Tony Halme's All Alone, Feeling the Tears Falling Down from His Eyes

 

Different Style Fight: Tony Halme vs. Vader NJPW 10/13/91 - EPIC

ER: What a gift. With this week's discovery of Vader joyfully practicing moonsaults on his trampoline, it felt right to celebrate this different style gift. Tony Halme's Different Style Fights with Hashimoto and Aoyagi are what made me dive deeper down this Borga rabbit hole of mine and come out the other side a changed man. Now we have 7 of his 9 total Different Style Fights (I'm not holding my breath for his fight against Larry the Villain, whoever the hell that is) and finally have his first against Vader. We had his second and third matches with Vader (the second match was also a Different Style Fight, the third and final bout merely a "regular" match) and I say with no hyperbole that this one is the Certified Classic of the three. Their 10/18/91 Fight is nowhere near as good as this match, and after finally seeing their first encounter I fully understand why that match didn't live up to its on-paper potential. 

This one was their first fight, and THIS was their war. THIS was their fight. THIS was the match where they left everything in the ring. It would have been impossible to recapture aura and spectacle like this just a few days later. How could they? This is also, by far, the longest Different Style Fight Halme ever had (a couple of them went into the 4th round, this one goes all the way to the 6th) and the longest match of his lengthy New Japan run. It's incredible. The way they hit each other makes it look like they won't make it out of the 3rd, and the way Halme's stomach is heaving makes it look like they won't make it out of the 2nd. 

Of note: Chris Benoit in Halme's corner, which is pretty fascinating. By all accounts Tony Halme was a sweet young man with no questionable belief systems until some time in mid 1991, so now that we finally have video of this encounter we can pinpoint the exact moment Halme was mentored into being a real piece of shit. 

R1: A bit of a feeling out, each getting a knockdown in the corner but neither with any clue how quaint those knockdowns would seem 15 minutes later. Halme landed several uppercuts into Vader's left side, high up, and it built to both thudding each other with multiple shots to the stomach. Halme started throwing straight rights over Vader's left eye that Vader has to stop with a Fujiwara takedown, riding out the round holding him down. 

R2: Vader threw punches just as hard as Halme, except Vader was wearing the gloves he always wore and Halme was wearing larger boxing gloves. Needless to say, that means Vader was hitting harder. He upended Halme with a clothesline and locked in a grounded crossface chickenwing, which looked even more nasty because Halme just isn't that flexible. When he let go of it Vader punched the face down Halme in the back of the head. It looked so petty that right after Vader seemed to allow Halme to give him some receipts, sticking his head out with no defense so Halme could take some swings, a level of trust and insanity that only adds to Vader's legend. Vader isn't completely generous though, as after allowing the receipts he headbutts Halme hard between his nose and eyeball, so...

R3: Third round started with Halme bullying Vader into the corner but being staggered back out of it by punches. Halme is great at being staggered. His best selling of the match was any time Vader hit him into a forced backward retreat. Halme looks more blown up with every bump. Every time he takes a back bump it looks like he won't be able to stand back up, and that's before Vader lifts him up for a back suplex. I don't know how much help Halme was giving him on that one, but he seemed more scared about potentially tipping back onto his head, which made the entire lift look dangerous. Stomach heaving, Halme eventually gets up throwing arms, buying himself some time by dropping Vader to a knee, then goes for broke. He catches Vader with a full arm swinging right-left that sends Vader rolling out to the floor, and when Vader gets back into the ring he's sporting a big cut over his right eye. Suddenly Vader looks to be breathing just as hard as Halme... 

R4: Vader's cut is spraying blood down his chest and arm, way more than I expected. Vader is bleeding fast and Halme's punches aren't even aimed at the cut. It's like Halme is knocking the blood out of the other side of his head. When Vader emerges from the corner, he lands a shot I thought would put Halme down but Halme weathers it and starts throwing some focused left body/right head combos that eventually crumble Vader into a bent knee 180. The right side of Vader's face is fully masked in crimson while the left side doesn't have a single drop of blood on it. The visual is incredible. Somebody needs to capture this Vader on canvas. Vader refuses to let the ref check his cut, both men look gassed, and Vader manages to trap Halme in the corner to bounce some shots off the top of his head. Halme can't damage Vader when he's tied up in the corner, can't extend his long arms, and when a roundhouse right drops Halme to his seat, he is literally saved by the bell. Several seconds after the round ends Halme is still frozen on one knee, holding the top rope, unable to stand or pull himself to his feet without great difficulty. He needs the aide of a child murderer just to get to his feet. The shell of a man who turned the famously kind Finn evil has to  slap Halme on the ass and assist him back to his corner.

R5: Round 5 is Vader desecrating the largest human corpse. A 10-7 round, nothing but survival for Halme, but at what cost. He can barely move his arms and Vader has a second wind. The bell rings and a second later Halme's bell gets rung when Vader splats him with an avalanche. Halme was not expecting Vader to make it across the ring so quickly. It's a sign of what's to come, as Halme isn't on his feet for more than a second at a time the entire round. Vader hits a front slam and Halme hits the mat and rolls over so slowly, in a way that looks like he just got jumped out of a gang and they finally stopped putting the boots to him. I figured a disgusting - truly disgusting - Vader lariat would be the end of things, but Vader now looks like a guy who does not want this to end. He fires up the crowd and hits a running standing splash that lands full weight on Halme's ribs and I don't know how Halme ever got back up. Vader is now filled with energy and the crowd keeps egging him on, so he plays out the rest of the round holding Halme in a dragon sleeper and the fans love it.

R6: An absolutely shocking turn of events. I and everyone in Chiba knew that this round would be the end...we just didn't think it would be the end of Vader. Halme can't move from his corner so Vader starts the match the same way he started the 5th, with another avalanche. It feels like the perfect strategy against a man who can't defend himself, but when Vader does it again...Halme manages to move, and while stepping aside he throws a right hand into Vader's stomach like Vader was Arn attempting an axe handle. Halme has one chance, and that's to start swinging for his life, and when Vader sees him swinging for broke he starts swinging for broke. Vader keeps getting knocked down and Halme looks like he'll fall over any second, leaning on the ropes every chance he gets, mouth wide open, hanging himself by the armpits over the top rope so deep that 2 Cold Scorpio has to run over to shove the Finn's mouthguard back in. Vader foolishly keeps standing back up and keeps thinking he can weather Halme's big arm swings, and he keeps thinking this, and keeps getting dropped, and keeps taking longer to get back up...until he can't. I did not see this Halme win coming, the crowd didn't see this Halme win coming, and Vader was incredible at being someone who also did not see it coming.  

We now have all three Halme/Vader matches. One of them is a good idea, one of them is a great match, but this one is an outright classic. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE TONY HALME

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Borga & Boogie: A Tale of Nordic Strongmen

Tony Halme vs. Boogie Commando  FWF Super Star Wrestling 7/27/97     Pt. 2     Pt. 3 - GREAT

ER: Tony Halme was a fascinating guy, and had one of the coolest careers of any human in history. But you might not know that he worked shows for a Finnish outlaw mud show promoter! Halme essentially ran backyard wrestling shows with three other bodybuilder/strongman types. Four huge jacked Finnish guys who all looked like slightly different versions of each other decided they didn't want to start Finland's version of the Power Team, and instead of tearing phone books in half for Christ they opted to wrestle outdoors in front of a couple hundred people, everything set up on grass. 

Boogie Commando was one of the other bodybuilders (there was also one with a Viking gimmick because obviously one of the four Nordic strongmen was going to be working a Viking gimmick). This is Boogie Commando's retirement match, and he comes out to Van Halen's "Jump", wearing short jean cutoffs and a tactical vest over his gassed physique and yellow/black striped wrestling singlet. The tactical vest comes off, but the cutoffs stay on. He is wearing an ammo belt and looks like if WCW had added a beefcake stripper to High Voltage. He hands out 8x10s to the crowd during his long entrance (I guess it was give them to the crowd or have a box of 8x10s taking up space in your house during your retirement). He poses in the ring for the entirety of Jump, makes small but aggressive rolling pelvic thrusts at the crowd, and when Jump ends they just start it over while he continues to walk around inside the ring, thrusting. A Finnish woman says some things that seem to be about Boogie Commando, and we can assume she was listing accomplishments and talking briefly about his retirement, as the fans keep politely clapping while wondering if they're going to hear Panama and the rest of 1984's A side or just a third run through of Jump.  

While fans are distracted thinking about their prospects of hearing Hot For Teacher, Halme just walks out wearing a white USA tank top (curious) and sweat shorts, Finnish house music replacing the chunky squawky guitars that American teen boys and Northern Europeans love. He looks exactly the same as his Ludvig Borga run other than sporting a now completely shaved head. He gets the microphone and speaks quickly and angrily into it. I have no idea what he said, but it sounded incredibly threatening. His face wore the seething expression of a man explaining to terrorists how he's going to get his teen daughter back. However, his threats/well-wishes get an enthusiastic reaction from a group of girls in the crowd, who have short fashionable haircuts and beers. 

The match is a sincere warts and all look at the late 90s Finnish backyard bodybuilding wrestling scene, and has a weird shoot element due to Halme's permanently angry face and Boogie Commando appearing to be non-trained (but also the champ, on a show with only this match). The ring is low and has no give, and you better believe that the Finnish house music Halme walked out to will continue for the duration of the match. This certainly felt like bodybuilders doing wrestling, and it was a really entertaining version of bodybuilder wrestling. Boogie had a couple of powerslams and some preposterous dropkicks that looked like first attempts. Halme sidestepped one and sent Boogie crashing fairly recklessly into the corner, and Halme flat out ignored another one. The dropkicks are a reasonable facsimile of what most pro wrestling trainers see on the first day when they ask "okay who wants to try a dropkick?" But what FWF champion Boogie Commando might have lacked in dropkick ability, he made up for by running neck first into a very stiff Halme clothesline. The ropes break while Halme runs his full weight into them, and from here there are several moments where Halme appears to step through the ropes to offer to fight fans...or maybe tell jokes? It's hard to gauge what is being said when you're basing your guesses on the reactions of pale backyard wrestling skinhead fans in bomber jackets. 

There are round breaks, and the second round seems to end when Halme just decides the round is over because he needs water. There is no bell, Halme just waves off the ref and walks to the ropes, signaling to a woman at ringside for water. Both men look completely gassed at this point, with Halme putting his hands on his knees several times and Boogie leaning chest first so heavily on the turnbuckle pads that it looks like he's falling asleep. With the ropes no longer an option, the entirety of the match is two gassed hulks lifting each other and slamming each other onto an unforgiving mat. And I can't see a scenario where that won't ever be really cool? Boogie hits a heavy Samoan drop that knocks the wind out of Halme, Halme keeps knocking Boogie off his feet with brutal body shots and kneelifts. Halme torches his elbow on a high missed elbowdrop and Boogie hits a sincerely great elbowdrop of his own. The slams all look painful, with Halme's waterwheel suplex a highlight. We also get a long Halme STF that Halme appeared to improvise once he saw Boogie Commando was too tired to get off the mat, and had in fact rolled over onto his stomach to rest in the middle of the ring. 

Boogie loses his title, poses for pictures and signs autographs for fans (even signing the forearm of a man in his 40s, by request). And, while saying his final goodbyes to the world of Finnish backyard wrestling, we get to hear Jump a couple more times. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE TONY HALME

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RIP Bobby Eaton Pt. 3

Bobby Eaton/Tony Halme vs. The Hellraisers (Road Warrior Hawk/Kensuke Sasaki) NJPW 6/14/93

ER: Bobby Eaton only had 30 matches in Japan, and this might be the only one we have, maybe the only document of how Japanese crowds reacted to this god. And what an all time great Odd Couple the Eaton/Halme team was! They teamed together every night of Eaton's first tour of Japan, going 12-2 as a team before getting this title match (beating everyone other than Chono/Muto). Were these two hanging out for those two weeks? Eaton teaches Halme a couple things in the ring, Halme shows him his favorite weirdo Japan spots from his 2+ years there, it's something I would certainly watch. They're a weird team, but I love the team dynamic of a skilled smooth technician and a big lummox. Halme really did come off super lummox-y here, like he was on downers or something. He was a little sluggish and kind of wandered around more than I'm used to in matches that aren't from 80s World Class. His timing seems off throughout, but Eaton is so good at covering for him and making it almost seem like part of the act, that it turns into a real charming Bobby performance. 

Eaton/Hawk had a great thread throughout, with Hawk working a more Memphis puncher style with him rather than a Road Warrior style. They have a few punch outs that are really great, Hawk clearly having some kind of bet with Eaton over who could throw a better worked right hand. I don't know the last time I saw Hawk throw right hands this often during a match, usually throwing more chops and shoulderblocks and not having stand and trade exchanges. Eaton bumped big but wasn't necessarily working this as the small man who takes all the bumps. He was working as Hawk and Sasaki's size equal, using those hooking punches as the ultimate equalizer. Match starts with a bang and a big Sasaki high rotation powerslam on Halme, and while the Eaton/Hawk stuff was my favorite (I mean sure Hawk no sells Eaton's piledriver but we also get Hawk's great fistdrop so), but Eaton/Sasaki is a fun pairing I'd never seen. Eaton takes a high backdrop bump but convincingly holds off Sasaki, throwing incredible headlock punches, putting him down with a perfect swinging neckbreaker and then drops the Alabama Jam. 

Eaton was also busy the entire match wrangling Halme, but it really gave a cool insight into his ring general capabilities. The fans really wanted to see the Hawk/Halme showdown and they were LOUD with "HALME" chants before they locked up. But there was a awkward spot where Hawk went to Irish whip Halme but Halme held on too long and just kind of got tossed sideways into the ropes, and it gets awkward getting him back to his feet in a way that isn't just "stand up and repeat this spot". Eaton recognizes it instantly and comes charging in to get in a punch out with Hawk, allowing Halme to reposition. Halme, while he was much more sluggish than I've seen him and did hardly any offense, did at least lean into big clotheslines. Eaton took some big damage down the stretch, including Hawk rocket launching him into a Sasaki powerslam AND taking the Doomsday Device, and I really hope someday I get to see another match with this weird team. 

PAS: This was a bunch of fun, I loved how Halme can just go to the body and cut off everything, but this was an Eaton master class. He felt like he was conducting the whole match, getting everyone in position and taking these huge in ring bumps to tie it together: backdrops, eating press slams, and getting doomsday deviced. He made the Hellraisers look incredible which also made Halme look great when he went toe to toe with them. That is one of the great things about Eaton, he was going to make everyone in the match go up a level when he was in there. I would also love to see more Eaton and Halme, man they would have been a fun WCW team. 

Bobby Eaton vs. Jerry Lawler Power Pro Wrestling 2/17/01

ER: The two greatest punchers in history throw down, and the punches are as great as expected. I don't think Lawler/Eaton were ever in the same place once Eaton left Memphis in the early 80s, and I love the selling point of an 18 year old grudge exploding in 3 minutes of violence. The punches in the first 10 seconds alone make this match must see, and it's more evidence that Lawler arguably sells punches even better than he delivers punches. Seeing him get rocked in the corner by Eaton right hands is seeing two legends with 100% trust. Lawler knew right where those hands were going to be when he bounced around in the corner, and Eaton knew exactly where to deliver them. The fight to the floor and Lawler blocks a post shot (I love when Lawler blocks a post shot with his hands as he always makes it look like his stiff arm straining to not go into that post) and Eaton takes the shot instead. Eaton even takes a biel on the concrete floor! 

Brian Christopher on commentary talks about Lawler being a slow starter, but not long after Lawler hits a mule kick and then the strap comes down. Lawler uses his punches to build to two Stunners, a Lawler spot I usually hate, but here I like it and it's because Bobby Eaton is really great at selling a Stunner. Brandon Baxter starts interfering, which leads to Stacy Carter crotching him on the top rope, which brings out Victoria (totally forgot Victoria was built like Leyla Hirsch in 2001), which brings out Bill Dundee. Dundee looks like The Gorch here, all that was missing was a pipe or a chain, and they set up a Dundee/Lawler/Kat vs. Eaton/Baxter/Victoria match that I can't find any record of ever happening. This was a criminally short match, the only match Eaton actually had in Power Pro, but every single interaction between he and Lawler was EXACTLY what you want. 

Bobby Eaton/Dennis Condrey vs. Southern Comfort (Tracy Smothers/Chris Hamrick) IWC 12/11/04

ER: Dennis Condrey comes out of a 15 year retirement to work some MX tags, and THAT is the kind of indy dream match that excites me. This was only the second of his comeback matches, and Condrey looks pretty good for a guy in his early 50s who hadn't wrestled since his late 30s. I also like dream matches that pair legends with veterans, not young guys. Smothers and Hamrick were already old guys on the super indy scene at this point, and I like that team against a couple old legends. The match is great, with a lot of really snug matwork that built to a hot tide turn when Chris Hamrick started his bullshit. Hamrick worked the mat well with both, doing hard wristlock takeovers and building to some cool stuff around a side headlock and a neat Condrey half Indian deathlock. There's a couple nice old Midnights double teams, the nicest a Condrey drop toehold into an Eaton jumping elbowdrop.

But match gets up-fucking-turned when Hamrick goes for a Johnny B. Badd style jumping moonsault and completely wipes out on the ropes, hanging himself disgustingly by his knee. Now, if you know Chris Hamrick - and if you know Chris Hamrick you love Chris Hamrick - your yellow lights are flashing. Hamrick is the master at taking calculated body destroying bumps-as-strategy. Hamrick intentionally blows out his knee doing a complicated rope bump and it's allllll part of the plan. It's a spot he has variations on and it's my favorite kind of southern wrestling theater. Smothers runs to Hamrick's aid, the crowd leaps to their feet thinking something went wrong, Smothers waves in people from the back, and it all takes so long that IWC opted to do a time lapse. There are four people helping untangle Hamrick's leg from the ropes while keeping him steady and not injuring him further.....and of course Hamrick then lands a superkick right under Beautiful Bobby's chin. Hamrick's face as he shrugs to the fans and to the men helping him is just part of what makes Hamrick the best at that kind of bullshit. 

Smothers goofs off a ton on offense with his karate chops and silly dancing, all while dishing out stomps to Eaton's ribs. Things swing back for the Midnights when Hamrick does another of his insane bumps, flying feet first to the concrete floor after Eaton undraped himself from the middle rope. I love how indies never expected Hamrick's biggest bumps so they always came off as shocking, closer to the reactions of Bigelow going through a ring than any modern WWE stunt fall. Condrey gets the hot tag and throws a couple nice stiff arm southpaw lariats, Eaton hits a hard lariat to send Hamrick over the top to the floor, and the flapjack gives us old man indy champions, one of the purest experiences in indy wrestling. 

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Tony Halme Reminds Me Bout a Symphony on the Radio

Tony Halme vs. Ron Simmons  WCW/NJPW 1/4/93 - VERY GOOD

ER: I think they could have had a really great singles match if they were around each other a bit more regularly, and weren't thrown into a kind of Special Attraction match. This was the only match on a huge Tokyo Dome card to go under 10 minutes, and it barely even went 5. It's pro style, not Halme working as a massive boxer and Simmons trying to find his way around that, and I think a great hypothetical match exists in both styles. We didn't get either great match, but what we got still had some predictably cool moments. Jim Ross and Tony Schiavone are on the call, and refer to Halme as either "Home" or "Holmes" the entire match, but I liked Tony shaping a little narrative by saying that Halme is pissed because this match was signed when Simmons was the WCW champ and was supposed to be a title match. There's a long feeling out process, and I thought Halme was good at setting up Simmons' offense, and much of the match was him setting up offense for Simmons. Halme ran through a lot of major NJPW guys during his time there, so I was surprised at them letting Simmons mostly control this (his status as recent champ notwithstanding). 

Halme's awkwardness adds to these matches for me, as it makes his reversals look more like failed shoots than guys just on different pages. He lets Simmons lay into him and nicely sets up a Simmons bulldog, takes a nice piledriver, but then just stays standing when Simmons hits a flying shoulderblock, just shoving Simmons into the ground. For his part, Simmons was completely looney about leaning into Halme strikes, particularly a clonking headbutt and a big right bear paw attack that knocked Simmons through the ropes to the floor. Halme's avalanche and big heavy feet-planted clothesline looked great, and Schiavone and JR seemed pretty impressed at how high arcing his powerslam was. The finish was weird but not bad? Simmons hits a powerslam of his own but it doesn't look great, then tries to get a small package twice in a row on Halme. Both small packages look loose, but to me it made it look like Simmons was trying to shoot pin Halme and Halme wasn't having it (I am projecting all of this on the match, I don't think anyone was being unprofessional here). Halme misses a haymaker and Simmons hits the spinebuster with a fantastic float over pin holding Halme's legs down. I think you can improve on literally every section of this match, and a great match wasn't far off, but what we got was plenty cool and it was always going to be a treat seeing Halme cheered as a babyface against Simmons in front of 60,000+ Tokyo Dome fans.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE TONY HALME

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This is Hot Stuff Halme, It Sure Tastes Good

Tony Halme vs. The Soultaker NJPW 10/25/90 - EPIC

ER: This is the best Halme match we've had this early, and it's due in large part to the best ever Charles Wright performance we have. It's Halme's first Different Style fight in New Japan, and Wright needs to show why Halme is the new threat to Hashimoto and others, and how he can be beaten. Soultaker could have been a star. Wright's Papa Shango will always be one of my all time favorite looks, but it's undeniable how cool Wright as a guy in gloves and a singlet top looked with no makeup or fuss. Both men are huge and really land heavy shots. Halme throws no set up punches, only big swinging hooks, battering up Soultaker's ribs. Soultaker is good at luring Halme into missed shots and landing great leg kicks to the meat of Halme's left thigh. Halme is either an all time prodigy in evolving pro wrestling selling, or those kicks were leaving a helluva knot in his quad. I never remember Wright with such an effective leg kick, but Halme looked another couple rounds away from being hobbled. Halme starts landing more shots as Soultaker comes back in to attack the leg, and you know those fists are gonna hit hard when they eventually hit. There is an uppercut spot that doesn't quite connect (lucky for Wright honestly) but Halme improvises well and throws a hard overhand right to knock Soultaker to the floor. And then Halme makes damn sure he doesn't miss the next set of punches, lands two enormous body shots and the then a right hook to the back of Soultaker's ear that looked gnarlier than any Bart Gunn shot. No way Godzilla vs. Kong is going to be anywhere near as good as this. 

Tony Halme vs. Scott Norton NJPW 2/8/92 - GREAT

ER: Sadly this had a couple clips, but those clips also give us a super tight slugfest (it will just leave me demanding to know how Borga got Norton to his back to hit an elbowdrop). This is the kind of fight where every strike looks painful and every slam looks earned. Norton is one of the all time great wrestling brick walls, and you never get the sense in this match that either man is going to back down. Every landing is going to hurt, and it's going to be a real demolition derby. Halme focuses on body blows, and I love these targeted Halme body blows. Norton has the torso of a man who looks like he could believably no sell a baseball bat beating, so I dug how well he put over Halme's hard body shots, and then fired back with his own huge clubbing arms. This was a lot of these two not holding back. If there's a clothesline, you best bet that it will be either man throwing that clothesline to connect. Halme throws his full weight into his avalanche, which leads to a great moment of Norton catching him when Halme comes in too high...and then the slamming starts. Norton hits two fantastic full rotation powerslams and a nasty Samoan drop that landed like they were on concrete. This never felt unprofessional at any point, it just had that perfect pro wrestling danger that happens when you have two guys who don't care how hard they get hit. Unicorn stuff. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE TONY HALME

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It's Reached Top Speed and I'm Getting Inside of Tony Halme

Tony Halme vs. Masahiro Chono  NJPW 8/6/92 - VERY GOOD

ER: Unique layout for a big singles match, and this was a big singles. This was the main event of the very first night of the '92 G1, the 4th and final G1 match of that night. 1992 was one of the years they did a single elimination tournament for G1, which is kind of a shame as it left a lot of killer matches on the table, but also gave us matches we hadn't seen at that point like Arn Anderson vs. Steve Austin, or this match. I put myself in the shoes of the fans, and the single elimination style really adds to the drama of some of these matches. Imagine being so excited for Masahiro Chono to attempt a repeat G1 victory after taking '91, and then being met with him taking a complete one sided 10 minute drubbing to start off his '92 bid. The bulk of this match looked like Chono had no actual shot at beating Halme, OR getting any kind of offense. Halme was landing body shots at will, and Chono was selling the way I would be selling after taking one shot from Tony Halme. The match was in danger of being stopped several times, with Halme punching Chono's guts into the mat and then waiting for him to get back up before doing it all over again. At one point it appears the ref even throws out his own rulebook, giving Chono a 10 count that Chono clearly will not beat, so the ref just stops the count while Chono rolls to the floor! *I* know the end result of the '92 G1, but I'd never seen this match and I actually thought they were going to have Chono get decimated, then think of some reason to DQ Halme after the fact so that Chono could continue. And that's where our story finally turns, as Halme goes out after him and ends up accidentally throwing a lariat to the ringpost, leading to Chono working over his arm and shoulder until he gets the win. Halme sold well and apparently likes to swear in English, as he was dropping Effs and Son-of-a-Bitches all over the place while Chono went after the arm. The structure of this was so cool and odd, you can see a Lesnar match worked this same way. Halme absolutely owned Chono for the first 8-10, and then the last few minutes were entirely Chono working for the same sub, Halme basically slowly drowning with no hope for survival. I loved how Chono slowly set up the STF, the way he slowly worked into it made it seem like a huge deal once he had it locked in. And I love that Halme basically wasn't going to tap to the STF, so Chono shifted quickly to an armbar. Weird layout, but it definitely worked off the charisma and character of these two.


Tony Halme/Brad Armstrong vs. Hiroshi Hase/Keiji Muto  NJPW 2/13/93 - VERY GOOD

ER: The Halme/Armstrong team is like the Kane/Danielson tag with an actual great Kane. And really this whole match would have been better with nearly anybody else in there other than Muto. And, thankfully, Hase does the lion's share of the work, and the match only benefits from it. Armstrong and Muto start, and it's all headlocks baby! Muto works a couple so loose that he keeps losing them, but it's all headlock takeovers and lying on the mat in a headlock. There's a chance this match had a clip, and brother I have no clue what could have been clipped because we got Muto lying on his side aplenty. Thankfully Halme and Hase got in there, because their long section was great. Halme had real charisma at this point, beyond being "imposing Aryan man", as he was really great at building to big parts and milking small parts. He knows when to throw big body blows and how many to throw, and can work a compelling match based wholly around wrecking Hase's spleen. Seeing Hase in action against the much larger Halme was cool, as after getting pummeled by fists the size of his head he uses his amateur grappling and muscles Halme down to the mat, and Halme is smart to not go down right away for the takedown, so we really got to see Hase dragging him down. But most of this was Halme pummeling, and then Brad comes in and the Brad/Hase stuff is great! Hase aims to rip Brad's leg off with a beautiful drop toehold, but after getting cut off from Muto for too long with some big Halme moments (a lariat off the middle with Brad holding Hase, a massive powerslam) we get a big hot tag.....and Muto hilariously comes in and starts working more headlock takeovers. This fucking guy. It all builds to him hitting an okay handspring elbow on Brad, except Halme totally steals his thunder by running the length of the apron to lariat him right after. The breakdown is cool with Hase catching Brad up top and hitting a superplex (both men on the top rope) and Halme getting run into the ringpost hard on the floor after trying to catch a Muto pescado that falls short (great ringpost bump, believable enough to keep him out for the finish), and Hase makes quick work of brad with the uranage (back bump edition) and northern lights. This was overall really good, but literally any other native would have turned in a more interesting performance than Muto.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE TONY HALME

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There Ain't No Better Way of Killing Time Than Loving Tony Halme

Tony Halme vs. Shinya Hashimoto NJPW 12/26/90 - GREAT

ER: Upload King Roy Lucier just helped me fill in a gap in my Halme viewing, but giving us the very first Hashimoto/Halme "Different Style Fight". We still (to my knowledge) don't have his Soul Taker fight, but having the first Hash fight is great. And this is a match that relies mostly on Hashimoto's facial selling, his body selling, and his powerful charisma. Halme was mostly in there as stoic Ivan Drago, immediately battering Hashimoto's body with huge hooking shots. Hashimoto was really theatrical here, going down from shots in big twisting twirling tumbles, holding his body while crying out in anguish, yelling out to ring boys for help when needed. Halme wasn't great at selling Hashimoto's shots, leaning back on the ropes while absorbing kicks, getting pushed across the ring by kicks before coming back with a haymaker; but with a charisma fireball like Hash doing the emotional work, Halme didn't need to be great at selling. He needed to come off like a T-800, a guy who was going to keep coming forward until his mission was complete. 

Hashimoto was great at peppering in big moments, keeping the crowd riled by throwing nothing but big kicks, including a great moment where he hits his rolling spin kick that bounces Halme off the ropes and tumbling back over Hash, but Hash can't capitalize due to tweaking his knee. And that knee becomes the great story of the rest of the fight, as Hashimoto gets more aggressive with takedowns (a big judo takedown starts the 3rd, and we get a terrific bit of physics involving Hash kicking Halme into the ropes, Halme rebounding back, and Hash staying low to use Halme's momentum to throw him. We got several strong visuals down the stretch, of Chono hurriedly taping up Hashimoto's knee during the round break, the sad final shots of Hashimoto unable to put weight on his leg so just absorbing shots while taking a knee, still trying to figure out a way to win before the stoppage. Had I been in the crowd, I would be dying to see the return fight. You know Hashimoto wouldn't be the type to blame the loss on his knee, but every fan there was thinking "If he didn't come up limping after that one kick, Halme would have had no chance". Their Different Style rematch wouldn't happen for another 9 months.

Tony Halme/Bad News Allen/Scott Norton vs. Shinya Hashimoto/Riki Choshu/Keiji Muto  NJPW 4/16/92 - GREAT

ER: I could watch trios matches like this on an endless loop and never be bored with pro wrestling ever. Throw together 6 guys of various talent levels, let them do their thing for 10-15 minutes, it's a pretty tough formula for pros to screw up. And this is a match filled with cool pairing possibilities, I like seeing every one of these nine potential match-ups, and they all ruled. They all know exactly what they're doing (well, maybe except Muto, who flips into the ring pre-bell and almost falls on his face, but saves it by continuing the bit and purposely stumbling while throwing his shirt to the crowd), and before the ring intros Halme starts slowly making his way over to the babyface side of things, trying to silently intimidate, and Choshu is having none of it and slaps him the second he gets too close. And again, all the pairings in this are cool. It starts with Norton and Choshu, and Norton is already such a clear star that the crowd is chanting for HIM instead of Choshu! They run into each other with hard lariats (as you'd want) and Norton drops a heavy ass elbow. Bad News and Muto do some really fun hip toss exchanges, and the crowd is already buzzing when it's clear Hash and Halme are going to throw down. 

They do their whole thing: Halme throwing big hooks to the body, Hash flying back with kicks, and I love the violent grace that Hashimoto's spinning heel kick whips through opponents, like a scythe through a wheat field. I really loved Bad News in this. He's the best kind of glue here and, at nearly 50 years old, that's appropriate as he will make fine glue at the factory. He's the dude breaking up submissions with multiple headbutts, he's the guy running distraction on the floor, he's the guy directing his two mammoth white goons to destroy the NJ favorites. Oh, and Allen's fistdrop off the middle rope was sublime. This was all about the gaijin separating Muto from his boys, and it was a great formula. The match honestly could have kept going this same was for another 20 minutes, there were still plenty of untapped match-ups. The abrupt go home ending is the only thing holding this back from being EPIC, as the in-ring was as much constant fun as it looks on paper. But, it was one of those "okay everyone suddenly swarm into the ring and pair off immediately, and don't save your partner in that sharpshooter 2 feet away from you" finishes that tend to happen in these matches. "Hey why did 4 of the 6 guys suddenly jump to the floor to brawl? Oh." Still, this was awesome.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE TONY HALME

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Ain't This a Perfect Way, To Spend the Nite with Tony Halme

Tony Halme vs. Big Van Vader  NJPW 10/18/91 - FUN

ER: No idea what was coursing through Halme's system in 1991, but that big round belly present in his match against Hashimoto the month before was completely gone here, leaving Halme looking at least 20 pounds lighter. And this is a real big boy slugfest, though a little more controlled and slow-paced than I was hoping. Halme attacks Vader's belly the whole match with big shots, Halme coming off like a King of Fighters character who most people don't play as, but is an expert character in the right hands. He keeps things pretty simple here, allowing Vader to have most of the offense, but getting a big moment off a bodyslam/elbow drop combo. Halme is a guy who can convincingly slam a huge guy like Vader, and his big leaping elbow is the tasty cherry on that sundae. 

It's cool seeing Halme's body shots buckle Vader, but it's just as cool seeing Vader squish Halme with big avalanches, and trying out weirdo stuff like a sunset flip. Seriously, why would Vader sunset flip anybody? How weird is it to see a 375 lb. guy do a sunset flip? Rikishi wasn't out here doing sunset flips, people were foolishly sunset flipping him before getting squished! Super Porky isn't even close to the size of Vader, he's the one getting sunset flipped so his sweet cheeks can plop on someone's chest. But here's Vader, mammoth, doing a sunset flip, and Halme looks down in confusion at Vader on his back, kicking his legs in the air, before dropping down with a butt splash. Later Vader would pay that butt splash back with a much better one, and later than that would play himself with yet more butt splashing. Lots of butt splashes here. Vader's run of offense leading to the finish is great, as Halme's match structure appears to be to punch himself out and then eat a lot of offense down the stretch. I especially loved Vader hitting a standing splash, bouncing off the ropes and just crushing Halme, landing high up on his chest. The finish itself, however, is just about as lame as can be. Vader stands over a downed Halme, overly confident, and goes for another butt splash; Halme moves, rolls up Vader, and Vader appears to get his shoulders up at the 1 and 2 count, leading to about as flat a finish as possible. A match like this with two beasts needs a big KO finish or a definitive pin. This did no favors to either man, just a bad finish for a Finnish baddie.

Tony Halme vs. Kim Duk  NJPW 2/4/92 - FUN

ER: This was really simple, but I dug it. It's also sadly clipped in half, about 4 minutes of a 7.5 minute match. I assume the first few minutes are mostly controlled by Halme, as when we join the match we get right to Kim Duk making what appears to be his comeback (judging by how fans are reacting). Duk was made in the same mold as Masa Saito and several other New Japan hardasses, literally whatever mold they owned that created and shaped badass dudes with bellies that are hard as rocks. Duk burns out of the corner with a lariat, then smothers Halme with a nice chinlock (with some nice moments such as Halme struggling to pry Duk's arm from around his mouth). The New Japan crowds really hated Halme. The second he starts making his comeback the boos fire up immediately, and he's in there throwing hard body blows and straight right hands while presumably swearing loudly at the crowd in Finnish (he may not have been, but his face certainly looked like the faces one makes while swearing). He drops Duk with a nice vertical suplex, punches him on the mat, drops his big elbow, and the fans are just hating it. I soak up their hate. Halme soaks up their hate. He mangles the word Ichiban a couple times before hitting a Samoan drop for the finish.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE TONY HALME

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I Jump Into the Bed, Tony Halme's There Already Waiting for Me

Tony Halme vs. Shinya Hashimoto  NJPW 9/23/91 - VERY GOOD

ER: This was not as great as their other Different Style Fight that we have (and not many are), and Halme comes into this fight more bloated than I've ever seen him. It had been several months since his last New Japan appearance and he looked bigger than ever but not in a way that would necessarily benefit him. The gifts in this match definitely come the longer this match goes, as it's a round system and so the early parts have a lot of feeling out, getting distance, nobody overshooting in the first few minutes. We establish fairly early that Hash is going to wear him down with leg kicks, absorb some punches to get in close, and take him to the mat to work submissions. Halme is in boxing gloves and the KO blow is his only shot, but it's an impressive shot. Hash keeps at those leg kicks, throwing short shots to the inside of Halme's lead leg, and I love the way Halme sells them and how they start affecting him the longer the match goes. Distance is not his friend. Halme lands a couple of big shots in the 3rd, a nasty hook to the back of Hash's head, and a cool short jab that Hash didn't see coming. That jab might've been my favorite Halme shot of the match. We get a couple great rope break moments, with it not looking like Halme was guaranteed to get to the ropes either time, especially when Hashimoto sinks in a choke. Hashimoto's leg sweeps were a real highlight, each low kick getting a bit more of a reaction from Halme, with Hash putting him down hard with a short leg kick followed by an immediate sweep. When Hash lands that combo a second time he locks in what I thought was the for sure finish, sinking an Americana with Halme's toe barely finding the bottom rope. But that rope break was Halme's last gasp, as Hash comes up throwing high kicks, nails his spin kick, and then spikes Halme with a DDT, rolling his limp body over for the easy armbar finish. Halme wasn't as active in this one as in their prior fights, but it allowed the match to play out in different ways, making it a worthy entry in their feud.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE TONY HALME

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Tony Halme's Slowly Dying, And I'm Jumping Outta My Jeans

Tony Halme vs. Crusher Bam Bam Bigelow  NJPW 12/16/91 - FUN

ER: Tony comes out clearly made to look like The Terminator, all sunglasses and demeanor, yet with his large puffy leather coat with bullet shells across the front it comes off more like an alternate timeline where Steven Seagal got cast instead. This is a nice pre-cursor to Bam Bam/LT, not worked too differently, from what I remember. Bammer might have had a formula for working against big lugs he had to put over. Sadly this is JIP, as there looks to be a cool early match moment where Bigelow takes a big bump over the top from a Halme punch. What we get is mostly Halme selling, with Bam Bam lighting him up with a dropkick that sends Halme into his own bump over the top to the floor. We get a cool tease when Halme gets back in the ring as he starts dishing out gut shots from the apron and tries suplexing him to the floor, sending a buzz to the floor. Bigelow suplexes him in, drops a headbutt, hits the enziguiri, but then misses a big headbutt off the top with a big crash over halfway across the ring. Halme immediately pops up and starts firing shots, and the camera crew knew how to shoot Halme punches already at this point, filming them from angles that rely more on the selling, and Bigelow takes one big one and staggers from it perfectly. Halme hits a big flying shoulderblock and lands in that way you land when you don't know how to land after doing a big flying shoulderblock. But my man doubles down and hits an even bigger one off the top to seal this deal.

Tony Halme vs. Scott Norton  NJPW/WCW Starrcade 1/4/92 - GREAT

ER: Another big win for Halme, now in front of 50,000 people, going over the guy who would be if not the biggest NJ gaijin of the next 15 years, at minimum the most omnipresent and among the more well protected guys there. And you get the sense that Norton is going to lose here, because the first 5 minutes of this are Norton taking out his upcoming loss in Tony Halme's flesh. Norton is a total monster, running through Halme with lariats and shoulderblocks, throwing knife edge chops that Halme really doesn't like, exploding around the ring and pretty much overwhelming Halme. It peaks with Norton headbutting Halme and blitzing him with a lariat as Halme recoils off the ropes from the headbutt, and as Norton grabs a nasty cravate you see Norton opened up a nice little cut with that last headbutt. Norton's cravate looks great and this is shaping up to be quite a mauling...but Norton gets so, so greedy and gets caught up top. Halme keeps things pretty simple here, throwing a bunch of nice body shots and hitting his great jumping elbow, and Norton leans into the top rope clothesline. Halme came away from this with the win, but Norton looked like a real star here and kind of steamrolled Halme in just the best way. Halme looked like he didn't quite know what to do at a couple points, and Norton filled in those moments admirably. Super fun hoss battle. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE TONY HALME

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RIP Mastodon

Big Van Vader vs. Tony Halme NJPW 5/17/92

PAS: This is a fun battle of monsters, which is exactly what you want it to be. Halme may have the best body shots in wrestling history and he really is digging in into Vader's big belly here. There are very few wrestlers Vader has ever fought who you buy going toe to toe with him. It was a battle of those great looping Vader hooks against the those thudding body shots. We also got a big Halme top rope clothesline and a body slam. I loved the finish run with Vader throwing big clotheslines and Halme refusing to go down until he finally does. The actual finish run was a bit of a banana peel, but both guys are so imposing, banana peel seems like the only way.

ER: I just saw the movie Rampage (again...) and this is the large white men version of that. I'm with Phil on this one as how many guys can stand opposite Vader and make it look like a fair stand and trade? How many guys can stand across Halme and do the same? Also agree that Halme's hard right to the stomach is my favorite body shot in wrestling. It's thrown perfectly, lands and explodes. It's the best strike he throws, but it's also the best strike almost anyone throws. Even in his earliest matches Halme had a great elbowdrop, and he throws a perfect one here, and Vader takes this great sprawling bump across the ring off a top rope clothesline. Vader is a savage though and our finishing run is just lariat after lariat after avalanche after lariat after bear attack. Vader appears to be attempting to crush Halme's collarbones, dropping a big butt splash and a standing splash directly across his upper chest, and then some more lariats to that chest. At one point while lying on his back, Halme appears to feel for his heartbeat. The finish is a flash, with Vader missing another butt splash and immediately getting rolled up (and appearing to kick out), and it is a little disappointing not seeing these guys just murder each other to completion. Halme has this great aloof smug face though, so it's funny to see him immediately selling the victory like he hadn't spent the previous 3 minutes getting crushed. Halme is not one of the all time great wrestling titans like Vader, but he's damn sure a guy you want to see opposite a titan.

Super Vader vs. Tatsuo Nakano UWFI 5/6/93

PAS: This is Vader's debut match in UWFI and Nakano is a great opponent for a short sprint semi squash. He is a fat Elvis looking dude who always comes forward and fights, which is perfect for a guy getting mauled by a Grizzly Bear. He gets one great bit of offense, where he trips Vader and starts pounding him in the back in the head with some really stiff forearms. Vader lays in a big time beating, with a huge german suplex and a running smash where he obliterates Nakano and the ref. He finishes him with two big body shots and a hook. Great debut which makes Vader look unstoppable and Nakano like a tough bastard.

ER: Crowd is straight RABID for Vader, and why wouldn't they be? There's a roar through the first few minutes of this that practically sounds like the Beatles playing Shea. Nakano shows why I could never be a wrestler, standing chest out as Vader walks up to him...and Vader just looks enormous. He looks comically large. We all know how large Vader was, but here he just looks absolutely larger than life, like he's about to just swallow Nakano whole. Nakano is a man and takes his beating, trying some leg kicks that could have been effective the longer the match lasted, and getting Vader momentarily off his feet which is the only place Nakano had a shot. But this is a debuting monster, and that monster is gonna eat. Vader hits two of my absolute favorite avalanches here, one the second the bell rings (just to show Nakano how this match is going to go) and another as Nakano is getting back to his feet and Vader just decides to steamroll him AND the ref. The UWF-I points system just makes it look like Nakano's health meter is constantly draining, which, yeah, is accurate. The German is big, and he even pulls back on it a bit, rotating to the side at the last minute so it's more of a flat back suplex, when he could have just planted him dome first by going straight over the top. His strikes looked impossible to take, and the body shots to end the match look like something that could end any match ever.

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Bangkok Shocks, Saigon Shakes, Halme Rocks

The Viking vs. The Patriot  UWF 10/11/90 - FUN

ER: This is not Del Wilkes. This is not my beautiful Berzerker. And, we gotta start this thing somewhere. AND, yes, I've now done two straight Complete & Accurates starting with huge 300+ pound white guys working as "The Viking". The Patriot is about the same size and shape as Joey Maggs. Herb Abrams gets to Kal Rudman levels talking about the size of Viking's pecs. The match is very short, about 2 minutes. Viking hits a chop that sends Patriot bumping neck first into the bottom rope, and the finish run is damn worthy of a finishing run. Viking hits a big press slam and drops Patriot HARD across the top rope, then smooshes him with a leaping elbow drop. He also pins Patriot with one hand, and with the other hand he points at the referee through the entire count. It looked badass.

The Viking vs. Kevin Benjamin  UWF 10/11/90 - SKIPPABLE

ER: Before the match we get a promo from The Viking, filmed the way UWF always filmed interviews: Pulled in for a tight close-up on a big meaty face. Halme delivers his promo the same way Peter Stormare mentions being an expert at fixing the cable in Log Jammers. And this match...wasn't always pretty. There was some miscommunication, Benjamin doesn't get up well on a sideslam (that leads to Viking stumbling and dropping him), and doesn't get up great on a press slam. It didn't make either guy look great. I've never seen Benjamin outside of UWF Power Hour, and I assume Halme went through a rushed training with Brad Rheingans and Verne Gagne. There were small moments of joy, like a short Viking kneelift, and some wrist work that leads to Viking bieling Benjamin by the arm. Viking has a big leaping elbowdrop for a finisher, and it looks good, and we get another stretcher job. Things will get better, I say to the dark.

The Viking vs. Stephan de Leon  UWF 11/8/90 - SKIPPABLE

ER: A kid in the crowd appears to be wearing a bootleg Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles sweatshirt, with Raphael flexing. It looks amazing. Halme is not making it a secret what moves he'll be doing in these matches. He'll throw someone into the ropes, and immediately wait for them in the position of the move he'll be doing. You know when a powerslam is coming. You know when a press slam is coming, because Halme is there waiting for him like Johnny waiting to lift Baby. Rachel actually defends it in terms of match psychology, suggested that he is so confident he's hitting the move that it doesn't matter that he is showing that he is hitting the move. I like her explanation. Viking delivers that powerslam, and de Leon doesn't have to take it neck first over the top rope. Viking does, however, deliver FOUR of his genuinely great leaping elbowdrops, even asking a fan "One more?" before flipping him off and delivering one more.

The Viking vs. Al Lion  UWF 12/6/90 - FUN

ER: "I think UWF should start selling life insurance," The Viking says, as his helmet sits crooked on his face. Viking, it should be noted, has been awkwardly stepping into the ring over the top tope, because his gigantic horned viking helmet would make it impossible to go through the ropes. Al Lion is someone I've never seen before, he's got pinstripe baseball pants, eye black, a Yankees cap, and is carrying a Louisville slugger. He looks like a nise Baseball Fury, which I dig. And this match actually starts out competitive! Viking runs at Lion twice and misses two big clotheslines, taking nice chest first bumps into the corner after both. Lion gets a couple of nice armdrags that Viking takes well, but from there we go mostly into Viking finishing stretch. We do get a little cross-up on a leapfrog spot, as Lion catches his head while Viking is coming down, but really Lion should have ducked more as he ran. How high did he think a 320 pound guy was capable of jumping in a leapfrog spot? The press slam is great, with Lion trying to pull up on it to make his landing safer, but that ends up just snapping his chin over the top rope. Viking calls out what appears to be the same fan he called out before hitting his big elbow drop in the last match. After the match he grabs the mic out of Herb Abrams' hand, calls him an oversized smurf, and wanders around ringside cutting a walking promo, telling that fan to "go back to Burger King" (I think? He was kind of gassed, so was breathing hard into the mic, and also has a very thick accent).

The Viking vs. Rob Allen  UWF 12/24/90 - FUN

ER: Viking continues talking shit to that SAME FAN! I want to see that match-up more than anything we've seen so far. At first I thought it was a plant, but it's clearly just some guy who is really, really getting under Halme's skin. He talks shit to this guy the entire match, after every move. He'd drop Allen with a backbreaker, then point at that guy. Drop Allen with a rough vertical suplex, then flex towards that guy. Allen is a good sport and takes a couple heavy as hell lariats, and that suplex dropped him into the bottom rope. Viking finishes this match with a spinebuster that seemed kind of...improvised? Halme shot Allen into the ropes, lifted him up into a kind of bearhug (which he had used in a prior match), things looked a little shaky...and then he just dropped him with that spinebuster. The referee gave on of the most gingerly counts I've ever seen, limply tapping that mat. I assume he thought Allen was concussed and didn't want to hit the mat too hard right next to him. We also get tons more great Viking elbow drops after the match, even telling the ref to get out of his way so he can do another.
And we're done with the UWF portion of our Tony Halme, and aside from being left wanting one of those white UWF hats (there has to be a warehouse in LA with boxes of these, right?), I'm left wondering how he went from these appearances - clearly tons of potential, but very tentative, borderline dangerous - to the poise and ring awareness and high end selling that we saw just a month after in the Hashimoto match. The way he carries himself here as a wrestler is night and day to how comfortable he looked as a boxer working a wrestling match. It's pretty astounding, and I'd love to know what happened in the intervening 6 weeks. I don't think the answer is as simple as "Hashimoto".


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE TONY HALME

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Complete and Accurate Ludvig Borga

The Complete & Accurate people were clamoring for! Up until a month ago, Tony Halme/Ludvig Borga had not made much of an impression on my life. He was a strongly pushed heel in the WWF during 6 months of an era of diminishing attendance, only made it onto one lesser seen Coliseum video, had his only action figure released during a transition between toy companies (making it impossible to find), and was fired for getting injured and being "unpleasant". Jim Ross eulogized him as "not a great guy to be around", which is an unfortunate thing to have on one's tombstone. So he is not someone who has been written about on the digital pages of the internet, yet was a guy who went to a lot of places and accomplished a lot in a short amount of time. He's probably one of only a dozen or two guys to get pushed in WWF and New Japan, fight in UFC and RINGS, appear in a Die Hard movie, become a member of Finnish Parliament (but not, sadly, a member of Finnish Funkadelic), and have a gold record. If he had appeared in an Aki Kaurismaki movie he'd be in the running for My Favorite Human. This feels like a man whose career should be written about.  

1990

The Viking vs. The Patriot  UWF 10/11/90 - FUN
The Viking vs. Kevin Benjamin  UWF 10/11/90 - SKIPPABLE

Tony Halme vs. The Soultaker NJPW 10/25/90 - EPIC
The Viking vs. Stephan de Leon  UWF 11/8/90 - SKIPPABLE
The Viking vs. Al Lion  UWF 12/6/90 - FUN
The Viking vs. Rob Allen  UWF 12/24/90 - FUN
Tony Halme vs. Shinya Hashimoto NJPW 12/26/90 - GREAT

1991

Tony Halme vs. Shinya Hashimoto  NJPW 2/5/91 - EPIC
Tony Halme vs. Shinya Hashimoto NJPW 9/23/91 - VERY GOOD

Tony Halme vs. Big Van Vader NJPW 10/13/91 - EPIC
Tony Halme vs. Masashi Aoyagi  NJPW 10/17/91 - EPIC
Tony Halme vs. Big Van Vader NJPW 10/18/91 - FUN
Tony Halme vs. Crusher Bam Bam Bigelow  NJPW 12/16/91 - FUN

1992

Tony Halme vs. Scott Norton  NJPW/WCW Starrcade 1/4/92 - GREAT
Tony Halme vs. Kim Duk NJPW 2/4/92 - FUN

Tony Halme vs. Scott Norton NJPW 2/8/92 - GREAT
Tony Halme/Bad News Allen/Scott Norton vs. Shinya Hashimoto/Riki Choshu/Keiji Muto NJPW 4/16/92 - GREAT
Tony Halme vs. Big Van Vader NJPW 5/17/92 - GREAT
Tony Halme vs. Masahiro Chono NJPW 8/6/92 - VERY GOOD

1993

Tony Halme vs. Ron Simmons WCW/NJPW 1/4/93 - VERY GOOD

Tony Halme/Brad Armstrong vs. Hiroshi Hase/Keiji Mutoh NJPW 2/13/93 - VERY GOOD

Tony Halme/Bobby Eaton vs. Road Warrior Hawk/Kensuke Sasaki NJPW 6/14/93 - VERY GOOD

Ludvig Borga vs. Tony DiMauro WWF Superstars 7/24/93 - VERY GOOD

Ludvig Borga vs. Jason Headings WWF Wrestling Challenge 7/25/93 - FUN

Ludvig Borga vs. Mike Khoury WWF Superstars 8/14/93 - FUN

Ludvig Borga vs. Bert Centeno WWF Wrestling Challenge 8/22/93 - FUN

Ludvig Borga vs. Virgil WWF Superstars 8/28/93 - GREAT

Ludvig Borga vs. Marty Jannetty WWF Summerslam 8/30/93 - FUN

Ludvig Borga vs. PJ Walker WWF Superstars 9/18/93 - VERY GOOD

Ludvig Borga vs. Rich Myers WWF Wrestling Challenge 9/19/93 - FUN

Ludvig Borga vs. Rod Bell WWF Wrestling Challenge 9/26/93 - VERY GOOD

Ludvig Borga vs. Phil Apollo WWF Raw 9/27/93 - FUN

Ludvig Borga vs. Sonny Rogers WWF Superstars 10/2/93 - VERY GOOD

Ludvig Borga vs. Gary Jackson WWF Wrestling Challenge 10/10/93 - FUN

Ludvig Borga vs. Tony Roy WWF Superstars 10/16/93 - FUN

Ludvig Borga vs. Scott King WWF Wrestling Challenge 10/24/93 - FUN

Ludvig Borga vs. Mike Bucci WWF Raw 10/25/93 - GREAT

Ludvig Borga vs. Tatanka WWF Superstars 10/30/93 - EPIC

1995

Ludvig Borga vs. Rambo CWA 12/16/95 - FUN

1997

Tony Halme vs. Boogie Commando FWF 7/27/97 - GREAT

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Aoyagi Drank Enough Whiskey to Float a Battleship Around

Masashi Aoyagi vs. Tony Halme NJPW 10/17/91 - EPIC

PAS: This is another undiscovered Tony Halme masterpiece. I had no idea early 90s Tony Halme was such an awesome killing machine. This was a Karate vs. Boxing mixed match, and Aoyagi is great at these kind of hyrbid fights. First round had both guys working their opponents into corners, with Halme using his pulverizing body shots, and Aoyagi winging head and body kicks.  Aoyagi takes over during the second round, really working over Halme's mid section with knees and kicks, Halme is great at selling fatigue and being winded as he is stumbling around the ring, however he is still able to drop Aoyagi with one body shot. Second round ends with a really cool back and forth exchange. Third round is what pushes this into EPIC territory. Aoyagi gets a quick knockdown with a spin kick, Halme barely beats the 10 count and Aoyagi flies at him to finish him off and leaps right into a huge right hand. Aoyagi beats the count, but a second monster right hand floors him for good.  Great stuff, Halme doesn't have a lot of different songs to sing, but he sings the fuck out of this one song.

ER: There's no way my run through WWF Ludvig Borga matches is going to be anywhere near as fun as these two Tony Halme boxing gems, but I don't care, Tony Halme was awesome. The thing that really put this match over for me was how bonkers the crowd kept getting, the longer it went. These fans were loving it, flipping out for Aoyagi, but at one point chanting for Halme! Halme is hulking in this, really dwarfing Aoyagi, and he throws these huge haymakers all match. Aoyagi is squirmier than Hashimoto so a lot of the shots graze, and Aoyagi's strategy becomes to just throw everything at Halme all at once and hope kicks start to land. Halme's best strategy is to bully Aoyagi into a corner and start throwing blows to Aoyagi's slumping body, and I love how he kept going back to that tactic, and as Aoyagi started landing more and more kicks Halme got more desperate to get him in that corner, finally picking him up and tossing him into the corner (the only non-strike in the match). Aoyagi threw all kinds of wicked kicks right to the gut and liver and spleen. Halme does some of my absolute all time favorite selling, contiually getting buckled at the waist by kicks, stumbling perfectly into position for the next kicks while selling being out of gas, really great stuff. Aoyagi even gets the crowd amped by aping Inoki vs. Ali with a legsweep! At one point Halme gut punches Aoyagi to the mat, and holds himself up by resting glove first on Aoyagi's back. Tremendous moment. Aoyagi gets a big moment at the end of the R2 by hitting a leaping spin kick to floor Halme. Halme has this great staggered dazed walk back to the end of his corner. But just like Hashimoto, Aoyagi smelled blood and aggressively went right back to that well, only to get knocked right out of the sky by a Halme right hand. Not long after that Halme belts him straight across the cheek, perfectly captured by our mystery filmmaker. You can even hear the wind flow out of the filmmaker's sails after that punch, his voice clearly knowing Aoyagi wasn't getting up. Awesome spectacle.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE AOYAGI

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Let Your Hair Down Shinya Hashimoto, Shake it Free and Do The Dixieland Rock With Me

Shinya Hashimoto vs. Tony Halme NJPW 2/5/91 - EPIC

ER: Man I loved this. Handheld 1991 Tony Halme was 100% Brock Lesnar. You could fool almost anybody by telling them that. Same size, same shape, same big meaty fists in MMA gloves, same flat top crew. And this is such a wonderful 1991 post-Rocky III proto-Street Fighter II vision of professional wrestler versus hulking boxer. Hashimoto gets lifted off his feet by thundering body blows, spins himself into the mat on haymakers, really every time Hashimoto gets knocked down by a Halme shot it looks awesome. Halme will double him over, then hook him with a big uppercut to the belly, and Hash comes up with a bunch of great ways to hit the mat. Halme throws these great exaggerated blows that explode right when they should, and Hash plays them up big to the back row. Hash fights back in cool ways, getting Halme on his back and pounding, throwing liver kicks, backing him into the ropes at one point with kicks (and the ropes looked looser than normal, giving it a real fight feel), Halme weary and leaning way back on the ropes. Hashimoto attacks with snapping low right leg kicks, and when Halme buckles for one Hash immediately greets him with a high left that floors him. I loved how Halme stood up panicking and threw a WAY too aggressive hook, Hash easily ducking him and throwing him with a tough belly to belly. Hash smells blood but gets way too cocky, throwing a big left kick that Halme absorbs, and just smashes Hash in the face with a short left. We get a final Hash desperation tactic after he gets up, as he runs at Halme and tries to smother his arms, but Halme easily breaks free and clubbers him into the TKO. Hashimoto was so great at feeding Halme, doing some of the absolute best knee buckling wobble selling, really letting Halme know with body language when he should be throwing bigger blows, really cementing himself as the best opponent for monsters.

PAS: Man alive was this awesome. There have been wrestlers that have done boxing gimmicks well, but they are always fast hand technicians, Jose Lothario, Rocky Johnson have all shown off hand speed and craft, Halme in this match was Ernie Shaves or Ike Ibeabuchi a brutal powerpuncher ready to waste Hashimoto with every shot. Those bodyshots he was landing on Hashimoto looked like the kind of thing that would liquify livers and calcify kidneys. I think a lot of that has got to be on Hash's selling, as I doubt Halme was throwing full force windup body shots. I loved all the counter work, with Hash throwing this great belly to belly suplex on the hook counter. The spot where Halme catches the body kick and lands a Joe Frazier hook is one of the favorite wrestling spots I have seen in forever. I also loved his KO shiver elbow. The Ogawa series gets a lot of press, but on first glance this might be as good. I can't wait to watch the rematch.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SHINYA HASHIMOTO

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