Found Footage Friday: OKI IN KOREA~! DUK~! HEEL TITO~! TOR~! IDOL~! PATERA~! BRET~! HAKUSHI~!

Kintaro Oki/Kim Duk vs. Dick Blood (Tito Santana)/Tor Kamata Korea 1978

MD: What an amazing find. Oki and Duk as native heroes. Plus we had that one Andre match where Tito and Chavo are his little buddies from 79 but this is some of the only heel Tito footage ever. It goes 40 with all sorts of pomp before and after the match (check out the robe on Oki) and is a fully fleshed out 2/3 falls match.

Tito isn't fully developed yet, but he's a stooging (lots of early headscissors foolery), big bumping (he must go over the top rope hard five times), dropkicking (the big finishing bit is Oki avoiding one of his dropkicks), heatseeking heel, as fiery as we'd expect. There are a couple of fun strike exchanges or flurries, especially in the third fall when he's kicking at Duk's wound leading to a huge comeback moment.

Duk's actually the standout here. Oki's fun on the mat once or twice and when he unleashes the headbutt (first in the corner as Santana was taking liberties, then against Kamata, driving him back on the outside, and finally to take out Tito to build to the finish) the crowd erupts but this is really much more the Duk show. He's super charismatic here, calling Tor into the ring, gesturing to him when he has control of Tito. After Tito won the first fall with a sunset flip in, Tor spends a chunk of the second, keeping him on the floor by knocking him off the apron again and again to the crowd's delight. You don't usually see a babyface king of the mountain bit but it worked here. He even had a football charge from a three point stance.

In the third fall, Tor pulls the pad back and opens him up with it, working over the wound like you'd want him to. When Oki finally gets in after Duk's big comeback shot on Tito, Tor tries to get Oki's head with the post, but he no sells it and takes out Tor which sets up the finish while Duk and Tor are brawling on the outside. This match was full of a lot of the conventions of the time but the roles were reversed and it made for just an amazing bit of lost footage.

Austin Idol vs. Ken Patera Memphis 9/5/83 

MD: This was on the Savoldi network and it's about as far from those Idol vs. Hansen matches as humanly possible. It's still really good but it's conventional as can be. You can shut your eyes and see this match play out for the most part, but the crowd was up the whole time and the performances were good and sometimes pro wrestling just works the way it's supposed to. 

Idol got the fans riled early which upset Patera. It was a contest between him waving them on and Patera posing. For a chunk of it Idol controlled the arm and teased punches to the fans' delight as Patera tried to cheat to get out by pulling the hair, that sort of thing. Patera got over on him and worked the back with a great bearhug. Idol was perfect in it, lilting sideways and appealing to the crowd to support him, appealing to God to look down and bless him, appealing to you, the viewer, decades later. Just a transcendent over the top selling of it.

He fought out but Patera cut him off with a reverse of a whip and a clothesline out of the corner and got on the full nelson. Idol climbed the turnbuckles for a double pin but apparently he got his shoulder up at the last second. Post match, he took out Hart, dodged Patera's jumping knee into the corner and put his leglock on him. Again, delighted crowd. As straightforward as could be and I wouldn't change a thing.

ER: Patera in '83 was such a feast for the eyes. He's constructed like a freak Rob Leifeld drawing; cut, but with incredible mass. You catch him at certain angles and it doesn't seem possible to be that rock solid and have so much space between your belly button and spine. It's incredible. Perhaps more incredible, is that Patera has that body but Idol is the one posing, and the posing is the best. It all happens when Idol holds the ropes on a whip and breaks out all these excellent little kneeling poses and flexes. And I just kept waiting for Patera to wreck him for it. It's a crime that Patera has that body and that power and mostly wrestles like a guy in a mid tier Russian gimmick, all clubbing and axe handling. I need more bearhugs, more presses, more whips with crazy pull strength. I wanted a Patera/Idol match and this felt more like a match that Idol could have had with Don Bass. I dug the way Idol sold Patera's grounded bearhug - I actually wish we got more bearhugging in this - and was excited to see how Idol would sell the full nelson. We didn't get him selling the full nelson, instead we got him doing one of the messiest, loose ropes versions of the Austin/Bret finish (yeah I know this was well before Austin/Bret but it sounds better than describing what happened). His missed knee into the corner, after the match, looked really cool with his size, wild that he used it in a post-match deal. I don't know enough about Patera to know if he's a guy who usually limits his bumping in a match and saves it for after.  

Cage Match: Bret Hart vs. Hakushi WWF 7/25/95

MD: Dark match from a taping. Honestly, I won't lie, I would have rather had Brad vs. Flair which lost the poll to this one. The best part of this was probably Hakushi's entrance in the cage which was moody and will stick with you. The biggest issue overall is that they went to too much selling too soon, before it was earned. Whenever Bret hit the ropes or the corner, there was a big clunking sound from the cage but he wasn't really selling cage shots from it. I'm not sure if he ever went into the cage. Instead, he got the early advantage but both of them crashed into each other in the first minute or two with a double clothesline and they went right into the labored slow attempts to escape for the next ten minutes. They probably should have led with an extra five minutes of action before that double clothesline spot instead?

There were bits I did like down the stretch. There were certain parallels, like Bret missing his second rope elbow drop and then Hakushi instead of leaving the cage, choosing to hit the diving headbutt and wiping out. Bret snuck in the five moves in interesting ways and yeah, sure, there was always the sense that they were trying to win, even if like I noted, the drama didn't quite feel earned. The finish was a superplex where Bret was able to recover first and scoot out and the fans responded to a lot of the big moments but this all felt just a little underwater to me due to that narrative choice early.

ER: I thought this was both really good, and felt unnecessarily long due to the narrative choice Matt pointed out. It's really strange, how much weight they each decided to give a double clothesline. The entire match can be divided into two, uneven parts, by that double clothesline. The single minute before the clotheslines was absolute fire, both men throwing worked strikes so great that the entire match could have been sustained by them. Hakushi throws a throat thrust (one of many, but one in particular) that sounds insanely loud, the crowd reacts to it like death, and Bret crumples from it like a hardened hand of stone had just smashed his trachea. This was a battle. 

Then there was a double clothesline that carried the weight of a thousand bad decisions. And that double clothesline seemed to double as the missing 6-7 minutes of work that led to both men being tired slow climbers the rest of the match. Here's what's important: I thought all of the slow climbing and tired selling was really good. That ring looked like unmoving concrete, and every bump Hakushi took off the ropes onto it was completely unforgiving. There are three different landings - before the insane match ending superplex - that had no give, no bounce, nothing but a man's skeleton absorbing his landing with no bounce. The speed they worked had actual drama, the crowd bit at the cage escapes, and the final 10 minutes of escalation felt right. It also made a 12 minute match feel like 20, instead of a 20 minute match that was missing an important 8 minutes. It's so weird. All of the elements we have are good, nothing is missing, it just feels incomplete and also too long as is. Bret's bumps into the buckles looked damaging as ever, and the superplex is something that I literally don't understand. I don't see how it's possible to be doing bumps like that when they "don't count". You watch that ring. It does not budge. Hakushi came off the literal top of the cage, suplexed onto a sidewalk, for a match that was never supposed to air, and is still wrestling 30 years later instead of in a chair. And I guess it's bizarre to me that, in a match that went on to have several high end skeleton-eroding bumps that should have naturally led to slow down, they paid so much more lip service to a double clothesline. 

 

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New Footage Friday: David Von Erich, Race, Tor Kamata, Jumbo, Wahoo, Billy, Baba

Fritz Von Erich/David Von Erich vs. Harley Race Wrestling at the Chase 8/10/79

MD: This is a match that's been out there, but there's not a lot written about it, and it's nice to see it in context of an entire TV show. In fact, there's so little written about it that it's a bit hard to figure out what's going on. Obviously, this was all about getting David over. He was 21. According to the announcing, he'd already had a big draw with Race. The handicap gauntlet angle to it all seems a little weird because Fritz never makes it in, but that also plays with expectations. If I'm reading things correctly: there's more interest in the match because Fritz is potentially going to face off against Race. Everyone there had to expect Race to beat David so that they'd get to that point. It also allows for things to safely be non-title and protect Race. It makes him look big for taking the challenge and they can rationalize the finish by saying Race was looking past David to Fritz, etc.

The frustration of Race, as we've expressed before, is that everything he does looks so good. Every headbutt, gutwrench (not that he actually gets to hit it here), knee drop, underhanded shot. It all looks good. Race is a guy who consistently beat people with a vertical suplex in a time where that had started to become sort of rare and you believed it because everything looks great. He just gives up so much. Maybe it was his job to give up so much and maybe because his stuff looked so good, he had to hit less of it relatively, but you just want to see him beat the snot out of someone like David and obviously that's not happening. That's not to say David didn't look good and that some of his stuff, like those whole body stretch-overs to turn over Race's headlock into his own weren't really good and fairly unique, but I would have preferred Race take a little more of this, if only because I'm a bad human being at times when it comes to wrestling.

The finish was absolutely amazing. David catching Race off of the diving headbutt with the claw and Race bleeding all over the place. It was iconic. I realize they may have gone to that well again at some point, but it felt like the best thing that happened in wrestling in 1979. I would have 100% dropped money to see David get a title shot against Race. You would have too.

PAS:  I thought this was super impressive Race performance. David was as green as Kermit's dick, he honestly looked like a guy in one of his first couple of matches. Race totally made him look credible in multiple near falls, but also beat him good enough to really engender the crowd sympathy, there were some great looking headbutts and kneedrops. You can see why David was considered such a future star, although it feels very smoke and mirrors. I liked the idea of David insisting to go it alone, although it did rob us of Fritz vs. Race which would have been awesome. That finish was totally iconic, I love the idea of the iron claw as a total kill shot and Race leaking blood made it look like the most dangerous move in the world. What a perfect bit of business, and honestly I am shocked this isn't considered one of the great wrestling angles of the 70s and 80s, really shows how much of wrestling history is framed by availability.


Tor Kamata vs. Tiger Conway Jr. Texas Championship Wrestling 9/10/79

MD: Did you guys know that Tor Kamata was a play on Torquemada? I didn't. I've seen a decent amount of him lately as well due to the 1980 AJPW footage. He's pretty much what you'd expect, a slightly more mobile Abby with slightly less presence, able to whip out those jump kicks and at least an attempt at a dropkick, and to get off his feet on bumps a bit more. The constant bowing went from being irritating to serene as he went over the top with it (and as Conway went full on 70s kung fu in mocking it). Tiger, as we stated before, is a guy that we're lucky to have learned a lot more about through Houston footage. That means we can place a match like this into a more proper context instead of just seeing it as a one-off. He was a great regional star, and in this match he manages to play a ton of different roles: fiery and taking it to Kamata with brawling, working from underneath, comedically mocking him, picking up the pace and flying, working around ringside using whatever he could get his hands on. All that and a great connection to the crowd too. I don't think this was an amazing find relative to some of the other things we watch, but it feels like another piece of that Conway, Jr. puzzle.

PAS: I really enjoyed this, I am sucker for a guy with a good throat chop, and Kamata was a perfectly fine guy for Conway to do his thing around. Conway is a great fired up babyface and gets plenty of chances to fire himself up. I thought the finishes to all of the falls were super cool, the diving top rope tope by Conway to win the first fall, the super unexpected diving top rope throat thrust by Kamata (was not expecting that guy to go to the top) and the tope to the back of the head by Conway, into the crazy over the top bump for the DQ. Conway feels like one of the true great flyers of the 70s and early 80s and has been great every time we have seen him. This isn't a classic like the Valentine match, but it is a bunch of fun.


Giant Baba/Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Billy Robinson/Wahoo McDaniel AJPW 10/17/80

MD: There are some things you learn almost instantly from this match. It's a crime there aren't a slew more Wahoo/Robinson matches out there. Wahoo/Baba is a more compelling pairing than you ever would have imagined: the dueling stylized chops are a thing of vicious beauty. In a match with Billy Robinson in it, it's Wahoo's nasty joint manipulation on Baba's hands that I'll remember six months from now. I've seen dozens of Jumbo/Baba matches by now, but Wahoo and Robinson really got the best out of them, highlighting two different types of intensity, with Baba grinding in and using his size and Jumbo bursting forth at high speed. Like I said before, Robinson and Wahoo worked so well together: the mauling of Baba's hand/arm was great, most especially Wahoo stepping on it so that it was outstretched for Billy to come off the second rope on it with a stomp. This was constant struggle with just enough over-the-top wrestling trappings to make it sizzle. Are any of the singles matches between Wahoo and Baba out there?

PAS:  This was a match that had some really fun parts with never getting out of first gear. Loved Wahoo vs. Baba, it felt a bit "greatest hits" for a matchup I hadn't seen before (cagematch has two singles which we can hope show up at some point), loved the chops to the hand, super nasty and a great way for a chopper to foil another chopper. Robinson always looks so smooth and he also really took chunks out of Baba's arm. I just wished this hummed a little more, it had great moments, but it just kind of finished without a big crescendo.

ER: There's a moment in this where Billy Robinson jumps off the middle rope onto Baba's wrist and Baba's weird long Nosferatu wrist sits there crooked in air and it's an incredible wrestling moment. Nothing else could have happened in this match, and I would have still been completely into it. We did get more of that, so that hypothetical was just a waste of your time, but goddamn that was a great spot. Robinson and Wahoo are a cool tag team who tagged a lot, that I haven't actually watched tag a lot. So seeing them work over Baba's wrist and punch him in his giant ribcage is something I wanted to see on a Friday night. I don't think I've see a Wahoo match where he he goes after a limb as aggressively as he and Billy go after Baba's weird long arm. This felt like more of a chillll house show match than a big classic tag with four huge stars, but every year, older and older I get, the more I really really like chill house show matches. There's a simple satisfaction watching big star minimalism, and it's a great end of work week bleary eyed view. Seeing Robinson snap Baba over with a headscissors just makes my week.

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R.I.P. All Japan Motherload - Terry Funk

Months back I wrote up several rare late 70s/early 80s AJPW matches that had been uploaded by mysterious Japanese benefactor SKK, who seemingly got ahold of a bunch of footage that nobody had ever seen before. There were some real gems in the lot, but I took a break to write about other things and intended to go back. Literally the day I decided to go back and dive into his collection, was the day his page got torpedoed. Crushed. Obviously this stuff just needs to be removed from the internet. We can't have weirdoes watching Bill Irwin matches from 35 years ago. Thanks, universe. And also, thanks, universe.

Terry Funk vs. Tor Kamata - AJPW 12/3/79

This is my favorite Tor Kamata match! Which, yes, is like choosing your favorite nu metal band. Except this is good! This is the hardest I've seen Kamata work, and Funk is really great at putting over offense of guys like Kamata. Funk can make a gassed Kamata chinlock look good, and Kamata did gas out, but he did so nobly, by doing a too-much-fun arm drag sequence with Funk. Two large men working like late 70s Ricky Steamboats, Tor taking multiple armdrags and rolling through the bumps to run up and into more armdrags, then get tossed on a fun monkey flip/back drop. Kamata also drops a fine kneedrop across Terry's chest. Funk punches him a bunch and then we get one of the more amusing ref bump sequences I've seen, as Terry gets a nice nearfall on a small package and then grabs an abdominal stretch. As the ref leans in to check on Kamata, he hip tosses Funk onto the ref! And Terry is great at flopping on the poor ref. The next move Terry takes he makes sure to do an exaggerated "Rock taking the Stunner" sell so that he goes out of his way to flop on the still downed ref, again. This ref also has brittle bone disease (probably) which causes a man falling onto him to knocked him out, and this gives Kamata ample time to cheat with a chain and choke Funk the hell out. 

It's all thrown out, and then the real fighting begins as Kamata gets busted open huge and his whole face is bloody, and we all remember how much we fucking miss blood in professional wrestling. I'm going to press up trucker hats that say "Make America Blade Again". Kamata bails to the floor and uproots one of those strands of connected folding chairs and launches them up into the ring at Funk. Kamata then has a real Oh Shit moment as he realizes Funk now has a row of chairs and he is standing in the ring over Kamata on the floor, lording over him like the Greek God of Assbeating looking down from Olympus. Funk launches the chairs at Kamata as Kamata does an awesome Don Knotts-ish comedic scramble run to get out of the way, and we fade...


A Haiku Terry Funk vs. Jerry Oates AJPW 7/83

Fine Oates headscissor
Jerry once wrestled a bear
No chance against Funk


Funk's hand and Oates' face
Worked Funk four times on this tour
Sore jaw guaranteed


Oates gets some offense
Terry can be generous
But not much to see

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All Japan Motherload - Abby

Abdullah the Butcher/Tor Kamata vs. The Sheik/Great Mephisto - AJPW 12/11/80

ER: And you thought this would just be a bunch of guys with bad bodies wandering around, bleeding, hitting each other with spikes, and wandering around some more!! Well, you'd be correct. Great Mephisto is terrible, whiffs on punches and is clearly afraid to bump. How'd he get a ticket to Japan during 1980!? Really feels like a guy who won a sweepstakes. Tor Kamata bleeds and is the only one who really bumps, and Sheik often brings out the worst in Abby. Still, they put on a spectacle and throughout some of this it worked. The beginning especially worked, with streamers still in the ring and people starting to bleed. But I guess these things always start out the best, but don't really have much of a place to go. This really could have been four local bad body indy never weres having this fight in any indy that takes place in a bar. The fact this happened in Tokyo probably does make it more intriguing...



Abdullah the Butcher vs. Dory Funk Jr. - Maple Leaf Wrestling 6/29/80

ER: Not technically from All Japan but it must have been shown on Classics. I wonder how Toronto fans felt about 5 minute main events ending in count outs. I guess they were used to them with Sheik at this point, so it was likely expected. They built a fairly smart and logical short match, with Dory not taking Abby off his feet but instead taking over after a big Abby missed elbow drop. Best part of the match was after they had already been counted out and they're fighting on the rampway, Abby doesn't realize he's close to the edge and almost falls off while taking a Dory elbow. After that it's like he sensed how excited the arena got to see him potentially splat off the ramp so spent the next minute teasing like he was going to fall off while Dory elbowed him. There was actually real drama in there as especially that first time (where it genuinely didn't seem like he realized how close he was) I actually wondered if Abby was gonna fall off the ramp.



Terry Funk vs. Abdullah the Butcher - AJPW 7/15/78

ER: So the quality isn't great on this but it takes me back to my days of tape trading where you'd get a 13th gen copy of a Sabu comp and never even consider that these matches exist in better quality. Here the quality is bad enough that Funk and Abby look animated, like we're seeing the bloodiest version of the Beastie Boys' "Shadrach" video. But whatever, this is Abby stabbing Funk with a spike, both men gushing blood, and Funk punching Abby right in his cut. And you know that nobody puts over Abby's spike like Funk. Funk always knows the best way to stumble around, the best way to grab at his chest after it gets stabbed, the best way to grab Higuchi by the collar and tell him to do his job, the best way to go nuts after being pushed too far. Funk - as you may know - understands how to brawl to comeback and Abby knows how to make men bleed, and it rules.

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