out Paul's cornea, and of course really great looking punches. Thought Paul showed a bunch of energy, and was a nifty dance partner, but Idol is the best. 

Kerry Von Erich vs. Jerry Lawler - GREAT

PAS: This is full heel Lawler doing his touring shtick. We get a couple stops for him to do some crowd work stand up. We have a whole hide a chain section (with a visible chain, not just a donut hole), and a big fireball ending. Everything of course was executed to perfection. Lawler's cheap shot chain punch looked incredible, and I loved the fired up babyface punches from Kerry and the big discus which got a great Lawler exaggeration sell. I thought they could have gotten down to business a bit quicker, but the actual business was booming. Lawler breaking the Iron Claw by tossing a fireball was an awesome finish. So much Lawler out there, and every new match we get is a total treat.

ER: This is a bit of a slow starter, but once it gets started it was another classic from these two. I always love what Lawler can do with Kerry, and I think he brings out some of the best parts of every era Kerry. I also was really enjoying just watching Lawler work Philadelphia for the first time in his career, sporting some ketchup and mustard tights combo that I've never seen, and I wonder how many people there were seeing him for the first time. He was a guy I assume many of them know, but maybe hadn't actually seen at all, let alone live. This whole thing is boiled down to the basics, Lawler building to several great big punches (his straight right to Kerry's face is gorgeous), and two big fistdrops off the middle buckle. Kerry catches him in the claw on another attempt, and Lawler is a maestro at selling holds like the claw. He's so good at kicking his legs in dramatic fashion and really getting across that panicked comeuppance. We also get long hide the chain stuff, which I'm just always going to love when it's performed to this finely tuned level, Lawler really letting all the fans know exactly what he's hiding, kids screaming CHAIN! CHAIN! to the ref. I love it. When Kerry finally gets the chain Lawler flies all around for him, gets whalloped in the corner with big shots, goes down hard for the discus punch. I love these two together, Kerry always seems to put off big energy opposite him. 

Tully Blanchard vs. Bam Bam Bigelow

MD: Seeing this out of context, I could be wrong, but you get the sense Bigelow was supposed to be the face and Blanchard was supposed to be the heel and the crowd wanted nothing to do with that arrangement. We have very few honest babyface Blanchard performances and while this wasn't 100% along those lines, it was sure close enough. Once they figured out what was going on, he worked from underneath, fighting out of a bearhug, kicking at the leg to chop down Bigelow and even throwing a dropkick. The cage was primarily used for escape cut offs and to let Bigelow get up to the top rope for a spot, but as 80s WWF style cage matches go, this was relatively high end. Arn has talked a lot lately about how he'd make a bad babyface because he didn't have moves/spots/"tools", noting that Tully had at least a few more, and yeah, he used a few more here. There were times where maybe you wanted him to have one or two more things in his offensive flourishes and comebacks but in general, I thought he worked better than fine in this role and that concern is generally overblown.

PAS: There are few concrete rules in life that never should be broken and Tully Blanchard should never be a babyface is one of them. I mean how scuzzy does Philly have to be, to cheer fucking Tully Blanchard of all people? Tully is an all time great and he works this kind of conquering hero cage match really well. Bam Bam is so explosive, it is like watching some Combine warrior Nose Tackle, no way a giant guy like that should be able to bang out that 40 time. The missed big headbutt by Bam Bam was almost Super Porkish in it's explosion. Weird to have a bloodless cage match in Philly of all places, but outside of that, this was a treat.


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Monday, January 13, 2020

On Brand Segunda Caida: Squash Matches!!

Kendall Windham vs. Keith Hart WCW Saturday Night 2/25/89

ER: I really love these young Kendall Windham squash matches. This one goes over 5 minutes, stretched out by Windham continually grabbing smothering chinlocks. It goes long enough that Windham runs out of offense so just starts cycling through his array of powerslams and bulldogs, to my glee. And to be clear this is not Keith Hart, brother of Bret. This is a guy who pulled duty in WCW around this time and always took a big beating, the kind of guy who was undersized but deserved more of a shake just for making guys look this good. Windham had begun working heel around this time - and the aggression suited him - and Hart made sure every single move Kendall attempted was going to look great. Hart was small enough that Kendall was able to throw him around pretty easily, which lead to some really nasty stuff. Hart was the kind of lunatic that would take a huge flipping bump off a big lariat, real nice complementary forces at play here. Kendall had a real nice chinlock, tightened at the wrist, big arm wrapped in tight around Hart's jaw and mouth, not so much killing time as softening that neck up for the killshot bulldog. Kendall and Hart are two of the only people who can make that "hand on back of head" bulldog look awesome, with Hart pancaking himself into the mat and Kendall making it look like Hart had no say in the matter. Powerslams, bulldogs, big lariats, and the kind of chops that send a guy flying up onto ropes? What more could you want? Well, if you find yourself wanting more after this, it turns out that Kendall Windham's extended squash of Keith Hart was so enjoyable that it prompted a YouTube user (found in this very linked match) to write a piece of bully porn fanfic in the comments section. Very Hot Stuff.

The Heavenly Bodies vs. Todd Morton/Larry Santo WWF Wrestling Challenge 3/19/95

ER: I always love it when Tennessee indies make their way onto WWF programming. The mid-to-late 90s Lawler and Cornette influences were a cool way to take guys who felt way more like WCW workers and put them in front of a different crowd. The Heavenly Bodies were such a kickass off the gas southern Steiner Bros., and like the Steiners were one of the great 90s WWF team of crowbars. I tend to think Steiners, Beverlys, Heavenly Bodies, and Headshrinkers, in that order. Those teams always found new and painful ways to destroy jobbers. And Tennessee jobbers are always great to be destroyed, always the perfect jobber for my sensibilities. Todd Morton is a longtime Segunda Caida favorite and here's he's sporting his most accurate Ricky Morton look while he and Santo get taken apart by the Bodies. Prichard is always trying out suplexes and powerbombs, Del Ray grabs Morton way down around the knees in a wheelbarrow and actually lifts him up for an Ocean Cyclone, and just drops him on his face. Santo is a guy who turns up a lot on WCW in job work, feels out of place on WWF TV, but he always has a fun "clumsy guy getting his ass beat" vibe to him. Del Ray always looked like he landed heavy on that moonsault, and this was simple two squash match legends in with two pros. Great junk food.

Bam Bam Bigelow vs. Duane Gill WWF Raw 6/12/95

ER: I'm really falling for these mid90s 150 second WWF gems. The 1995 WWF squash match formula got so much more done than the 2020 WWE squash match formula. 1995 squashes really make 2020 squashes look like sluggish bores. Modern squashes are arranged around three big moves, with a lot of slow walking and growling and camera posing in between. They're no good, and the roster is filled with guys who could be having more engaging squash matches. Every guy on the roster in 1995 knew how to have a killer 2-3 minute squash. It makes for the most easily digestible candy 25 years later. Bigelow showed off his speed and strength here, doing an amusing roll feint to duck a Gill lockup, then just running off the ropes and splatting him with a shoulderblock. Bam Bam throws in cool amateur flurries, fast takedowns, cool floatover on a pin, real agile stuff. Gill bumps real high on a backdrop and doesn't flinch when getting squished by Bigelow. Gill's comeback was impressive too, as he really clubs into Bam Bam and throws the best strike of the match, a hooking right to the jaw that made a surprisingly loud crack. He goes up top and flies directly into Bam Bam, with Bam Bam catching a grown ass man effortlessly over his shoulder, tossing him into the turnbuckles, and hitting one of the best snap vertical suplexes I've seen. I love the specific motion Bigelow used on his vertical suplex here, really made it look like he was whipping Gill into the mat. I love this format.


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Friday, December 13, 2019

New Footage Friday: Last SMW Show Ever!

Smokey Mountain Wrestling 11/26/95. This is a HH of the final SMW show and it is great to see Jim Cornette go out on his sword.

Wolfman vs. Sgt. Rock

PAS: Sgt. Rock is Miss Jackie/Miss Texas, and she is always going to be worth watching. Wolfman is a big hairy guy who kind of looks like a Moondog. Compact fun scrap, with Cornette talking shit to the Wolfman, thus giving Rock a chance to potato the shit out of Wolfman with some nasty forearms to the back of the head. We get a Wolfman comeback including a spanking spot (because this is 90s indy wrestling), but another bit of Cornette interference leads to some powder in the eye, a  Rock low blow (and she really puts some mustard on it) and a DDT for the win. Very formula match, but Miss Texas always brought a bit of shocking violence to everything she did.

MD: What stands out immediately is just how credible Jackie with a drill sergeant gimmick was here. She came off as way more dangerous than Wolfman, being a vaguely sympathetic poor man's Valiant. Honestly, if your promotion is saddled with a bottom-of-the-card guy due to your sponsor, you could do worse than a moderately charismatic fake Valiant. Everything she did (even if it was mostly maring Wolfman by the hair/beard) looked crisp and sharp, including a nice back elbow. Even so, she was full on heel, geting advantages due to powder and a low blow due to Cornette's distractions, missing en elbow drop and then begging off, etc. It's 1995 in Tennessee so while Jackie could be presented as dangerous, she was still going to get spanked. The match didn't need it, but the crowd sure expected it. In general, I thought this was effective and was the sort of thing that would have gone a long way in making Sgt. Rock into an effective part of Cornette's militia if SMW had continued.


General Jim Cornette vs. Butch Cassidy

PAS: This is pretty much everything you would want from a Cornette vs. Midget match. I loved the spot with Cornette challenge Cassidy to a pushup contest and Cornette doing knee pushups, great bit of wussy heel stuff. I am also a fan of the running the ropes until you pass out. Cornette had some pretty good looking offense, and took some fun bumps, including taking a midget suplex (although to be fair Cassidy isn't super short, he is probably Adam Cole's height). Sgt. Rock runs in to kick Cassidy's ass, and she is an amazing second, always ready to beat the shit out anyone.

MD: A lot like the Jackie match, this would have been better if they went 20% away from what was expected and leaned into what they had in front of them. Cassidy's body type wasn't the same as a Lord Littlebrook or Cowboy Lang or whoever. He was leaner and looked stronger and had his kneeling pose down. It meant that the logical comeuppance for Cornette was for him to get overpowered and they gave us that, to good effect, but only after doing the hand-biting first. Again, the crowd expected what it expected and you probably had to give it to them, but there was a better, tighter match in here. This also went twenty minutes, more with the pre-match talking and intros, and I think the opening comedy, as fun as it is to see Cornette do his thing, outwore its welcome. The heat was about the right length but they should have cut that first bit in half. Cornette is a great bully when he gets the chance to be, but I think the crowd had moved on by the time the comeback came. The big suplex spot at the end was hit to near-silence.


Wildfire Tommy Rich/The Punisher vs. Bullet Bob Armstrong/Buddy Landel

ER: I love a 10 minute tag with 5 minute announcements about the 60 minute time limit. I wouldn't have put it past Cornette to run a broadway match on the last SMW show, and this one features my favorite black wrestler, The Bullet! You know Bullet has the sweetest damn moves as he glides across the floor during his entrance, finishing it by tossing a casual as can be looping high 5 to Landel. The Bullet was obviously going to be the heroic hot tag at the finish, meaning this was going to be the Wildfire show the rest of the runtime. Tommy Rich works the entire ring with shtick, circling Landel and refusing to lock up, backing Mark Curtis into a corner, "accidentally" cheating from the apron whenever possible (really getting the crowd riled as he executes a corner choke while Punisher is the legal man), and the moments of Wildfire and Nature Boy throwing punches in the middle are the kind of moments that make me love SMW. Punisher also looks good, better than I remember Bull Buchanan looking several years later (although the camera keeps going unfocused whenever he gets in the ring, so maybe the cameraman was just giving us Punisher's fairest angles), and we get a great spot where Cornette is banging on the apron directing Tommy, and Bullet comes in and stomps Cornette's hands. This was all super simple, low bump count stuff, and with the personalities involved it didn't need to be anything else.

MD: Couple of things here. They set this up at the start of the show with the announcement that Le Duc wouldn't be there and Armstrong offering Landell his pick of partners. It almost felt like the world's best Raw-format as they got the promo section out of the way at the very start of the show. They just did it in a couple of minutes instead of half an hour. From the listing, I was expecting Bob Armstrong but I wasn't expecting the Bullet, so that was a nice surprise. I don't think they'd used the gimmick for a year and a half at this point and the fans popped big for the music cue. I don't have strong feelings about SMW in general but I do have a real soft spot for the Bullet gimmick and they worked the match with the Landell as FIP and the Bullet getting the hot tag. We lost clarity on some of this due to VQ but best as I can tell, this was a good paint-by-numbers short southern tag that hit the marks you'd want: you had a good punch or two in the shine, the heels cut off the ring well, the hot tag had a flourish. It was definitely a little surreal to witness a world where Tommy Rich was the heel and the fans were chanting Buddy, Buddy.


PAS: Fun basic southern tag match which built to the big Bullet hot tag well. They wrapped it up pretty quickly right after that, I would have liked to see the Bullet juke and jive a little more. The blurriness made it hard to see exactly what the heels were doing to Buddy, but there was a great moment where Tommy Rich just unloaded on him.


Heavenly Bodies/Robert Gibson vs. Tracy Smothers/Dirty White Boy/Ricky Morton

ER: You didn't come to this one for wild spots, you came for sustained southern heat, and that's what they delivered. This was all about opportunist Robert Gibson not wanting to tangle with Ricky, and Cornette at ringside keeping the crowd all worked up. It's a simple and effective match, not many highspots and yet 100% crowd pleasing. Ricky starts things off, Robert does a great head fake like he's going to join him no problem, but clearly he's not. And from there we get a fun affair, mostly punches, armdrags, cutting off the ring, Gibson finally coming in when Ricky is down, Smothers flying off the top with an axe handle to the arm using all of his best goofy Smothers arm movement, you know the stuff you'd expect. Heavenly Bodies always come off so scummy to me, just looking at them and the way they walk around with their chests and bellies out, they always ooze the perfect amount of undeserved arrogance. Cornette comes in and bashes Smothers in the ribs, part of a nice fun twist where Smothers spends just as much time cut off from his boys as Ricky did earlier. Naturally, Cornette eventually brains his own man with the tennis racket to give the good ol' boys the win, but that arguably sets up the most important part of the match. 

This being the very last SMW show, half the locker room comes out to beat the shit out of Jim Cornette. Landel is out taking shots, everybody in the match that just happened is taking shots, Mark Curtis is throwing punches (he also threw a punch in the breakdown of the match itself), Cornette is out here like drunk Christmas party Vince taking everyone's finishers, including a stuffed piledriver. When the ring is cleared the Heavenly Bodies spend a hilariously long amount of time milking a potential racket shot to a stationary Cornette, and Ricky gets on the mic like a devil on the Bodies' shoulder and starts urging them to KILL James E. Cornette! He even starts a chant over the house mic of "Kill him! Kill him!" Ricky Morton is out here actually getting a crowd hyped to witness a murder! This is the final SMW show, and I'm sure this was all inspired by the Kids in the Hall all being buried in a mass grave to end their show, so what better way to close up shop than by killing your main character!? The Bodies milk it for several more minutes, Pritchard threatening to decapitate and/or castrate Cornette with the racket, before finally helping him up (with Cornette amusingly falling right back down when they're no longer holding him up). On the way out of the building, Jimmy Del Ray shoves a security guy in the back and then laughs about it.

MD: I'm a fan of Morton vs. Gibson from GAB 91, so it's nice to see the roles reversed. This was exactly what you'd expect it to be, guys who can do one thing as well as anything, and that one thing just happens to be one of the best version of wrestling possible. The shine had lots of feeding and stooging and joyfully cheating babyfaces. The heat had the heels mocking the faces to draw them in for interference, hope spots based around pin attempts (which is one of my favorite ways because it's not about hitting offense, just about snatching opportunities). If you want to compare the Bodies and the (second) MX, maybe, just maybe, the Express were better at tandem offense and keeping things interesting and the Bodies were better at cutoffs. Maybe. The finish is perfect. Gibson pays for relying on Cornette. The post-match is the perfect way for SMW to end. Everyone decides that Cornette is the common enemy of the world and comes together to teach the world to sing a song of pain upon the odoriferous snake. Morton egging the Bodies on to finish him is a perfect pro wrestling temptation (salvation?) and they end it all by squeezing out the very last bit of heat. If a promotion had to die, it's not a bad way to go.

PAS: Morton had left the promotion due to a drunken fight between Morton's girlfriend and Smothers wife at a bar. So this weekend was his surprise return teaming with Smothers to take on Gibson who had turned heel when Ricky left. They really didn't give us much Morton vs. Gibson (which I imagine would have been a big feud if SMW survived), but everything we got was pretty great. I thought the big finale was pretty perfect with everyone cleaning out Cornette, that is really the way ECW should have ended too, with the locker room taking out the bounced checks on Heyman.


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Thursday, February 28, 2019

On Brand Segunda Caida: Heavenly Bodies! Godwinns! Vader! Craig Pittman!


The Heavenly Bodies vs. John Paul/Mike Khoury WWF All American 3/13/94

ER: The Heavenly Bodies really had some of the craziest offense in WWF (or anywhere) during this era. They felt innovative without feeling implausible, and I wish I could see them today against modern indy teams. This is a short squash and we get a Demolition Device but with a big splash, a weird and amazing spinebuster from the middle buckle, big double team suplex, Del Ray bouncing Khoury off his head on a snap suplex, Pritchard log rolling Khoury's legs out while Del Ray hits a falling clothesline, and a wild moonsault press to end it. Just a pornographic amount of creative offense that they're able to blend into a short match. Add to this that the Bodies had arguably my favorite ring trunks in wrestling history, and they certainly feel like a team we need to write about a lot. This might be the most fun 2 minutes you spend watching wrestling today.


Vader/Mankind vs. The Godwinns WWF Raw 1/27/97

ER: Here's a nice little hoss battle that nobody remembers. The Godwinns were both huge and aggressive and had no problem hitting hard, really a cool team ripe for discovery. Both of them eat Mankind up in the first part of this, Phineas was throwing straight right hands and nice headbutts, Henry carried Mankind around and slammed him right in front of Vader, Godwinns really looked on the level of two HOF guys. Of course, Vader comes in and wrecks Phineas with a dozen giant bear paw swipes in the corner and hits a lariat that would stop the heart of a smaller man. We get some wild bumps to the floor: Mankind and Phineas tangle in the ropes and so Henry just runs in and lariats both of them over the top to the floor; later, Vader and Mankind team up to slingshot Phineas from the ring, over the ropes to the floor. I don't know if I've ever seen that before. Vader is a bunch of fun in this, even dropping an elbow right on Henry's balls, and you know Vader has a great elbow drop. We even get a spirited brawl around ringside, with Henry coming in hot to save Phineas, jumping over the ring steps and almost crashing right onto Phineas' head, then Henry and Vader slam into each other and crash hard into the barricade, Mankind crashing face first into the ring steps. I think we're going to need to look for more Godwinn gems after this one...


Booker T vs. Craig Pittman WCW Power Plant 8/1/98

ER: Honestly this is mostly inconsequential, but it is a fascinating glimpse into what kind of footage WWE might have sitting around in their vault. If something like this was not only recorded, but saved in perfect quality for 20 years, who knows what else might be in the vault. Talk about a dream job. Sitting in some climate controlled building all day just watching recordings with vague descriptions and having no idea what might be on them? Tell me where I have to move, pay me minimum wage, whatever. If there is a 3 minute scrap at the Power Plant between these two, then I want a drop of just hours and hours of Buddy Lee Parker making muscleheads do burpies until they throw up. I want video of Buddy stretching Batista until he quits. Imagine being the guy in the vault who finds the footage of The Giant doing a moonsault at the Power Plant!? 

I had no idea Pittman was involved with WCW in any way in 1998, but here he is looking in even better shape than during his push a few years prior. He and Booker grapple and Booker goes for a couple half hearted takedowns, and you can see Pittman instinctively do a quick sprawl on each. Booker really would have gotten wrecked if he actually went for something. By the end of this Booker is breathing heavy and both have broken a sweat, but the true gift is the cameraman - twice - deciding to turn his camera lovingly to a different camera man and letting us soak it all in. Are we going to get an alternate camera angle of this some day? Are we ever going to find out if that twice peaked at chubby dad of a cameraman ever turned his own camera on our mystery photog, when he wasn't looking, just two grips coming to grips with their own hidden, wanton lust, spurned on by the primal grappling of two warriors. Imagine being the guy working in the WWE vault who discovered the WCW Power Plant version of Beau Travail?


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Monday, April 02, 2018

All Japan/New Japan Handheld Cherry Picking: Tom Prichard? Kimala II?

Hiroshi Hase vs. Tom Prichard  NJPW 10/18/89

ER: Almost 30 years ago some weirdo took time out of his Wednesday to record a Tom Prichard match. And he utilized the zoom, so you know he wasn't just letting the camera run. He took that time out of his evening, kept that footage like a secret, and so now I will write a hundred or so words to join this loop. The match is fun, with Prichard - hair flowing like David Coverdale - working over Hase's leg by stomping his hamstring, locking in half crabs and spinning toe holds, taking a surprising majority of this match. I really liked Prichard here. He didn't do anything overly fancy, but he worked with tons of confidence and acted like a bigger deal than he probably was. That takes some stones to go into a match with the plan of outmuscling an Olympic wrestler. And to his credit, it totally works. I was hoping for more out of the Hase comeback, though. Hase's mid-match comeback was really cool, him limping around on that bum wheel but still hoisting Prichard up with a neat deadweight Karelin lift and dropping him with a sick gutbuster. But his end of match comeback to win felt like they got the sudden call to go home, as all knee selling goes out the window and he kind of mechanically grabs the northern lights suplex. We had fleeting moments before that, like Prichard's snug sunset flip, and really I got what I wanted out of the match: A good Tom Prichard performance in a match nobody knew existed. (But sorry, the Heavenly Bodies Complete & Accurate is still in line behind the Beverly Bros/Destruction Crew C&A)

Kenta Kobashi/Kimala II vs. Toshiaki Kawada/Gary Albright  AJPW 6/3/96

ER: This immediately jumped out to me from the matchlist, as I'm a goof who likes Kimala II, and he's not a guy usually put into matches high up the card with stars, he's the guy working low on the card hitting splashes in Abby matches, slapping bellies with IZU, or somewhere in a Baba trios. Seeing him 2nd from the top with some big name guys is a super exciting find for me. This is a cool tag to start because it's a native/gaijin vs. native/gaijin, I always think that's kind of cool. Kimala is a unique guy to see as a face in peril, and the match got really good when Kawada and Albright started picking away at him. Before that it was kind of Kawada vs. Kobashi by the numbers, and their by the numbers is cooler than most, but it feels like the big two getting some stuff out of the way to lengthen a match. Kimala/Albright was a more fun match up, as it was far more common to see them teaming, they rarely were on opposite sides of a match. Crowd is immediately behind Kimala, getting a kick out of his Baba chops and digging when he lit Albright up with a headlock. Albright is really fun and a guy I need to go watch more from. He's really underwritten about considering his fun career. The talking point for the longest time was that Kawada carried him to one great match, but I can't think of a match where I haven't enjoyed him. Seeing him do a snap suplex on someone as beefy as Kobashi is a great visual, and the fans are familiar with his throwing strength, so it's great hearing all the excited oooooohs when he teases giving Kimala a dragon suplex. The match really picks up once Kawada and Albright start to isolate Kimala, and the fans start responding to him as the underdog. Kawada is kicking at his leg and throwing big kicks to his belly (which leads to a great moment where Kimala finally catches a kick and fires back a chop to the head). Both do uncharacteristic double stomps to Kimala's stomach, and Albright starts tearing at the arm, dropping a knee on it, digging into it with his elbow point, throwing him into the guardrail, working an armbar. When Kimala finally makes space the fans want the Kobashi hot tag so bad! Kawada was a great jerk, kicking people in the forehead all match and finally separating Kobashi from Kimala, allowing Albright to get the armbar. This match was real fun, with a fun FIP you don't get to often see.


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Sunday, April 24, 2011

Some People Read Idea Books, And Some People Are Kings

Jerry Lawler v. Toru Tanaka CWA 5/19/79 - FUN

Really enjoyable short studio match, with the slim trim 70's Lawler. Tanaka is very much a 70s/80s Japanese heel, lots of nerve holds and judo chops, he did put on a cool submission hold where he drove the top of his head into the back of Lawlers neck. Lawler squirms in and out of the holds and unloads with really pretty rapid fire rights and lefts. Finish has Tanaka try to throw ceremonial salt, hit the ref, which leads to Gorgeous George Jr. and Mongolian Stomper run ins. Basic heel vs. face stuff and neat to see just to get a sense of the era.

Jerry Lawler/Bill Dundee v. Eric Embry/Tom Prichard USWA 7/27/91 - GREAT

This is a studio match, so it isn't very long, but man did I enjoy every minute of it. Embry is just a heel whirlwind. Constantly in motion, whether it is on the apron talking shit to the fans, diving into the ring with a flying headbut for a save, unloading punches and stomps to Dundee, bumping around for Lawler, making faces. Just a tremendous workrate southern heel performance. Mostly Dundee in the match, with the Texas bunch working him over. He gets a great fired up comeback, before going for a rolling tag, and rolling right into Lawler in an amusing botched spot. The match spills to the floor and they brawl around the studio a bit. Not much of a Lawler showcase, but he was good when he was in, and everyone else ruled.

Jerry Lawler v. Bret Hart 11/5/93 - GREAT

This is a cage match handheld from a WWF house show pre-Survivor Series. Lawler is one of the most logically consistent wrestlers ever. This is the first time I have seen him work an escape the cage match, and he does what makes sense. Immediately try to bail out of the door, during the whole match Lawler would take the opportunity to skip town. There wasn't huge spots here, lots of nice looking punches from both guys, and Hart unloading a piledriver, but the match was consistently exciting. Lawler works the chain and really unloads on Bret. We get interference from a masked guy (I am assuming he is one of Lawlers Knights) and the masked guy takes the biggest bump of the match flying off the side of the cage to the floor (did they bring in Foley to work house shows?) We get a Bret win and big Lawler post match beat down. Cool opportunity to see what a touring cage match between the two looks like. Good shit


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE KING

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