Found Footage Friday: BREMEN '83

November, 1983 Bremen 

MD: We're a few months behind on the Germany stuff now and this is a Bremen November 83 tape that doesn't have some of the foreigner appeal as the 80 and 81 stuff, but that makes it almost all the more important to dig in and see what we get.

Indio Guajaro vs. Steve Paersey

MD: Paersey is Stephan Petipas (a Maritimes star). Guajaro could be a great stooge when he wanted to be. The first round is all him getting one-upped. He'd get thrown and then when he threw Paersey, he'd do a cartwheel. He'd get a top wristlock only to have Paersey take him over with a headscissors. He'd try for a monkey flip but Paersey would land on his feet and do one to him. The crowd was happy for all of it. Second round had Guajaro trying cheapshots or pulling the hair only for Paersey to get the better of him, including a recoil shot off the ropes, some big uppercuts, and stepping on his hair. Third round had Paersey hit a headbutt and take over with some mean stuff. Paesery came back and hit a back body drop and won it on that. This was a crowd pleaser that didn't outlive its welcome.

Wolfgang Saturski vs. Klaus Wallas 

MD: I mostly know Wallas from some mid 80s tours, but we do have other Europe footage of him. He was the heel here. This was chippy early with Wallas having an advantage (maybe not entirely clean) until Saturski dropkicked him out and did a Rick Rude like taunt (pre-dating Rude, of course). He ended the round with an endless full nelson slamming his head into the corner again and again. He took over in the second with a cheapshot in the ropes and controlled with bulldog like chokes and then ultimately a nervehold, slipping the choke back on anytime that Saturski tried to fire back, using the ropes when needed. Saturski had a big comeback culminating with him doing a catapult back off the ropes onto his knees and things sort of just petered out with Wallas deciding he was done and Saturski being declared the winner. They had the crowd but this ended up being a lot of the same with a few good moments.

Steve Casey vs. Dave Morgan 

MD: We come in JIP here. This is face vs face and they play into a lot of comedy bits where they roll around on pins or both pin each other and a very fun one where they do mares, hang on, roll around, and roll up the ref who was able to leap over them once but not twice. Good imaginative technical stuff all around. Casey hit a headbutt to the gut. Morgan hit his recoil headbutt in response. Casey won it with the arm drag slam out of nowhere after a few rounds of the back and forth. This was a fun one even if it never boiled over.  

Steve Paersey vs. Tony St. Clair

MD: Another gentleman's contest. Clean breaks and holding the ropes open. Cute exchanges early with cartwheels and rolls and placing the opponent to the apron either by lifting them or throwing one's own body. They moved into grittier stuff from there, with St. Clair controlling on the arm. That didn't mean we wouldn't still get the occasional cartwheel as he got out of the way to take back over a hold though. Overall, a lot of hanging on through attempts to escape like body slams, though Paersey finally got free with one to work the leg. St. Clair had a way of doing these sort of nonchalant nothing escapes where he just jammed a slam or popped out of a hold and it almost always got a laugh. Speaking of those, at one point, Paersey went for a roll up and St. Clair went right into lady of the lake position and got rolled around. Anyway, the tape cuts out right before a finish. This was fun overall but a little long, maybe wearing out its welcome just a tad. 

Dave Morgan vs. Steve Paersey 

MD: More of the same. Paersey had a spot he did where he tried to legdrop the arm and missed. He did it in the last match too. Fans seemed to like it. Second round (presuming we came in during the first) picked up the pace a bit. Morgan's recoil headbutt really is a cool spot because it's heatseeking. He won't just do it the same way every time but he'll go halfway across or around the ring to find you, hitting from all sorts of angles. He also had this sort of sweeping kickstand type kick I've never seen anyone else do where he brings the foot up and then back. Paersey just dropkicked him in the face for his trouble. Then Morgan returned favor with this really cool bit where he did the drop down and loop in like he was going to go into a cross legged headscissors and do a handstand but he just whacked him in the shoulders with his feet. Paersey somehow won this one with an atomic drop after all of that. This had sort of a WoS feel of course, but it was all a little looser, more of a house show, which makes total sense.

Mal Kirk vs. Rene Lasartesse 

MD: When I saw the card, this was definitely the weirdest looking match. What weird body types, Kirk lumpy and Lasartesse a skeletal figure, tall and looming. Kirk is the babyface and this is, of course, clipped to incoherence. A shame. We get a Kirk comeback which leads to Lastartesse escaping. A lot of action between rounds as music was playing which gave things a violent Benny Hill feel. Lasartesse takes some liberties on the outside and Kirk comes back in with a chair and clocks the ref with it and that's basically that. If we had more of this I bet it would have been interesting.

Steve Paersey vs. Klaus Wallas 

MD: I almost wish we could get this to Pettipas' family. He's all over this footage. And he's good. He really is. This was a draw. Wallas worked heel. He had a lot of stuff. A back brain kick, a neckbreaker, lots of chokeholds/chinlocks, a low blow down the stretch while he was being pinned and the ref was looking at the count, which you never see, and plenty of shots in the ropes. Paersay took it all well, had a great bump in the corner where he took a headstand on the top of the turnbuckle pad, mean comeback shots, and a good ebb and flow of working out of things and getting the crowd behind him. For all the matches to go long, this was a good choice. They had armwork and legwork that didn't really go anywhere but it was more about immediate comeuppance for Wallas than anything else.

Mike Shaw/Col. Brody/Wolfgang Saturski vs. Barry(?) Douglas/Tony St. Clair/Dave Morgan

MD: I'm not convinced all these names are accurate. This was fairly clipped too but it was novel for being a six man and for having Mike Shaw, who was already 26 or so. He was spry, had a decent sense of what to give and what to, and could taunt and work the crowd. This was chaotic and crowd pleasing for the most part. There was a fun bit early where the babyfaces traded off neckbreaker style holds one after the other. Brody got the biggest laughs/pops when he missed charges, first into the corner and later at someone who was tied up in the ropes. The babyfaces were constantly ending up beat down in the heels corner but then their partners would come in to toss the heels over the top. It was that sort of match but it cuts off before we get a finish.

Jon Harris vs. Wolfgang Saturski 

MD: This stuff is so stylized. Big sweeping, swooping folk hero wrestling. Just so over the top and bombastic with the shots. Everything is a big clubbing shot. Harris had an underhand sort of punch I've never seen before. It almost felt like the stooges deal where you hit the top of the hand and it goes all the way around to whack someone. They looked painful at times but not in conventional ways, but you just rolled with the fantasy. The crowd sure did. Harris got a few licks in but mostly he got his comeuppance again and again to everyone's delight. He'd get stuck in the ropes and charged at, catapulted back onto the knee, etc. Toward the end, after a round break, Saturski actually did the Franz Van Buyten bit where he launches himself across the ring to leap into a tencount position and I'm not sure I've ever seen anyone else do that. Anyway, this is one of those matches I'm going to try to force Eric to write about because he can do it more justice than I can. You wouldn't want to spend all the time with a match like this but it's fun to visit now and again.

Col. Brody vs. Steve Paersey 

MD: Brody looked very good here. The chain wrestling as they fought over arm advantages was excellent. Eventually it got more stoogy and Brody got comeuppance, but everything before that was slick. And Brody was quite the stooge (at least in 83) too, going over the top three or four times and the crowd loving it each time. He'd take liberties with a hairpull or cheapshot but the rounds nature of this meant that he never had advantage for long, even if they did get chippy between rounds once or twice. Things built to a big airplane spin which Paersey got the worst of (despite doing it) and everything spilling to the outside for some brawling and a slam as the tape cuts off. Nothing groundbreaking here but a very high level of craft and skill.

Dimitar Dimitrov vs. Dave Morgan 

MD: Excellent technical babyface match. These two were really going at it on the mat. I'd say this stuff would have stood up well to some of what we got from UWF the next year. Gritty, full of struggle, lots of clever technique and escapes. At one point Dimitrov put on a cloverleaf so quickly and from such an askew angle that you blink and you'd miss it. The roll up exchanges they did were really good because they were so deep. It didn't feel collaborative like almost every other roll up exchange I've ever seen. But they were also playful with the way they'd shoot an arm out to get out of a pin.Morgan showed a very different skill set than some of the other matches on the tape, even the clean babyface ones.They traded some great suplexes too including Morgan taking him over with a German that was hugely uncooperative and Dimitriv doing maybe the earliest fisherman's suplex I've seen? Finish had the first real rope running of the match and Dimitrov caught Morgan doing a leapfrog taking out the knee mid-air. He couldn't beat the count and that was that. There have been a ton of great spots and exchanges on this tape but you go so deep into these to find a match like this that no one would probably find otherwise. I did some digging and Dimitrov was "Don Kolov" who might have even trained Santino Marella? Anyway, I think this was a find.

Rene Lasartesse vs. Wolfgang Saturski

MD: Lasartesse is amazing. He's one of the only wrestlers in history that can get real true heat just by... walking slowly around the ring. And he has this sort of dispassionate passion. Saturski started the match by rushing over and clapping his ears and he was shocked but then decided to just ignore it, as if it was beneath him and it is its own form of selling. Then he did a bit where he hammerlocked Saturski and punched him in the gut and then pretended his own gut was hurt. That happened twice and then finally Saturski nailed him in the gut and pretended his was hurt and the fans loved it. 

Lasartesse has fascinating offense too. He uses every part of his body, slaps, punches to the gut, knees, kicks, stomps, chokes, but it all seems credible but also outlandish, like getting hit by a skeleton. His slap makes a huge noise. It's hugely credible as he's slamming Saturski's head into the turnbuckle connector over and over. Everything builds to him lurking behind Saturski in the corner waiting for the ref to leg him get his hands on him, lurking and lurking, a looming specter of death. Then Saturski gets him with the most obvious mule kick in the world in the groin and starts choking him with something (maybe the tag rope?) and the place goes nuts for it. Then he takes Lasartesse outside and starts hammering him (really hammering him) with the ring bell and it's quite the sight overall. Saturski apologizes his way back into the match but Lasartesse is able to take the advantage and tombstone him for the 10 count KO and boos.

Brody/Wallas/Guajaro vs. Gaetano/St. Clair/Rocco?

MD: We get a decent amount of this. It wasn't listed on the tape. We get to see all of the babyfaces play face-in-peril including Rocco which is just weird. Brody and Guajaro are experts at swiping at people from the outside which is something I think should happen more in six-man matches. Gaetano is a very interesting wrestler too as he has a lot of stylized flourishes but they're all a half step slow and sweeping and nothing is as tight as you'd want. But they're crowd pleasers. They did the bit where St. Clair grabbed Brody's mustache and Gaetano went off the top to whack it. Then he followed it up by making a hand-talking-yap-yap-yap motion to the ref when he complained which got a big laugh.The footage cuts after Wallas gets a cheapshot on St. Clair and then clocks him. Anyway, babyface Rocco is just strange (big corner bump and some nice missile dropkicks from him and St. Clair here, but strange).

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Found Footage Friday: ALOHA MR. LAWLER~! RICKARD~! ST. CLAIR~! THOMPSON~! PESAK~! VON SCHACHT~!

Jack Pesek vs. Fritz/Friedrich von Schacht Chicago 6/27/52

MD: This goes about twenty before Von Schacht gets himself disqualified for not breaking a hold and continuing to pepper Pesak's elbow with knees. They alternated between solid slugfests and maybe less than dynamic (for the point of the match) holds in the back third but the first two thirds was full of rousing stuff. Von Schacht was an early adopter of the bald, evil German gimmick and he was full of a wild physical charisma. A lot of the early parts of the match was Pesak tossing him out and von Schacht had a great way of landing in the least comfortable looking ways caught up in the rope often head over heels or in a ungainly heap.

He was able to get revenge and discus throw Pesek out once, but primarily he took back over with inside shots, hairpulls, and a dogged sort of aggression. More often than not, Pesek was able to outdo him on the mat though. We do have a few more von Schacht matches and I should double back for those too as he was pretty entertaining here. Some of the slugging towards the end reminded me of when things boiled over in 50s French matches, though it all sort of ended anticlimactically instead. 

Tony St. Clair vs. Clay Thompson Joint Promotions 8/19/67

MD: Occasionally, a member of the community goes above and beyond. Here, fxnj purchased an old film reel off an auction site, had it sent, converted, and then posted it. What we have now is the very likely the oldest full British match online (according to John Lister at least) and a look at what a catchweight match from 1967 looked like, as well as a rare look at Clay Thompson.

Yes, St. Clair, very young and known here primarily as the younger brother of Roy, spent the entire match with his mouth gaping wide open, but all in all, this was good pro wrestling, very good wrestling as sport in the British style. St. Clair had the weight (class) advantage, and used that to press forward for much of the match but Thompson had a clear skill and experience advantage and was able to use that to escape every hold. As evidenced by the finish, there was always a sense that Thompson was just one move away from victory and St. Clair, while being the aggressor, was really just trying to hang on.

This never boiled over, never even came close, though it was grittier on the back half, but there were so many little tricks and escapes by Thompson, and even some holds like an inverted short arm scissors that felt unique or rare. He'd escape again and again and St. Clair would just barely hold on to a wristlock. St. Clair was agile, cartwheeling here and there at times. That made the finish, where he succumbed to a figure-four and came into the next round limping heavily, all the more striking. I could watch a hundred matches like this and they're probably in a vault somewhere in England, gated behind an expensive and elite process. But at least they may exist, right?

Jerry Lawler vs. Steve Rickard Polynesian Pro Wrestling 8/9/86

MD: I'd heard about this match but never watched it before (more Found than New), as best as I can tell. Rickard was well into his 50s at this point. He's the father of New Zealand pro wrestling and created the On the Mat show. We have some episodes of that in the early 80s and I just never got around to checking them out. I'm not sure anyone in our circles really have. Should probably do that some day.

This was pretty straightforward. Lawler had a blonde valet with him for the trip to Hawaii. They cut midway through to Pedicino and some weightlifters. Rickard's age was noted and they talked about his Commonwealth title on commentary. They kept it on the mat for the first half, with a lot of Lawler complaining and Rickard showing him up on holds. Simple, effective stuff. The back half was full of punches, with Rickard meeting Lawler halfway with some pretty good ones, especially uppercuts. Lawler eventually crotched him and got DQed. Probably more on the FUN side of things, given the pace and the attraction feel but I'm not going to say no to a 80s Lawler match against a unique opponent that's new to me.

ER: It's been 40 years and we're still uncovering more evidence of Jerry Lawler being the greatest wrestler in history at working around any opponent's limitations. Jerry Lawler gets great matches out of green giants, TV comics, high school defensive coordinators, fundraising pediatrcicians, diabetic African savages, and various regional elderly men. Lawler is the best possible choice of wrestler to work Aloha Stadium against the biggest star of the Polynesia and presumably Micronesia territory, now in his mid-50s, and get the best match out of him. I enjoyed old Steve Rickard, thought he knew exactly where to place his two best punches and had an armbar takedown that looked like he was trying to post Lawler's arm, but this was just another Lawler masterclass in knowing the exact right match to work for an audience he had barely worked before. 

The video quality is such that it is easier to hear everything Lawler is saying than it is to hear almost anything commentary is saying. Sometimes I have no idea how Matt is able to pick up on certain things commentary is discussing - especially in old lucha - but it also makes me wonder how much the last 25 years of WWE television has made me consciously tune out most commentary. Anyway, this is the kind of super vocal Lawler performance that he usually reserved for much smaller crowds, not a stadium show. I don't know if I've heard Lawler be this vocal during a match, working a Best Possible Barry Darsow match against a territory star who couldn't hack it on the mainland. 

What takes it to the next level is the three minute run to the abrupt DQ finish, after Lawler has made it look like he was going to work a full match of satisfying stooging and loud hair pull complaints and subtle being the back cheating, before pulling out a run of four different ways of landing increasingly damaging punches. Lawler is out here looking like Smug Asshole #1 in his ugly fucking ketchup and mustard tights, the arguable worse color combo of his entire career, worse than any of the 1992 splatter paint tights which actually are great. He's a goof with a dumb goatee and ugly tights who suddenly lands the best punches on the 27 match show, before getting clocked with a Rickard punch that may as well have been him punching Lawler in the side of the head as hard as he could. 

I am consistently blown away by Lawler's innate timing and the way he sells offense as if he knows exactly how his opponent is going to throw it. His bumps and the way he sells every single strike always looks like he knows exactly how devastating or light the move looks. I have no idea how he is able to remove himself for the situation and understand that a shoulderblock landed soft enough that he shouldn't do a flip over bump but instead bump to his tailbone. You can't plan ahead for a Jim Powers punch to land, so how the hell is he able to anticipate how each individual punch is going to look? It's an incredible strength that I think only Stan Hansen, Finlay, Tenryu, and Yuki Ishikawa possess on the same level. 

I can't see Lawler ever dropping outside of my three favorite wrestlers ever, because we are still getting matches from my entire lifetime ago that add to his legacy. Nobody has gotten wrestling in the specific way that Jerry Lawler got wrestling. 

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Found Footage Friday: CANNON~! BROOKSIDE~! BALL~! IAN~! GRIZZLY~! ST. CLAIR~!

Cannonball Grizzly vs. Tony St. Clair IWW 2/15/98

MD: Look, Segunda Caida isn't out to be revisionist. We don't wake up in the morning with the idea we have to reclaim John Nord just to be difficult to everyone. We watch matches, we see patterns, we comment on them, conventional wisdom be damned. That said, sometimes, if we see something that we think defies the general narrative, we chase it. This is me chasing Paul Neu to Germany based on a few things we've seen. As a 25 year old, he was notoriously bad, gifted a gimmick that the fans really wanted to get behind with a push to match, but without the skills (either on the mic or in the ring) to make it work. This is him seven or eight years later and this absolutely worked.

These two were fairly frequent opponents over the years, going all the way back to 89 (and I'm not watching 89 Neu; I have limits). St. Clair was 50 here but he was still grizzled and hard hitting. This went about ten minutes before Brookside interfered and things broke down, but it was a solid ten minutes, especially the brawling on the outside. Well they stayed outside too as the ropes weren't tight enough and Grizzly had a problem whenever he tried to go into them or especially up onto them. You'd expect St. Clair to have pretty good forearms and uppercuts, but Grizzly's stuff looked credible too, from just throwing his body at St. Clair to tossing headbutts or shots to the gut. Looking at these three matches as a set, you can't say he wasn't comfortable with these brawls, even if he, at one time, had been the least comfortable wrestler imaginable. This likely set up a Schumman/St. Clair vs Grizzly/Brookside tag and that was probably pretty good too.

ER: It's pretty perfect that Germany's 90s Big Daddy was named Neu. It's a shame he never got another real chance in the states and really did get better with - get this - experience. If PN News was Neu! '86, then 1998 Cannonball Grizzly was Neu!, and then obviously PN Neuz was Neu! '75. Also, David Flair was the least comfortable wrestler ever. PN News always had more body charisma than first year and beyond David Flair. But even Flair seemed to be figuring things out after seven or eight years of doing it. 

Cannonball Grizzly vs. Ian Rotten (Barbed Wire Baseball Bat Match) IWW 5/9/98

MD: This was pretty much what you'd expect, and I mean that in a good way. Ian came out and insulted the crowd, taking his good time to get there. He stalled. He ultimately put over Grizzly, needing to go to underhanded or desperate shots for each advantage that he got, starting with the kick on the handshake, going low a few times, using the bat first, sneaking in a chairshot with one of the chairs I love in this promotion because they fall apart in the best, most dangerous ways. 

And Cannonball sold for a bit and started firing back again and again. He was a pretty solid standing tall babyface in the midst of a hardcore match here, grabbing anything not hammered down. There was one point where he jabbed part of one of those broken chairs into Ian's head and the announcer shouted out "That's the hardcore! That's core! That's core!" as only a German announcer in 1998 could. Shortly before that, during one of his comebacks, he launched himself through the ropes with a giant sized tope just because he could and because he knew he had someone big enough to more or less (more less than more but no one died) base for him. The finish was pretty gnarly as he got out of the way of a charge with the bat causing Ian to smash it into his own chest, and then, with some effort, he pancaked him onto it. Post match they made up and Ian was as carny as could be and everyone left happy. I'd say this was another good showing for Grizzly though. Though both of them were no holds barred, Ian could assert himself more and Grizzly had to work from underneath and then get revenge both for himself and for the crowd and he did a pretty rousing job of it through the blood and the carnage and the violence for the sake of violence.

ER: Did everyone else know that Ian Rotten worked Germany? Everyone else knew that Ian Rotten worked Ox Harley a couple times in one week, smack in the middle of Kentucky, and in between those matches he was main eventing a German indy? The video tape time stamp does not lie. Ian Rotten swings his barbed wire bat like Leatherface's chainsaw in some Hannover college gymnasium, and obviously he is wearing his Ribera Steakhouse satin jacket. He does a long respectful promo that builds to him talking about how ugly everyone in the town was. Ian Rotten has the shittiest body in the building and does biceps poses and Hogan ear cupping like a Will Sasso character. He stalls on the floor and waddles around in this really funny little duck walk whenever he gets on the mic to plead for them to go easy on him. 

It's all really satisfying, because Grizzly isn't a dumb babyface. He finally starts doing something to stop Ian's bullshit and you get a cool big fat babyface kicking and punching and headbutting Ian around ringside. Grizzly bleeds good blood when Ian hits him with the barbed wire bat and rubs it across his forehead, and his suicide dive is a really incredible bump for him. He ploughs through Ian and bounces hard on the floor. Ian platers him with a disgusting chairshot to the face and Grizz does a perfect little cartoon dance into a face flop, then gets up and whips Ian through a bunch of wood slat 1982 Boston Garden ass chairs, using the splintered fragments to Pogo Ian's head. Ian transition back to control by squeezing Grizzly's ball sac like a sponge, some of the most realistic looking rugby violent scrotal offense I've seen. I have no doubt in my mind that Ian has done that to someone in a shitty bar. After getting his balls twisted, Grizzly makes sure to just fall on Ian a few times. Honestly it's really great. This was a fast paced rugged fight with two sloppy bodies and sloppy bar blood over the eyes. Why was nobody brave enough to rate Cannonball Grizzly in 1998? 

Cannonball Grizzly vs. Robbie Brookside (Street Fight) IWW 1/17/99

MD: Between the commentary (youtube translate as usual) and his post match speech, plus, of course, the non-finish, I get the idea he might have been a last second replacement for someone. It makes sense, because they seemed to be learning the opportunities of the venue as they were going. Maybe my favorite thing in the whole match is Grizzly getting Brookside on the outside after reversing a series of neck-based submissions/chokes and lifting him up and slamming him back first into the ridge of a barstool. It's one of those things that no one plans in advance. You couldn't look at the stool and think "Hey, if I do a lifting bearhug and charge in, it'll look brutal." At least, I don't think you can. It's a moment of being so in the moment that you just heft a guy up and try to figure out how to make it seem like you're doing harm to him, the antithesis of any big tv streetfight now with a ton of set pieces and spots. Doing harm in the situation of the moment is kind of a lost art when it once was the entirety of pro wrestling.

Anyway, Grizzly looked good here overall. He used his size well in all the ways you'd want him to, as a weapon, as a cutoff tool, as an out of control opening creator for Brookside. He wasn't afraid to bump, but most of his bumps were not off of things Brookside did (and when they were, it was on the second or third dropkick not the first), but instead him careening out of control on a missed corner splash or elbow drop on the floor or somersault cannonball senton off the second rope. He slammed Brookside back into the corner to break a hold or absolutely flattened him with a rising pounce or Vader Attack when it was time to cut him off. Even his punches looked pretty good, and certainly him smashing Brookside into pieces of furniture on the outside. Brookside was a game opponent, charging in right from the get go, switching from one hold to the next desperately later, sweeping Grizzly's feet out on a billiards table to create a spectacular bump, running when it was time to run, but it was Grizzly who stood out here, just a guy very confident in his own size and power, the absolutely opposite of all of our memories of him. 

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New Footage Friday: PSICOSIS!! FINLAY! HERO! CLAUDIO! ST. CLAIR!

Fit Finlay vs. Tony St. Clair CWA 11/22/94

PAS: Midcard Piratenkampf match which would have been better as a main event, still its 1996 Finlay. It is really fun to watch Finlay break out his signature spots and adding a chain to them. He lays St. Claire chest over the ring apron to slam it, but adds a chain wrapped around St. Claire's neck. He throws his amazing forearms and adds a chain to the thud. This also has a bunch of fun leverage spots with the chain, with both guys taking nice yanked bumps off the top rope. The finish is kind of a dud with a run in and interference finish which feels like a cop out. Just have someone grab the bag.

MD: We've seen our share of these matches by now and the very best of them are the ones that get mean and bloody with a big beatdown and a big comeback. In this regard, it's not that different from a bullrope match. Sometimes, you're going to get matches where the guys actually try to win instead of kill each other, and this one was more like the latter than the former. That said, if you're going to have the latter, this was a pretty good way to do it. Finlay and especially St. Clair kept going for the pole and the flag. That created an opening and the opening led to comeuppance. Finlay was the meaner of the two, choking and laying in nasty shots with chairs and on tables, but he ate some pretty brutal receipts on the floor late in the match. The one good thing about them going for the win repeatedly was that the finish was fairly exciting because of the frequent attempts.

ER: I thought this was great, acknowledging that it could have been a violent bloody war, but loving that instead we got a kind of exercise in Finlay minimalism. It felt like Finlay was trying to craft the most interesting match possible while spending most of the match acting like 75% of the ring didn't even exist. Finlay seems to create those kind of interesting problems or challenges in his matches, and for a match based 80% around climbing up one corner of the ring I don't know how much more interesting he could have made this. I like fluffy Garry Shandling hair babyface Tony St. Clair, and loved the big tumbles he would take as Finlay would yank him away from grabbing a...pouch? Grabbing a pouch of something that I assume is worth winning? Finlay is awesome at working tug of war moments, the kind where he plants his feet and really makes it look like he's pulling with all his might to desperately prevent St. Clair's climbing. It's weird seeing a chain match where the chain is around the wrist instead of attached to a dog collar, but I like how Finlay still wraps it around St. Clair's throat, and bumps to the floor with a chain attached to your wrist are still impressive as hell. All of the floor brawling looked really great, especially Finlay battering St. Clair with a molded plastic chair. Finlay even does an early version of hitting the ringpost when your opponent moves, hitting the post with the chain. St. Clair's fired up shots looked great, and really it was all betrayed by a needlessly stupid ending. You can't have a clean-ish finish in a "grab the bag off a pole" match? Just let one of the guys take the coin purse after the other gets yanked off the ropes. Silly finish, but the rest was great.


Ultimo Dragon vs. Psicosis AAA 6/2/96

PAS: This is a matchup we saw a bunch of on WCW syndie shows and twice on PPV, so it was cool to see them in a singles match in Mexico. I don't really think this worked though. There were individual cool moments: I loved Psicosis's baseball slide bump, and there was some very fast rollups and exchanges. However, I think the heavy ref stuff and random interference didn't work at all, and really kept the match from having much momentum. Their Bash match is still a way better example of what they can do against each other.

MD: This was a glorious little piece of lucha indy bullshit. Psicosis, to me, was hugely underrated at the time. Hugely. He was so good at stooging, at working to the crowd, at being an absolute jerk while on offense. He might be the best base there ever was (up there with Fuerza, who does so much of the same stuff well, just from a slightly different angle), because everything he does adds to the match and about two-thirds of it is wholly selfless in setting up stuff for his opponent. It's more than just catching someone. It's acting as contrast, acting so that your opponent can hit all of his stuff as a reaction and this match is full of that. My favorite bit in this was probably a sequence with Dragon on the inside and Psicosis on the outside, where he basically bumped himself three times to set up Dragon's plancha. In this match, he was also getting the ref over as big as anyone, which tells you the other half of what you need to know about this one. Still, super fun.

ER: I liked this a lot more than Phil too, as it played like an awesome Psicosis broomstick match. I don't think Ultimo brought anything to this, as every single Psicosis bump I could have easily pictured him doing in a ring with nobody else in it. The ref stuff was entirely stupid, as at this point we've all seen the exact same rudo ref shtick for as long as we've been watching lucha (I have seen this same shtick live in 2019, there aren't going to be new jokes or scenarios added and it's not going to get more entertaining), but that was just another burdensome load for Psic to carry here, only adding to his legend. This whole thing was filled with Psicosis missing Ultimo by *this* much, splatting face first into turnbuckles, the ring apron, the ringpost, everywhere. This had every wild Psicosis you've seen plus a couple more, with him taking one of the highest hang time Jerry bumps I've ever seen early in the primera, throws himself onto his head at least three times, just crazy how on this guy was every single show. He mixes that in with playing off comedy with the ref, while Ultimo basically stands in place half the time and lets Psicosis work around him. Seriously, so much of this match is Dragon basically getting moved around like a child while Psicosis tumbles and splats around him. Legendary Psicosis performance, while everybody involved was working against that happening.


Chris Hero vs. Claudio Castagnoli Toryumon Mexico 3/4/06

PAS: You could tell that Hero and Claudio were super amped to be wrestling in Arena Naucalpan. This was basically Hero showing off all of the fancy armdrags and headscissors which Skayde taught him, and Claudio showing off what a world class base he was. I especially liked Hero's front flip rana to the floor, and tope rope cartwheel armdrag. Hero wasn't as heavyweight as he would get, but it is still crazy to see a guy that big rip off Mascarita Sagrada spots. Really joyful match to watch, thrilled wrestlers, amped up crowd, awesome stuff.

MD: Very interesting match. It made me wish, more than anything else, that these two had a chance to work a few months together in Mexico in this style, because the end result of that would have been amazing. Even here, with a bit more of a draft version, there was a lot to like. I could be wrong, but you have to figure the crowd wasn't super familiar with either of them. Claudio was constantly working to the crowd, making sure to engage them in between almost every move and ensuring a connection. Hero especially was working big, throwing out the most complex armdrag variations they could manage, shooting for the high "difficulty" score from the judges. Put those together and Hero's flip dive into a frankensteiner on the floor drew an honest and earnest chant from the crowd. One other thing I really liked was how, during his come back, he used the springboard armdrag not just for the sake of doing a big spot, but to create distance so he could hit the boot, which was really the move that got him all the way back into it. A lot of the lucha we see is with guys who run the same spots again and again in front of crowds week in and week out, and they didn't have that luxury here. With that in mind, this was a hell of an effort.

ER: I knew there was one short Hero in Mexico stint out there but I'd never seen any of it until now, and I love it. I love that to the Coliseo fans they just looked like two young Skayde students going through and working a Skayde match, and who could want anything more? Hero is so good at that style and can throw out mirror perfect versions of classic Skayde sequences all while peppering in his own charms. I'm not sure what the crowd was expecting when they saw a couple of tall white boys get in the ring, but you can tell by the third gorgeous pendulum armdrag they were fully onboard. The early applause honestly felt like "okay they get what we're into seeing". Claudio is one of the greatest flyer bases of our time, the guy with freak strength who came up with a ton of tiny flippers, and Hero is one of the greatest style chameleons of all time. The whole match really played like a fun greatest hits showcase of what they could do for fun. These two probably at least a couple dozen singles matches and I've seen many of them, and this is easily the shortest and most worked like a cool showoff exhibition. And a cool exhibition between two guys with cool bags of tricks is precisely what I wanted. This was all joy, all the hits, in front of a crowd that wanted to see that. Hero's armdrags were perfect, but him breaking out the handspring dragon rana is just a whole different level. Claudio was there to base and that alone was impressive, but there was joy to be had in both small things he did (his excellent cravate snapmare) and big things (his running diving uppercut to Hero's back), all while holding firm for every flip Hero tossed his way. Love these two, glad I finally got to see them in Coliseo, although I wish we had any footage against any era luchadors.

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New Footage Friday: FINLAY!! MUTOH! 2 COLD!! RAMBO! BORGA!!

CWA Euro Catch Festival 12/16/95

2 Cold Scorpio vs. Danny Collins

PAS: This was a pretty basic mid 90s juniors match. There were a couple of nifty flourishes by both guys,  Collins had a nifty jumping rana and I always love Scorpio's standing flip leg drop. Still I thought most of this was relatively dull, I think I would still like high end 90s juniors matches, but the average ones are really not my speed. Always happy to get more Scorp footage, but this was mostly skippable.

MD: I'm a little bit higher on this than Phil, but just a bit. Collins got good effort marks at least, and had a lot of stuff, even if his ambition was sometimes bigger than his prowess. Scorpio was a natural in front of this crowd, coming out to his Slam Jam theme, dancing to Can't Touch This between rounds, etc. He was great at mixing his fighting from underneath with his selling, garnering both sympathy and admiration, but there's nothing new there. It's always nice to see it in a different setting. There were some stuff that felt off, both in Collins' execution, but also an arm drag or two that felt like they came way too late in the match. It was fine.


Ice Train vs. Big Titan

PAS: This was pretty fun, I am surprised that Ice Train never really went anywhere. He is big, agile and hit hard. I feel like he just got caught up in the churn of WCW, with too many guys under contract. Feels like the WWF might have been able to do something with him. I would have liked to see this run back a couple of years later with Big Titan as fake Diesel.  I especially liked Train's big second rope shoulder block, and Titan had a nice stiff clothesline.

MD: On a show with a number of big guys, Titan worked kind of small here, getting off his feet a lot on offense. I've heard him complain he was frustrated having to work like Diesel in the WWF because it neutered a lot of what he liked to do. I don't think it'd always have worked, but it did make for a nice contrast with Ice Train here. Train was still very green but charismatic with a couple of big memorable spots and a good act. I think he would have really done well ten years later, towards the end of the territories where he could go into a place for a few weeks as a special attraction tag team partner and move on before the act got stale.

ER: This was fine, but served more as proof that WCW really figured out how to present Ice Train. Ice Train matches in WCW were always 4-6 minute power sprints, so you got a big powerslam, big chops, big shoulderblocks, and then got the hell out of there. Here you see what happens with 10 minutes, and it's mostly Big Titan holding cravates and chinlocks. But this was fine! Because we also got a couple of great big man vertical suplexes, a couple of Train's big flying shoulder tackles, a beast of a standing lariat from Train, big missed splash from Titan, and Titan *did* have a nice cravat. I love the cravat variation of just pressing both palms against one side of a guy's head, rather than one hand twisting the chin. Here Titan just mashed palms into the left side of Ice Train's head, really introducing Train's right ear to his shoulder. Ice Train is a real heavy lander, one of the heaviest, and it rules. Other guys are bigger, but Ice Train lands with such weight that it really makes simple things like a standing splash or legdrop look colossal. And I also just realized that while Big E has the best standing splash of modern wrestlers, Ice Train probably had the best of his era. Big E is really working a spiritual Ice Train successor gimmick and that somehow makes me like both of them more.

Kama vs. Viktor Kruger

PAS: I thought this was a fine CWA heavyweight match. I am surprised that I liked Kama more than Kruger in this match. Kruger seemed a bit off, and Kama had a nice taped up right hand, and wins with a great looking huge spinebuster. I think I am more into C- heavyweight matches, then C- juniors matches like Scorp vs. Collins.

MD: Pre-match Kama came off like more of a star than he ever had in his career with any of his characters. He rode in on the back of a motorcycle to Thunderstruck and looked jacked (gassed?) to the gills. He juts seemed larger than life. The first minute or so worked out too, with him bumping around a bit. I think the reality of his bulk caught up to him after that, however. Kruger was disappointing. For a guy who clapped so much on the way to the ring, he really didn't seem to have any idea how to engage the crowd when working out of holds, and this match needed that badly.

ER: This was a pretty dull match with a very fun first 1 and final 3 minutes. Putting the best stuff in the first and final minutes at least makes it feel like a better waste of time, and saving big moments for the end is a smart structure for guys without a ton of big moments in them. I always forget how big Kruger is, as Kama is a huge man and Kruger matched him for size, basically Mike Awesome without any actual highspots. Kama routinely has heavyweight "pulling" matches, which are a time filler kind of heavyweight match that revolves around each guy just kind of pulling the other guy into things. Every transition is some variation of "okay I'm in the corner, now I'm going to pull you into the corner and now I am out of the corner, throwing slow punches at you, and then you kinda pull me into the corner and do the same" and you end up with a couple of giants just hitting soft shots and tugging each other around the ring for 10 minutes. But I loved Kama bumping for Kruger's shoulderblocks to start, and the big stuff down the stretch plays great: Kama's big Vader bomb into knees, Kruger's fantastic full steam lariat that sends Kama over the top to the floor, and Kama's high rotation spinebuster finish.

August Smisl/Tony St. Clair vs. Cannonball Grizzly/John Hawk

MD: The more I see Grizzly in these matches, the more I like him. He's a superheavyweight heel with a couple of good power spots that engages the crowd and that can go chickenshit and work vulnerable. That's one of my sweet spots if it works as a contrast to other things going on and here it absolutely did. This hit a lot of marks. Grizzly and Hawk controlled the ring well enough with plenty of cheating. St. Clair was fiery on the outside to screw his partner by distracting the ref. For the only tag match on the show, it was lacking a hot tag in the stretch. The first face win was off of a lightning power move reversal. The second one was off of a lightning cross body. There was a hot tag in the middle but so distanced from either of the finishes that it made the whole thing feel anti-climactic. None of the wrestling was bad. It just needed to be organized differently.

Fit Finlay vs. Franz Schuhmann

MD: This was excellent. Finlay was top notch here and Schuhmann was more than game in keeping up with him. Finlay was do-no-wrong beloved here which gave this a face-vs-face star-vs-star feel despite Fit absolutely acting like Fit, wrestling a merciless style and increasingly taking what advantages he could. He had a sort of shrugging charm that won the day. This went seven rounds with round three standing out especially as Finlay just moved from one piece of brutal business to the next, each one with purpose, always keeping the crowd engaged and active. It started with a powerbomb and ended with the reversal of one, telling a mini story within a few minutes. Schuhmann was able to get his revenge in the fourth (though it wasn't quite linear), with Finlay mounting an ambush at the start of the fifth and the two of them going back and forth until the end. The finish, with Fit stopping Schuhmann's momentum by catching him off the ropes and hitting the tombstone he was only able to attempt (and was reversed on) back in the fourth, was made all the better by Finlay waving his arms in elation right before he hit it.

PAS: I loved this too, mid 90s Finlay is pretty close to wrestling perfection and Schuhmann is a great dance partner. Schuhmann has really great looking suplexes, really popping his hips and dumping Finlay on the back of his neck. Finlay was a big bumper at this point too, he just flies over the top rope, and takes all of Schuhmann's moves in painful ways, Schuhmann applies maybe the greatest drop toe hold I have ever seen with Finlay looking like he tore his MCL going down. Of course he is an all time great offensive wrestler too, and we get some of the great Finlay signature spots, knees right to the nose, hard unforgiving bodyslams and an absolutely brutal hard tombstone finish. Rounds match can always be a bit choppy, but the actual wrestling in this match was tremendous.

ER: I honestly don't think there is another wrestler better at execution, illusion of violence, or selling than Fit Finlay. I think Lawler is his best competition, but 90s Finlay especially looks like my exact vision of perfect pro wrestling. This is one of his greatest performances (think of the ground that covers), and it's even better because this also happens to be the greatest performance I've ever seen from Franz Schuhmann. Finlay has this special ability of elevating nearly every opponent to his game, not necesarily working a match around an opponent's strengths, but actually getting his opponents to work up to him. If they don't they'll get left behind by way of cruel beating; if they're game, he rewards them by making their offense look better than ever before. In this match alone Finlay rewards a great dropkick by flying impossibly fast over the top to the floor, takes a bridged German suplex so perfectly that it should be motion captured, and takes a drop toehold and manages to make it look like Jaws was biting through his leg. This match could have been a total flop, and this drop toehold would have made it infinitely memorable. Schuhmann grabbed such a perfect grapevine of that leg, and Finlay sold it in a few nasty stages: Screaming out in anguish as it's applied, buckling a knee while fighting to stay standing, going down hard and grabbing for his leg when he realized his struggle could have injured him further. What a moment. His offense was as great as expected, one of the few men who can make a nerve hold genuinely look like the best way possible to bring a man to his knees in pain, grabbing Schuhmann's trapezius and forcing him to the mat, yanking his head back by the maxilla, and dropping a 12 to 6 elbow right across Schuhmann's nose. It's a classic Finlay sequence, and yet he never makes it look like he's going through any kind of motions. The tombstone Finlay finishes this classic with is one of the greatest I've seen, Finlay joyously catching Schuhmann and dropping hard to his knees, Schuhmann held cruelly at a bent neck angle before being left to flop dead to the mat. This was magic.

Keiji Mutoh vs. Jim Neidhart

MD: I'm not even sure how I'd classify this, maybe as an "overperforming, lost, late Neidhart performance." I really liked his presence here, coming out to Alice Cooper, chumming around with Kauroff, having Mutoh pull his beard, clubbering him on a table on the outside. It got a little hold heavy in the middle (though I was happy to see the Anvilizer, his Summer 1993 WCW finishing Cobra Clutch). This was ultimately more of a Neidhart match than a Mutoh match, though he got some of his stuff in at the end, but I'm not sure it would have worked any other way. Honestly, I think we all would have been better off with Collins/Neidhart vs. Scorpio/Mutoh.

Rambo vs. Ludwig Borga 

MD: Midway through this match (at the point where Rambo outright missed a jumping back elbow), I had the conscious thought "Well, at least Eric is probably going to go out of his way to watch the Finlay match too." This wasn't good. Rambo was more giving than I've seen him in this footage, but it didn't really matter. This had the same sort of dynamic as Finlay vs. Schumann, just with more of a heavyweight "clash of the titans" feel, but couldn't at all follow it. Too much of the crowd was behind Borga and while he laid in the cheapshots and eased into the heel role in the match, he just didn't go far enough with it for what they were trying to do. He neither lost nor excited the portion of the crowd that had been cheering him, so Rambo could only get so much support. It built into a few good nearfalls towards the end but then just sort of ended in a way no one in the crowd would even remember the next day. It probably could have used more violence on the outside as well. It just needed more sharply drawn lines, really just more volume on everything that it tried to do.

ER: I was actually really into this, and perhaps all the HBK tribute acts of all shapes and sizes have just made me more excited for slower paced 90s house show heavyweight style. I thought Borga was great here, really played a brick wall bully who still bumped for bigger Rambo spots. If you looked at the overall match you could think that Borga dominated this one, but there were key moments at the ends of rounds that showed Rambo may have been a victim of bad timing. Borga was much slower getting up at the end of the 2nd and 3rd rounds, the first after attempting to throw Rambo with a suplex while trapped in a headlock, and the second after eating a nice vertical suplex back into the ring. After two straight round breaks of Borga being slow to his feet, it's no surprise that he ends the next two rounds with cheap shots and warnings. You get the sense that Rambo could have beaten him had his timing and placement been a little more fortunate. But Borga's performance elevated this for me, as he works slow bruiser really well, making his strikes really resonate and allowing time for them to be sold. Big Borga hooks to the kidneys or breadbox look devastating, so I love that he doesn't make them useless with overuse, instead landing one big shot at a time, one big punch to the gut, one big downward strike elbow right to Rambo's chest, one big clubbing shot across the shoulder blades, really getting across the power of his strikes.

I liked the way Borga laid out big misses that sometimes later lead to big hits, like a big missed avalanche that gave Rambo an early opening, that we later got to see cashed in when Borga actually hits this big avalanche (getting enough height to also get tangled in the ropes, which made it look like the impact of the avalanche was really drove home); or, when he got brought back in the ring with that vertical suplex, and later walked Rambo over to the same location to give Rambo his own suplex, dropping him hard across the top rope with a front suplex. I even loved how Borga handled Rambo's awkward missed back elbow, as instead of selling it (which I imagine a missed leaping back elbow would almost always lead to both guys lying on the mat figuring out how to recover), Borga immediately drops down and grabs a nice grounded side headlock. Borga also showed tons of weakness on the floor, crashing into a table that gets shoved into the crowd, then eating an awesome ringpost shot (he and Lesnar really show that 100% of the guys who look like them, also take really great post shots), always going down for Rambo's biggest shots. The finish could have been better, as I kept expecting a Rambo final comeback, but instead they just had Rambo die a slow death. But even down the stretch I was into the attention to details from Borga, like his super low swinging missed clothesline, or the specific way he choked Rambo over the bottom rope, or how he just stepped right on Rambo's face as Rambo was trying to get back in the ring. That kind of stuff will always elevate a match for me, and Borga had plenty of that.

PAS: I am sort of in the middle on this match, don't dislike it at much as Matt, but think Eric is pretty severely overrating it. Borga is a guy who is always fun to watch and I will always be down for him bulldozing someone in the corner and unloading those beautiful hooks to the body. I am someone who always loved throwing body shots back in my boxing days, and Borga is really one of the only professional wrestlers ever to make a body shot look great. Rambo was real bad in this though, the best Borga matches have been him going to war with a fellow big hitters like Hashimoto or Vader, Rambo just had nothing on his stuff, and it was tough to watch Borga try to credibly sell for bad looking corner punches or lame bulldogs. He tried his best, but this was a one man show, and as much as I enjoy Borga he isn't pulling off both sides of a match.


COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FIT FINLAY

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE LUDVIG BORGA

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New Footage Friday: CWA THE FINAL WAR '95

CWA Final War 12/14/95

Joe-Joe Lee vs. Rod Price

PAS: This was a US rules match, which I assume means no rounds. Price is a Global guy who is probably best known for accidentally getting his hair weave ripped out by Chris Adams. I was kind of surprised he never went anywhere, he had a good 90s roid belly look and had pretty solid execution. Joe Joe Lee is Satoshi Kojima during his excursion. This was pretty good without ever moving into great. I really liked Lee's jumping elbows, and the finish was some fun BS with a chair.

MD: I concur that it's strange Price never ended up somewhere else. I have fond memories as a kid of watching him team with Tatum in Global and he's perfectly fine here a few years later. They had a more than solid opening exchange, just good action. As the match went on, I could have went for some transitions/cutoffs that weren't so grab-and-arm-and-kick, even if it did make the hotshot towards the end more memorable. It was the first iffy finish on a night of them.

ER: I thought this was great, and was my favorite thing on the show. I was not expecting that to be the case, even though I really like Rod Price and Kojima. Rod Price is like if Candido went through the Power Plant instead of Tennessee indies. Price bumps hard and strikes hard, takes a couple different big bumps to the floor (one through the ropes and one over), and comes off like a proto Luger. Lee isn't as charismatic as he'd become a little later, but his repertoire was solid; I really liked his mule kick (and the way Price sold it), and was impressed at the way he flew into a brick wall like Price. Their scrap on the floor was good, with Price really planting a hard chair into Lee's back, a nice cherry to all the genuinely great stand and trade we got in the match. these two went it and had a top to bottom cool match.


2 Cold Scorpio vs. Jim Neidhart

PAS: I thought this was great. It is a streetfight and all you need to have a great streetfight is two guys willing and able to throw heat, which we had here. Neidhart has great looking clubbing forearms, and was really laying them in, while Scorp would use more fast and sharp combinations, including going body to head. Most of Scorp's flying backfired, as he crashed and burned on a couple of bodypress attempts, he also takes a great bump where Scorp basically does a Flair Flop off the apron to the floor. Weird to have a DQ finish in a streetfight, but Neidhart trying to choke Scorp to death does warrant one.

ER: The layout to this was a strong way to handle a style clash like this, as Neidhart is a limited guy in singles matches whose limitations were turned into strengths here. All he had to do was lay in hard forearms and kneel on Scorpio's throat, and Scorpio was in charge of moving the action around the ring and ringside. Neidhart has big forearms, and he did almost nothing but smash Scorpio in the chest and face with them, coming off in a 0.7 Vader in the process. Scorpio eats those shots and throws quick strikes back, but routinely gets smothered and bullied by Neidhart. In fact the longer I think on it the more I wish we got at least two bigger Scorpio comebacks before the brutal choke DQ. Scorpio really got smothered for 80% of this, and he's someone who can believably go toe to toe with Anvil. The finish looked great, with the tree of woe choke bending back Scorpio's neck, but Scorpio needed a couple more of his violent impact moves.

MD: This almost felt like a Neidhart showcase by default. He was a tank in there and it was on Scorpio and his explosiveness to figure out how to deal with him. It meant that all of the cutoffs were Scorpio basically making a desperate mistake. Again, a weird finish though it was intense enough. Just out of place in what the match was supposed to be. Also, Neidhart should have always come out to Alice Cooper.


Tony St. Clair vs. Danny Collins 

PAS: This is a Piratekampf match which is a chain match/flag on a pole match, a European specific match time which pretty much always delivers. Collins was a real nasty fuck in this match, really laying in all of the shots, and grinding the chain into St. Clairs mouth. I always love the way leverage is used in these Piratekampf matches, lots of cool looking tug of war spots with a guy trying to drag someone else up a pole. I thought the finish was great with St Clair crotching Collins on the top turnbuckle and climbing up him to the flag. This was a midcard Piratekampf so it didn't have the same of sort of gritty war of attrition qualities that the other Piratekampf matches we have seen, but it is a great gimmick and two great wrestlers performing it.

ER: This was really good, and now that I've seen a few Piratekampf matches it really feels like those working the stip treat it very seriously. This was a rough hitting match, Collins especially working this like a darker haired Finlay with awesome punishing strikes, and both guys took nasty yanks and hard bumps while going after the flag. Collins meanness really carried this through, and St. Clair was a real strong babyface, and the crowd was super into him. Collins is a guy I need to seek out more, and I'm sure we will get to more of him with this new wave of German handhelds. The filming of this match was really great, and totally added to the action. The work was tight enough that I wasn't thinking most of the time how I was watching a handheld.

MD: St. Clair coming out to Simply the Best is some glorious wrestling BS. I liked their familiarity with the gimmick, little things early on like Collins trying to cut distance by stepping on the chain only to get yanked off his feet by a ready St. Clair or towards the end when St. Clair uses the chain to make Collins lose his balance on a corner whip to shift the momentum. These tend to be the best possible "on-a-pole" sort of matches because the chain keeps distance short and allows for some nasty shots and knockdowns. This didn't quite get to that level of bloody meanness but it was fun for what it was.

John Hawk vs. Viktor Kruger 

PAS: This was a Texas Bullrope match, and had some of the flaws of that match, lots of dragging to corners and less action. The action we got was pretty good though. Kruger throws a mean running elbow, and I really liked the finish with Kruger breaking up the turnbuckle tapping by tackling Hawk to the floor, but still losing when Hawk hit the turnbuckle from the floor. There was some weird matwork at the beginning and a double kneebar spot, which I guess was Kruger bringing BattlArts to the ranch. Weird to see Bradshaw with that ponytail, the JBL persona is so ingrained with me.

ER: I am a big fan of someone being a "Master of the _____", so Bradshaw coming out to Rednex while being billed as the Master of the Bullrope Match is going to be right up my alley, even if at the end of this I much rather would have seen a straight Hawk/Kruger match. But it's almost always going to be a more interesting match if the focus is on asskicking rather than "reaching for things". These are two I want to see in a slugfest, though I still liked little things they did, like trading stomach kicks while entwined in a knuckle lock, and I am admittedly a sucker for those turnbuckle reaching spots where one guy is doing everything to hold that rope taut while the guy reaching is using all his might to stretch for the buckle. It's a fun bit of actual strength that could go wrong if one of the guys slipped just a little. The finish was the most inspired section of the match, and ending on a high note really does have the power to shine up nearly anything: Bradshaw is going for the fourth and final turnbuckle, so Kruger spears him through the ropes to the floor, then accidentally lariats the ringpost, allowing Hawk to leap back up to the apron and hit the turnbuckle. Rednex play us out.

MD: I struggled a bit with the turnbuckle count here. Bradshaw was already able to channel his inner jerk well. Kruger seemed to be almost as big as him and they played it like a clash of the titans for the most part. Both this and the piratekampf match had the wrestlers almost constantly going for the win which was appreciated but it didn't necessarily make for the most compelling match here. As Eric said, the finish was inspired. It's tough to get a good bullrope match finish and I'm surprised Bradshaw didn't steal this for later on.

Big Titan/Cannonball Grizzly/Fit Finlay vs. August Smisl/Ice Train/Rambo

PAS: This was a cage match with the cage being around the ringside area rather then the ring. The cage basically served the same purpose as a ringrails, just something to get irish whipped into. Finlay was mostly just cheap shotting guys on the outside, he is about the best guy in history to watch throw cheapshots, but I would have liked to see him in ring more. Most of the match was WCW Pro style heavyweight wrestling, lots of Big Titan vs. Rambo. I did really like the Ice Train vs. Cannonball Grizzly stuff, Ice Train had really explosive offensive, that was a WCWSN feud that we just missed by a year or two.

ER: I liked this, but with the talent involved I was expecting more. We still got plenty of good moments, but there were also things we didn't get (like Finlay vs. Train, but instead we were getting tons of Titan vs. Rambo). Finlay's huge torpedo shoulderblocks in the corner were a major highlight for me, and the Train/Grizzly culmination was another big moment. And match that has a jacked up Ice Train hitting a wooly mammoth powerslam on Grizzly is going to have a high floor. Ice Train also had a big leaping clothesline off the middle buckle that was a heavyweight wrestling dream. The rest of this has good brawling and some upper class bumps into the ringside cage, so this was still a win even though I wanted more.

MD: They announce Ice Train as choo choo Ice Train, so that was appreciated. Smisl is a guy I've never seen before and his hat will stick with me more than his seemingly fine work. Rambo was both over and pretty well protected in the match. He got to toss everyone on the other side into the cage to open the match. He was never really the guy in peril and it was only the numbers game that let Finlay's side keep the advantage. That sort of thing. I'm sort of curious to see more Cannonball Grizzly here. For a guy the fans wanted to love, News was problematic at best in 91-92. He had a lot more presence here. Finlay was mainly on the outside throwing violence around when some poor fool got too close to him. He did get to hit a couple of awesome ballistic shoulder blocks in the corner though. The finish was very weird with Ice Train getting his stuff in and Rambo having to basically shout at him to get him to run across the ring to eat a cheapshot from the apron.

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Keeping Abreast of the Mantaur Situation

Bruiser Mastino vs. Tony St. Clair CWA 11/21/91

ER: This is one of Mastino's earliest matches in CWA, and easily ranks among his best ever matches. Also, it was right in front of me the entire time, but Mastino is related to PN News. I don't know how I didn't actually know this. I even come to the conclusion later in this post that he looks just like PN News. They look the same, they're shaped the same, they wear the same dorky full pants singlets, they both worked CWA, yet somehow it never crossed my mind that they were actually related. What a dummy. Mastino works a smart match here with lariats and slams, misses and nice fast elbowdrop, and St. Clair makes good use of his openings and makes sure to outgun Mastino when he has the chance. St. Clair throws some nice uppercuts and a really nasty lefty lariat, just absolutely drilling Mastino. 

Commentary says "That's why they say St. Clair is the European Hulk Hogan", which is something that nobody had ever said until that guy said it. But all of this is good, it peaks in the right spots and builds to a super satisfying finish: We brawl to the floor and Mastino hits a rough bodyslam on the concrete, slamming St. Clair as hard as you'd slam someone in a ring. When Mastino charges him - and we'd been seeing him run at St. Clair all match - St. Clair finally moves and Mastino hits a hard lariat right into the post. I dug Mastino's arm and shoulder selling from here until the finish, as he hits a slam back in the ring but yells out about his shoulder, then missed a heavy shoulderblock into a turnbuckle. St. Clair wastes no time and as Mastino is staggering out of the corner holding his shoulder, St. Clair locks in a nasty Fujiwara for the immediate tap. Incredibly satisfying match.

Mantaur vs. Bam Bam Bigelow WWF Superstars 6/24/95

ER: Yeah!! This is a super fun big boy battle, kind of shocking that Mantaur was almost the same size as Bigelow (I thought he was kind of short and squat, but he's not that much shorter than BBB). It's a bunch of two big burly guys running right into each other. Literally. They both run and just hit each other with body weight. And it's great. Bigelow throws some headbutts and it makes me realize how weird it is that a guy with centaur horns doesn't throw a headbutt. I'm sure it was brought up at some point, and maybe he just couldn't throw a good headbutt...except I've seen him throw nice headbutts when he was in CWA before this. And now I need answers as to why Mantaur was NOT ALLOWED to throw a headbutt to purposely torpedo his Mantaur run. This was quite fast paced (outside of the longish Mantaur wear down chinlock, which I thought flattened out nicely), Mastino hits a nice vertical suplex, and we had a cool finish with Bigelow getting tossed into the corner, going up and over it Flair style and running to the next turnbuckle, which allowed Mantaur a bunch of time to stagger before falling. Bigelow showed impressive speed, and I don't recall him doing that kind of Flair flip in the corner before (he did almost not make it, which would have seen Mantaur smash into his head at a terrible angle, but he narrowly avoided the 'taur).

Bruiser Mastino vs. El Puerto Ricano ECW Hardcore TV 1/9/96

ER: ECW fans were smart you see, so they chanted "Mantaur Sucks" at him. Mastino appears to be even larger than his Mantaur stint, and in trunks and beard looks almost exactly like future ECW legend PN News. And you knew what this was going to be: Puerto Ricano bouncing off Mastino in various ways while Joey Styles gushes over how big Mastino's calves are. PR had pretty lousy punches and his offense didn't really look like it deserved to be sold, so his gimmick worked. He takes a nice clothesline, Mastino really extends on a vertical suplex and snaps off an awesome belly to belly, and we built to a fun finishing stretch where PR hit a missile dropkick off three consecutive turnbuckles to try and fell the beast, only to get caught on the 4th and absolutely splatted into the mat with a powerslam. Mastino could have actually had a decent ECW run, but the fans were never going to allow that to happen.

The Truth Commission vs. Terry Richards/Al Brown/Gene Miller WWF Shotgun 6/23/97

ER: Oh man do you know who thought the Truth Commission were cool? Teenage me!! You know who had a marginal understanding of South African politics? Neither teenage me NOR the World Wrestling Federation! I remember being genuinely excited week to week for Kurrgan singles matches, had ZERO memory of Mantaur ever being in the Truth Commission (under a mask as Tank, and now I finally understand my friend who thought Golga had been in the Truth Commission, as that would be a fairly logical guess had you seen this match and didn't know John Tenta), Kurrgan had a rattail, the Commandant was actually a great heel manager, I loved all of it. And this was a fantastic squash. Fantastic because the squash offense looked good, but also because the squashees didn't look like total pushovers. The squashees (including a young Rhino, who mostly paired off with Tank) fought back and while they kept taking moves, they didn't, ahem, "just lie there". 

There are moments of them going toe to toe (that never end with them gaining ground) or lifting up Tank only to have him fall on them, so while it was a complete 100% one sided squash, the losing team always looked like they were at least putting up a fight. Tank hits a hard shoulderblock on Richards, tosses him into the ropes only to punch him in the guy (with a nice sell from Richards), and it's easy to picture Richards getting the Mantaur gimmick had he been around just a few years prior. 1995 WWF definitely would have had a guy with a Rhino gimmick dressed in a gray singlet with a derpy helmet of some kind. In retrospect, why the fuck did Rhino never have a gray singlet with a rhino helmet!? Recon (Bull Buchanan) was way more athletic than I - fan of the Truth Commission - remembered, getting height on a sidekick and snapping off a standing huracanrana that looked actually good, and leaping REALLY unnecessarily high off the top to do an axe handle. The Interrogator's rattail was apparently attached to his beret, which is disappointing, as that means he had no rattail and instead had a beret that was operating as one of those rasta hats with fake dreads. Do South African mercenaries award differently braided rattails for committing terrible acts? It seems like they might! Interrogator also hits a bitchin elbow drop, and this whole thing was great.

Tank vs.  Jerry Lawler USWA 3/15/97

ER: Yeahhhh baby you know you want to see a fat dude under a mask hide a fake weapon in his giant  enforced khackis in front of a loud Memphis studio audience! Every Truth Commission member is at ringside cheating every chance they get, and we get a nice minute long explanation of what a "slow starter" Lawler is (which is Phil's favorite specific piece of wrestling announcer BS). Tank is really perfect at hiding a weapon for a studio audience as he reaches DEEP into his pants to retrieve and replace the weapon. We get a lot of good hide and seek, all building to Tank hitting a nice shot to the liver than King takes hard. It's an easy formula to work, but I love it. Every time the ref is checking for the weapon, that's when we get the interference from the TC, including an awesome moment of Interrogator choking Lawler over the bottom rope. Lawler's comeback is good, the strap comes down and he starts peppering Tank with left jabs and a big right, hits his Lawler dropkick, and nails a great fistdrop off the middle rope. But somehow, this all leads to Tank winning the USWA title (yes, the title switched hands on a practically weekly basis, but I had no idea Tank was a one week champ) when Lawler gets blasted with the Commandant's riding crop. And if there are any jerks out there who think we're wasting everybody's time by providing TWO different Mantaur pieces within the same week, let me just quickly remind you that you never would have otherwise been lucky enough to read the words:

"...blasted with the Commandant's riding crop."


With that, thus concludes Segunda Caida's Mantaur content, forever...

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Finlay Remembers That Foul Evening Where He Heard the Banshees Howl

Fit Finlay vs. Tony St. Clair CWA 6/14/92 - GREAT

PAS: This was a nasty little cage match with Finlay in full WCW Finlay asskicking mode. He lays in some really sharp forearms and great straight punches to St. Clair's nose. He brutalizes St. Clair for the first part of the match, until he misses a punch and jams his arm through the cage, which is a fun Finlay style spot. It is kind of a strange cage, more like a Hell in the Cell without a roof surrounding the ringside. It allows them to brawl on the outside, and St. Clair does a good job of firing back, and has a nice cut leaking red into his perm. Finish was a bit odd for a cage match with Finlay removing the ring padding early but it backfiring and he takes a nasty Psicosis style ringpost bump and gets counted out, count out in a cage match is some BS, but I liked the rest of this a lot.

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE FINLAY

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1971 Match of the Year

Tony & Roy St. Clair v. Vic Faulkner & Bert Royal World of Sport 1/12/71

ER: I really dug this, the whole vibe of everything, the (almost entirely) elderly crowd in their Sunday best, the pastiness of the athletes, the 8' long tag ropes; World of Sport can be magic. Up front I will say that I wish things ramped up a little bit. You could argue that the first five minutes were worked like the last five were worked like the middle five. But it seems like more of the context of the times than anything. That aside, the ringwork was excellent. Royal was a real mean fucker, Faulkner was showy and super skilled and looked like Gary Crosby, and while the Saints were a little more dry their talent is clear and I loved the way they showed constant annoyed amusement towards Faulkner, how he was getting under their skin but they were begrudgingly maintaining professionalism. The pace of this was super impressive as we get all sorts of rolling leg picks and awesome monkey flips, weird pins and killer tricks. The counters and reversals were terrific, and when they would wrench something in it would really land, like when Royal was locked into a headscissors and tried controlled thrashing to get out of it, and when that didn't work he kept trying to sneak a foot up to kick Roy off of him. Or when Faulkner was forcing Tony to do the splits by holding down his right leg and pushing Tony's left leg with his boots...and Tony merely stood up. Faulkner was great at rope feints and awesomely cartwheeling out of danger. All guys worked together marvelously (although I really don't like the aesthetics of all of these face sitting pin attempts...) and craft a ridiculously fun match using hardly any strikes. But Royal is the guy I need to see more of. You can see that violence behind his blue eyes.

PAS: This was a blue eye v. blue eye battle of technique and really a masterful exhibition of holds and counter holds. The Royal brothers reminded me a bit of the Funks, with Bert as the balding master of mat work, and Vic Faulkner as more of a wild out of control ball of energy. Faulkner runs the ropes with total abandon, he just flings himself as hard as he can, and always looks like he is going to fly into the fourth row. I also really enjoyed Faulkner as a trickster, he seemed to be always running some sort of wrestling con, like he will buy you a beer, smile tell you a great story, and then you realize your watch is missing. The Saints didn't have as much personality as the Royals but they were both tremendous counter wrestlers, it took to the  fifth step for anyone in this match to gain an advantage, the first four were always countered. This match stayed friendly, although I really enjoyed the moments of chippiness. Roy St. Clair has a great looking back elbow, and at one point Royal was wrenching the wrist like he was going to pop Tony's hand off. I would have liked to see this break down a little more, but for this type of scientific contest it is pretty unparalleled.

ALL TIME MOTY MASTER LIST

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