ECW Cyberslam 2/22/97

I've been casually watching 1997 ECW as a tonal break while writing and reviewing every 1997 WCW match for my book, so you may start seeing more reviews of 1997 ECW.  

1. The Eliminators vs. RVD/Sabu 

ER: This match happened a lot over 96/97 because, as two teams with too much offense but relatively fast pacing, they felt like a natural pairing. In reality, they had no chemistry, and the matches were a night more of odd selling and clunky set up times. Their matches were long, emotionless, clumsy, and athletically stupid, but fun in in the way that some walked through but slightly ambitious too long local indy matches can be. "Hey you remember that match we saw at the Vet's Building, where they thought they could do a grueling spotfest but just fell and hurt themselves?" The Eliminators have no actual idea how to put together a match, and I can't think of another team who looked anywhere near as facially stupid as Saturn and Kronus. They walk around with the cadence and expressions of mental patients. Mental patients who can do flips. They're fucking awful and every single last one of us had a dogshit 4 hours Eliminators comp that we thought was great. That was then and this is now and these matches are just bad. They're all 20 minutes, they have as many minutes as a Ric Blade match, and they never have good vibe that Ric Blade matches had. They don't capture that same He's Trying, Alright energy. 

This is billed as a Tables & Ladders match and it winds up using tables, ladders, and chairs less often than in their awful match three weeks earlier at Crossing the Line Again. This long match even starts with matwork, and I'm good on seeing more RVD/Saturn matwork. Everybody just walks around getting into place for everything, they kick ladders into each other and always half miss the ladder, and there is never any kind of flow. There is some of that yard tard Jeff Hardy charm when they run through overly complicated spots that always seem to come off somewhat wrong but hurt in the way that Jeff Hardy's falls would hurt. You'd expect better from two 16 year olds using a park picnic table as an offensive jumping off point, and if you're going to work an inspired backyard match then you need to make sure your work is ready for the backyard. RVD takes two Total Eliminations at the finish. John Kronus performs that move every time like it's the first time he's ever done it, and it always leads to three guys all trying to get on the same page in real time. 

2. Little Guido vs. Chris Chetti

Tommy Rich in a

Hard Rock Cafe jean jacket

Where did he get it

It's the same color

As his non-boot cut blue jeans

light wash all day long

ponytail pulled tight

face bloated red and purple

We need more Wildfire

Wait you're telling me

Hard Rock Cafe Tokyo shirt? 

Under a fringe vest? 

Who took this man out? 

Who gave him money for this? 

Not to be trusted

I don't remember Guido having such a nice kneedrop. Everything Guido did here looked tight. Chetti was really new, 20 matches in, and had this weird mix of early David Flair lurching stiffness with a rookie willingness to try offense he would cut later. Five-months-in Chetti has a much better standing rana than you would have guessed. You know what's better? Guido's gutbuster. Guido misses a top rope kneedrop, landing on his shins. They try to do a Mikey Whipwreck moment for Chetti, which feels like a waste this early. They shoulda had this boy out there teaming with Rich and Guido, eating pasta fazool, and his whole thing coulda been that he's the good boy from Long Island who always ate too much Sunday sauce with his family.  

3. Stevie Richards vs. Balls Mahoney 

I never think about these two ever wrestling. This wasn't a match ECW would run. This is the only time they wrestled in ECW, then one more match a decade later in WWEC, which is weird. Two Men in Cut-Up Jeans. You can't put your Jeans Guys in the same ring too often. Balls had at least two different good punches in 1997. Stevie does a lot of long really boring arm work that I don't think is going anywhere interesting. Yet? No, this match is at its best when Stevie lets go of the arm and Mahoney unloads fists. Every slightly different punch Balls throws is better than I expect. I always think of Balls as getting really good in 2000s Jersey All Pro but he's been a great Stupid Bluto in 1997. Stevie Richards has some real dogshit offense and has nothing anywhere near as great as Balls' short arm clothesline, which he lays out flat for. His elbowdrop off the middle turnbuckle is closer to Macho Man than CM Punk, his spinning heel kick that sends himself to the floor feels like a more agile Mick Foley spot, and all of his strikes are good.  When he commits all the way to a missed guillotine legdrop, he also sells his balls. I think Balls, selling his balls, and the potential danger of a legdrop - even properly executed - potentially landing you on your balls, is a Rick Rude-level dedication to both nuance and character that I don't think any of us were giving him credit for in 1997. On the other hand, Stevie Richards works like an uninspired Rhett Titus. Hail Balls.  

4. Axl Rotten vs. Spike Dudley 

Spike Dudley takes a full speed head and body first bump into a guardrail and leans into every boot and left hand that Axl Rotten throws at the center of his face. Axl Rotten's left hand is approaching 0.8 Terry Funk and he looks like he has fun throwing it, and those kind of emotions are an important part of great punches. Spike takes such admirable beatings which both makes sense because of his small size, but also must be sheer hell because of his small size. His large bumps have no body to absorb them. He is landing on hip bone points on all of his big, heavy landing crossbodies. Spike Dudley probably had the hardest landing offense of any 150 pounder in wrestling history. His flying forearm hits, his crossbodies land like a full bodybag, and his cannonball off the apron hits Rotten like a bowling ball whipped at a nihilist. His body is heavy because his skeleton is calcified. This had the stiffness and fast pace of a Wildside TV match with the energy of a 1997 ECW match. Bubba and D-Von mess up Spike after the match including a huge thrown into the air powerbomb and Joey Styles is too busy calling the long names of moves to place the beating within context. 

5. Dudley Boyz vs. The Gangstas 

Gangstas matches are known for their weapons shots but New Jack would have clearly been better if he had just dropped all the weapons and shoot punched people in the head and face like this. I'm not sure which New Jack punch is my favorite, but it might be his 1-to-7 punch, where he slowly raises his hand to one before bringing it roughly down across his opponent's head toward 7. Every punch he throws looks really good though. He throws a great elbowdrop too. Also, maybe let him keep the guitar as a weapon because doing his little dance while strumming the guitar before using it is essential. Bubba takes a really high backdrop, and it is possible that Mustafa does not know how to bump. The Dudleys in control isn't anywhere near as interesting as Gangstas in control. Dudleys aren't as lively with their punch and kick, although I do like D-Von's reared back punches. Luckily, New Jack is really great at selling punches and he will also let D-Von hit him in the forehead with a VCR. 

This match has one of the truly crazy New Jack spots - yes, I understand what I'm saying - when he lays D-Von on a table that is very far away from the eagle's nest. He has to take a running, arm swimming, Superman leap that lands him short of the table, meaning he does a running flying headbutt into D-Von's stomach from a 10' drop with 12-15' of distance. I have no idea how he didn't break his neck or wrists or knees or anything upon landing, I have no idea why he set D-Von up so far away, but I love that he got up in that eagle's nest and actually shoved a child in sweatpants aside and knew he couldn't back out of the spot. On the Hardcore TV version of this match they show a different camera angle, not showing any part of the landing but instead showing a shot from across the arena that captured how far out he jumped, like a Gangsta swimming through air. Bubba pins New Jack when New Jack climbs to the top rope, bashes Axl Rotten in the head and throws that chair edge-first down onto him, then leaps off the top into a cutter. It's weird that every single wrestling show in 2023 has a Guy Leaps Into A Cutter spot and I now can't picture anybody doing that spot earlier than fucking New Jack. Was New Jack the best wrestler in 1997 ECW? 

6. Taz vs. Tracy Smothers

This is Smothers' first ECW match, still under contract to WWF for another two months, and in the middle of a Northeast February winter, this legend worked a WWF house show in New Haven, CT and then drove at least three hours over to Philadelphia just to get fucked up by Taz. I know there are better examples of making towns in wrestling history, but what was Tracy even thinking about during that three hour commute? Just listening to area radio on his way to getting shoot slapped a couple times and German suplexed by a man he towers over. Smothers' timing looked a little off here, but that could be because it's not easy to work timing spots with a junior. His standing back elbows looked hard and Taz nicely sold his mouth while Tracy went up top for his flying back elbow, which also looked good. Smothers lost a match to the bad Head Banger and then drove 175 miles to work a match that could have accomplished the same goal had Taz just suplexed Chris Chetti. 

7. Terry Funk/Tommy Dreamer vs. Raven/Brian Lee

Straw Hat Guy keeps yelling "Bullshitter" at Bulldozer Brian Lee, but he is a man who has given more money to Paul Heyman that several actual ECW employees so I'm not sure I would trust his bullshitter radar. It's kind of shocking how low quality this tag match is. It's more of a 20 minute angle than an actual match, except it's supposed to be a match, and the match isn't good. It's extremely lethargic, a walk and brawl in slow motion. Dreamer throws punches with his entire hand open, things only get briefly interesting when Raven and Funk start fighting on the floor, but it's crazy how much worse this was than the Gangstas/Dudley Boyz match on the same card. This is the kind of brawl where people weren't really throwing punches, but more grabbing the back of someone's head and then walking and or throwing them forward into something. Dreamer and Lee spent several minutes on the floor walking each other back and forth at ringside and pushing each other by the head into objects. Raven grabbed Funk by the back of the head and threw him down into the mat a half dozen or more times. Everybody wrestles tired. Funk kicks at Raven's leg and locks in the spinning toehold and things probably peak with Lee stopping the spinning toehold with a trash can shot to Funk's head and knocking Dreamer off the apron with a swing to the side of his head. Then he hits about a dozen trash can swings on Funk that look like the softest weapon shots on this show until the match is stopped and Funk is forced to leave on a stretcher while swearing. This was supposed to be all about furthering the Raven/Dreamer/Funk storyline and distancing Funk from ever getting an ECW title shot but they managed to get there in the least interesting way possible. This was so low energy and I do not know why. 

8. Sabu vs. Chris Candido

Candido is sort of growing out his hair and he has it slicked back, but it's not long enough up top to stay slicked so it just sticks up like a toddler after a bath. Under the white hot lights of the Arena, his white blond hair looks like the hair of Mom's dunderhead sons on Futurama. This match never totally feels like it gels into an actual match, but it does have Sabu jumping off a chair at least a dozen times into a series of leg lariats, huracanranas, legdrops, moonsaults and both are game to bump painfully, but the primary thing that hurts it is the crowd never being that into it in any way. I don't know why, as these people like moves, and this match was mostly move after move after move. Even the punch exchanges all looked good. Shit I wish we had more of them punching each other as every punch exchange here looked good, but without counting I think Sabu jumped off a chair or sprang off the ropes more times than he threw a punch, and that's pretty cool too. A lot of this was just throwing shit at the wall so 25% of it wasn't going to work. Sometimes a piledriver off the middle buckle is just going to look like a guy pulling someone on top of himself. I guess the craziest thing about Sabu going so all out with Air Sabu attacks is that he works in even more spots in this 20 minute match than he did earlier in the night in his 20 minute tag match. How the fuck did this guy take this many ugly landings for 20 straight minutes, two times in one night? 

I mean Candido takes a vertical suplex over the top to the floor that that must have been hell on the ankles and a sheer drop bump to the floor when Sabu tosses him on a charge, and also does an incredible crossbody plancha into the crowd that catches Sabu across the face and shoulders. He also grabs a very long chickenwing that makes the crowd Actually Upset, but more in an Impotently Frustrated way instead of a Drawing Heat way. And so, he spittily yells "It's called wrestling you fucking assholes"and then grabs a ringside mic to yell "Are you people bored? Should I put him in another wrestling hold?" It could have drawn real heat if he kept it up maybe, but instead it wound up looking like he got mad at his own joke. Sabu hit so much stuff and I guess at the end of the day I just love that Sabu had the energy to seemingly make up a bunch of shit on the fly. He does a full triple jump bombs away through a table on the floor when Candido sits up, lands chest first on the guardrail doing a tope, crashes on his butt several times...but also vaults off a chair and hits a flat out gorgeous huracanrana. I love this man and his messiness that can surprise with elegance. Sabu keeps falling off ropes and chairs onto Candido, and eventually one of those times pins him, and Candido cuts this weird promo after about how much of a draw Sabu is and how he doesn't care if Sabu or Taz wins at Barely Legal because "the Triple Threat gets paid either way". His crippling credit card debt and 2nd mortgage were not present in the arena for this promo. 

Best Matches: 

1. Spike Dudley vs. Axl Rotten

2. Sabu vs. Chris Candido

3. Gangstas vs. Dudley Boyz

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Found Footage Friday: SANTO VS CASAS~! DEATON~! KABUKI~! TINIEBLAS~! WAGNER~! ABBY~! TAUE~! SMOTHERS~!

Hijo del Santo/Tinieblas Jr. vs. Negro Casas/Dr. Wagner Jr. WWO

MD: This is almost certainly Found and not New and there are a couple of probably new videos on the channel but I wanted to watch Santo vs Casas so that's what we're watching. This was 2/3 falls and went closer to 15 as there was a pre-taped interview with Tinieblas after the primera. That's the only Alushe appearance in case you're wondering. The main pairings were Wagner and Tinieblas and Casas and Santo. You would have gotten a much higher floor if things were reversed but a lower ceiling. That meant we got just a bit of plodding Tinieblas matwork and then a lot of Santo vs Casas and some ginger Tinieblas rope running and then more Santo vs Casas. Those exchanges were workmanlike and smooth, nothing out of the norm but the norm is very good and I appreciated them all the more for the contrast. When things broke down for the finish, Tinieblas was trying his best (and he did with the comeback in the tercera too) and he hit an absolutely massive splash off the top (and later a big dive).

The beatdown in the segunda was launched by a Casas foul as the ref was distracted and was solid, with mask pulling building pressure up for Santo to do his thing on the comeback. I liked how in the double leg rollback on Tinieblas to get him to tap, Casas was also flexing the wrist down. There's almost nothing better in wrestling than a heated Santo comeback, and it led a fun finishing stretch where Tinieblas had Casas in a hold, Wagner was working Tinieblas' mask, and Santo was (most efficiently) working Wagner's, all at once. Actual finish was Casas bumping himself into the ropes and falling on his face, with Santo slipping on the caballo lighting-fast. Beautiful stuff. This probably isn't top half for Santo vs Casas matches but just fun for them is pretty great for anyone else.

Abdullah the Butcher/Joel Deaton vs. Great Kabuki/Akira Taue AJPW 10/20/89

MD: As much as we love Taue around here, he was a bit of a late starter relative to his peers. You don't really see what he might become until later into 1990 when he was teaming with Jumbo against the superheavyweight foreigners and even then, you see it more with the feud with Kawada in early 91. Back here in 89, as I've noted before, it would have been far easier to bet on Shunji Takano as the next giant Japanese star. Even Tenryu and Hansen weren't able to pull that fire out of him; quite the opposite. He came out looking more timid when facing them, not less.

Deaton, on the other hand, was a pretty ideal opponent for him and this was probably the best I've ever seen him look in 89. He had size and presence and energy but came off like a poor man's Hansen for the most part. There was still value to that lower down the card or in main event six-mans and he matched up perfectly here with Taue, giving him someone worthwhile that he could still lean on. Kabuki might have taken over on offense, but Taue stood tall, hanging on to a hold through a chinbreaker or cutting him off when he attempted to make it to Abdullah. Whenever Abdullah did get in, however, he shut things down quickly. Even when Taue tried to interfere to help Kabuki, Abby, while not breaking the hold, blocked Taue's shot and took him out with a throat chop. He was able to get a few shots in on him towards the end, but all it took was one missed dropkick for Abby to be able to drop the elbow and end it. I'd call this a good missing link on Taue's road to what he'd become though.

ER: One of the joys of handheld All Japan wrestling is getting to hear two guys having some kind of conversation about Joel Deaton. Perhaps one fan asking who the tall American guy was and the another fan saying "Deaton" several times. I thought Joel Deaton looked great in this match. Deaton's All Japan run was real fortuitous, coming at the end of a long run as a Crockett territory job guy as one half of the Thunderfoots, and then suddenly getting a 5 year mostly full time run as an All Japan mid card gaijin. And  Joel Deaton, for a guy we've barely written about here, seems like a guy we should be seeking out and writing about more. I thought Deaton was much less a Stan Hansen clone and much more someone who Dustin Rhodes would be within a few years. It might sound hyperbolic to say that Joel Deaton was 1993 Dustin Rhodes - I've barely watched and written about Deaton - but watch him in this match and tell me otherwise. 

He's a big guy, standing over Taue before Taue was more lumbering, and he works quick. He's great at setting up offense and has a lot of cool offense of his own. But his bumping and set ups are the highlight: How he runs at Kabuki with a low cutting missed back elbow and clothesline before running even faster throat first into a Kabuki thrust. Kabuki's throat thrusts are one of my favorite wrestling strikes ever and Deaton leans into every one of them and whips his full head of hair back in ways that HHH could never sell. He takes a backdrop as high as Dustin, and if you thought he ran into Kabuki's hand earlier you should see how recklessly fast he runs into a thrust kick in the finishing stretch. Deaton ran into Kabuki's foot so fast and so painfully that it made me want to go through every single handheld Deaton match we have. I'm a Deaton Guy now. 

I watch much less early Taue than I do later Taue but he seemed like a different cool version of Taue already here. I loved when Deaton tried to jawbreaker his way out of a Taue chinlock but Taue just held on. I'm not sure I've ever seen that before and Taue has the lumbering smothering to pull it off. The way he locks in his standing sleeper after and quickly leans back into and over Deaton looked great, forcing his physics onto Deaton. Deaton really looks like he gets under Taue's skin when he rocks him with a huge knife edge while Taue is waiting on the apron, and Taue gets in two hard overhand chops to Deaton's neck before the ref can drag him out of the ring. Deaton is really like a hybrid Taue/Dustin, which is an incredible compliment, but damn when Deaton grabbed a slick ankle pick to keep Taue in the corner while tagging out, and later in the match Taue grabbed one of his own to do the same, I was in love with these two really tall guys taking advantage of the other's long legs. 

I thought everybody looked great, really. This show was taped for TV (and famously had three title changes on it) and these guys worked snug and stiff like they were on a big TV show and not just a Nagoya gymnasium. Kabuki's strikes are like if Great Muta's strikes actually looked good, and him assaulting Abby while Abby was trying to step through the ropes was a highlight of a match filled with them. Also, Abdullah hits his full body shoulderblocks so hard that I can feel them through the handheld from the back row of this gym. He runs over Kabuki so hard it was like every participant - outside of Abby - was fighting to see who could take the most brain-jarring back bump. I don't know if I like any wrestling more than I like All Japan handhelds. I'm not convinced there is such a thing as a bad All Japan handheld match. When we find them we need to destroy them, like Dead tapers shutting down circulation of a show where Jerry nodded off. 

Tracy Smothers vs. Rowdy Red MWA 1996

MD: Best as I can tell, this was a Hair vs. Reputation match where Smothers put his reputation up against Red's hair with a fifteen minute time limit. He had a second who went back to the locker room after the entrance though we'd see him at the end. I can't tell you a single thing about Red contextually, but he played the fired up local babyface pretty well here. Early on Smothers oscillated between going for a quick roll up and stalling, all building to Red getting a near fall on him with a small package of his own.

The heat was a lot of fun with Smothers really bullying Red. He took over by using the ref as a wedge in the corner to sneak in some shots and everything he did looked great. The best of it was maybe this jumping hook kick he did after some of his really nice jabs. When Red got hope spots with punches of his own, it didn't matter how they looked because of how Smothers was selling them. As they got close to the time limit, Smothers couldn't put him away, even after Red missed a legdrop off the top. Eventually, after two mule kick low blows by Red, Smothers' pal came out only to get accidentally clocked by Smothers, leading to a crowd-pleasing roll up win at the last second. Smothers, of course, proclaimed he'd never be coming back on the mic after the match. This probably had something of a low ceiling but it crashed into it at full speed.

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Found Footage Friday: SMOTHERS~! HARRIS~! SLATER~! TAKANO~! NAKANO~! BABY SHAMROCK~! AKITO~! SANO~!

Dick Slater/Ken Shamrock vs. Shunji Takano/Shinichi Nakano AJPW 10/20/89

MD: This isn't the world's easiest HH to watch; it's pretty far back. Thankfully, everyone's fairly distinct, from the extreme size difference between Takano and Nakano that would define their roles to the match to Shamrock's light blue trunks. There is a Joe Malenko vs Fuchi match later on the card that only exists for a few minutes pro-shot but it's just an exercise in futility to try to watch it on this HH. You need to see the close up magic and it's just a blur at thid distance. This one's easier to parse.

The historical value here is seeing Shamrock in Japan in 1989. We have one or two other matches with him on this tour but it's not a lot to go on. This is a little bit more, though it's more informative to see where Slater was. He's a guy who doesn't have a lot of interesting Japan matches from around this time. Either the hierarchy is way off and he's getting beaten up by Jumbo or he's teamed with someone they're trying to elevate like Spivey and it's up to him to lose the offense. Here he was top of the totem pole and they got to lean on Nakano quite a bit. That meant some nice looking stuff (Neckbreaker, Russian Leg Sweep, punch combos) and goading Takano in to set up double teams.

Shamrock showed promise, with one nice mat exchange with Takano a bit of bumping around for dropkicks and hitting some of his own, and good struggle against Takano's belly to belly before going over for it on the second or third try. He had a fairly awkward splash off the top and a modified abdominal stretch which worked more than it didn't but definitely looked odd. They dragged Nakano down a few times allowing Takano to come in and wreck people before an abrupt finish where Shamrock (with Slater's help) survived Takano's knee off the second rope only to immediately eat a German from Nakano. I liked when they had mid-card matches end without a big back and forth stretch but with the damage just being too much over time because it made those main event stretches and all the saves and kickouts that came with them more believable. 

Tracy Smothers vs. Chris Harris (Kennel Cage Match) MWA Thunderdome 98

MD: The gimmick for the show was that the top three matches had this smaller cage within the ring. It fit right inside the ropes basically. This was a wonderful ten minutes. They stalled for about a third of it, then after Smothers dodged a punch and strutted arrogantly, Harris nailed him and he bumped around the ring like an absolute champ for two or three minutes. That meant pinballing into the cage a couple of times, but mostly just managing to get his feet over his head as he went all over the place for Harris' punches. He'd get a cheapshot out of the corner only to get planted into the cage once again for his trouble. Then he called for interference, snuck a weapon out as Harris fought it off, and clocked him for the win. Simple yet over the top and just the sort of glorious bs that I want in third-from-the-top 98 Tracy Smothers in a little cage. 

Akito vs. Yasushi Sato Sportiva 11/30/11

MD: With thanks, as always, to Sebastian for all of these Sportiva matches, including the suggestion. Akito was far younger than Sato here, and at one point mid-way through he sort of got swept under, needing (and ultimately getting) a clutch defensive counter to survive and overcome. Early on, however, he had this great way of chaining together holds and an even better way of turning an escape or kickout into an immediate submission. There are norms in wrestling. Usually, even in the most go-go-go matches imaginable, after a kickout or an escape, there's a brief pause or reset. Even if there's going to be an unclean break and subsequent stomping or another hold attempted, it happens after a blink, a pause, a breath. There's a theatricality to it that even the people most concerned about getting their stuff in can't full escape. With shootstyle, you'll see a throw or a kickout turned immediately into a grounded top wristlock, for instance, but it's almost always done by the aggressor. Here, Akito would push out of a leglock or kick up out of a pin and simply keep his hands moving, one smooth motion to capture an ankle and lock in a hold of his own. You wouldn't want it for every exchange, but done two or three times in the match, it was striking because it pushed against exepectations in a blink and miss it sort of way. It was when Sato started to push in the same sort of relentless and unforgiving of way that he was able to take over.

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Found Footage Friday: HANSEN~! SPIVEY~! KOBASHI~! ACE~! PUTSKI~! FUJI~! KUWAIT~! SMOTHERS~! EATON~! ROCK 'n' ROCKERS~!

Ivan Putski vs. Mr. Fuji WWF (Kuwait) 1982

MD: The Rex match might have been technically better and even more primal and straightforward in some ways, but this had astoundingly glorious bullshit. At the two minute mark of the video, Fuji starts to play "hide the salt" and they milk it for another three and a half minutes before locking up, with the fans getting more and more into it as the ref can't catch him. Fuji eventually gives up with it and they start cycling through holds that Putski can power out of. Fuji gets an advantage on an armbar by pulling the tights to get Putski down but he ultimately gets a hyper noogie for his trouble. The crowd is loving every second of this so far, much like the Rex match; Putski just has a special relationship with them and Fuji isn't at all afraid to make goofy faces and flail about. Around twelve minutes after the goofiness with the salt started, Fuji finally gets it in Putski's eyes. This triumphant moment earns Fuji a bit of karate and a nerve hold before Putski shakes it off, hits two back body drops, and chases a retreating Fuji to the back. Another good time had by all. I don't know what this says about me, but I can watch Fuji hide salt in front of an irate crowd all day.

ER: People cannot get enough of Kuwait superstar Ivan Putski, and they show nothing but confused indifference for Fuji's salt ceremony...until they clearly see that Fuji is saving salt for Putski's eyeballs. I wish I knew more about the average Kuwait wrestling show attendee's familiarity with classic wrestling heel tropes. I want to see Bobby Heenan hiding a weapon for 20 minutes in Kuwait, slipping it in his boot and back in his trunks and even standing on it. Imagine Lawler hiding a weapon that doesn't actually exist and getting these men (No Women Allowed in the Kuwait Wrestling Club) to lose their minds, tearing their keffiyehs from their heads. Fighting Ivan Putski is like fighting a person in one of those inflatable dinosaur costumes. Much like the Moondog Rex match this week, there are some tremendous strength spots. 

I could see a lot of these spots done by a skinny fat super indy undercarder and played for hack laughs, but the exact same spots done by a completely gassed 5'4" man in early 80s Kuwait play like the pinnacle of the genre. Fuji breaks Putski down to his knees with a nerve hold, both hands digging into Putski's armpits while clutching his pecs, and in an incredible moment Putski rises to his feet and begins loosening Fuji's grip by flexing his large pectorals, Fuji's eyes growing wider, hands still gripping Putski's fleshy muscular breasts, Putski going through every posedown challenge to break the vice, a Most Muscular pose with unbroken eye contact finally freeing him. Putski's strikes get better the longer the match goes. His headlock punches have more intensity than Nolan Ryan's, and his elbow strikes to Fuji's chest in the ropes bounce him wickedly. But when that salt finally comes back into play, it's glorious. Fuji sneaks it into Putski's eyes and Putski swings his short T-rex arms blindly at him, while Fuji stays just out of arms reach throwing throat thrusts and headbutts. But Ivan Putski is the Most Powerful Man in the World and, much like the Philistines blinded Samson and still felt his full wrath, Fuji is soon tossed hardway by two backdrops, and flees the building before it all gets pulled down on top of him. 

Stan Hansen/Dan Spivey vs. Kenta Kobashi/Johnny Ace AJPW 11/20/90

MD: Pulling this back from the middle of the handheld card as it's the last major match we haven't covered yet (there's a Ricky Santana/Doug Furnas vs. Dick Slater/Joel Deaton match which isn't all that interesting and an opening match Teranishi/Kikuchi vs. Fuchi/Ogawa match that I don't promise I won't cover in the weeks to come). It's always fun to hear Kobashi come out to Kickstart My Heart. The contrast here is good. Early Kobashi/Ace (the All-Asia stuff) can be frustrating if they're up against a small, quick team and you get a lot of action and not a lot of weight to anything. But there is nothing but weight when you're in there against Hansen and Spivey. Obviously, Hansen is the real muscle, but Spivey starts this match out by catching Ace off a cross body and just SOS-ing him over his head and shortly thereafter, when Kobashi tries to get technical with him with a leglock, just jams his leg down upon Kenta's face in the nastiest way possible. Spivey wasn't a bad Hansen partner by any means. He was big enough and had some presence but it was also believable for Kobashi to bounce back off the ropes and drop him with a heart-filled shot.

Whenever this hits the outside, it gets great. Hansen just uses the rail and a chair and even this big wooden table. He was better smashing Ace with it than going for the lariat against it, though, as he took out his own arm opening up a fairly lengthy "contain the beast" bit from the two of them. You can't keep Hansen down (in 1990) for long though, and they rotated about until they were beating Kobashi down, with him surviving despite the odds and some nasty shots (including the aforementioned chair shot). At one point Ace broke up a submission by running in and bounding off the ropes with a clothesline but he got absolutely nailed by Hansen the second time he tried it (which was happening more and more in AJPW at this point and was always a great spot). The comeback was wonderful and imaginative, with Kobashi ducking a double shoulder block that sends both Hansen and Spivey to the floor. A dive on Spivey and a suplex on Hansen followed and Ace and Kobashi got in some hope that they might, maybe, steal this one. But of course it wasn't to be. Hansen got fed up and lariated one after the other in quick succession to end it. At this point in their development (where they may have won the secondary titles but were still losing to Jumbo/Partner and even Misawa/Kawada), Kobashi and Ace just hanging as well as they did meant something to the crowd.

ER: I'm not sure how many things in wrestling make me smile wider than Stan Hansen running to the ring through a parting see of fans, chasing after some, swinging his bullrope at others. Danny Spivey looks huge here, like the World's Largest Wings Hauser. He's several inches over Hansen whenever they're next to each other. Did Stan Hansen gift every touring gaijin tag partner his own set of chaps, like a leather goods Ribera Steakhouse jacket? Underneath his Gifted Chaps, Spivey is wearing Daisuke Ikeda's future ring gear, larger. There's a woman in the crowd who loves him and yells SPIVEY all match long. For her, he leans into a strong Ace clothesline and bumps big for a Kobashi back suplex. I love the precision and speed that Spivey and Hansen used to get Kobashi to the floor, slammed face first into a table, and rolled back into the ring. It was like 5 seconds flat. Hansen just threw Kobashi's body like he was a bag of autumn leaves. Stan Hansen was the first guy I ever saw do the Ringpost Chop and I thought it was incredible. Here he tries to take Johnny Ace's head off with a lariat and instead Western Lariats a thick table as hard as he would lariat a man. Hansen was a genius at hitting offense into inanimate objects, thrown as if he never once expected he would miss. 

Nagoya, in one night, got to see over 10 minutes of Stan Hansen and Abdullah the Butcher getting cut off decisively from their tag partners, and I love whenever Hansen is the Man in Peril. He is both great at selling while in offense, and also a constant threat. Kobashi and Ace are like two cops trying to take down a guy on PCP, just swinging chops and feet, always a second from lashing out. Hansen is great in peril, and he's even better getting his revenge. Cower at the ease with which he throws Kobashi with a head whipping bodyslam, or the way he and Spivey launch Kobashi with a backdrop and Stan is already falling on top of him with an elbow. Hansen and Spivey miss a tandem 3 point tackle into the ropes like two men who weren't expecting to hit the ropes, because Stan Hansen tis a man who has considered the concept of object permanence. Kobashi's pescado into Spivey hits flush. Hansen just beats the shit out of him. There's a really great sunset flip nearfall, where Ace does an unconvincing sunset flip and Hansen balances himself and starts knuckle punching Ace in the head, but Kobashi does a mountains-moving dropkick to send Hansen flying back into a close pin. He shuts that shit down swiftly and suddenly, putting Ace down hard on his back with a shoulderblock, backing into the corner as he calls for the Lariat. Kobashi screens into frame to save his dude and takes the absolute worst swinging hell arm to the nose, a fool of a man for startling a large blind man who never chooses Flight. Ace loses the match, but absorbs a comparatively polite lariat. 

Tracy Smothers/Bobby Eaton vs. Ricky Morton/Marty Jannetty Wrath Pro 2/18/07

MD: Speaking of glorious wrestling bullshit. This had Smothers on the mic to start (of course), with the usual threats to leave to get the fans chanting and then a great bit about having no heat with Morton. Tracy graciously said that if Ricky turned on Marty, he'd not only give him the right to ride with them, he'd give him five whole bucks. Morton didn't take the deal. That and Smothers making a show out of taking his shirt was the first ten minutes of the video.

Of all the various ways to watch and enjoy wrestling, there's only one that is unquestionably wrong: you can't quantify wrestling; if you're counting the number of kickouts or punches, you're doing it wrong. But you can speak about things more broadly in terms of time, especially in a narrative sense, sure, and with that in mind, I'd like to report that the next six minutes were Jannetty and Smothers goofing. Jannetty would get a takeover or reversal; Smothers would complain about the tights or the hair even if it made no sense given what actually happened; Jannetty would then do the move to the ref slowly to show him it was impossible. At one point he even had the ref do a counter on him to show him. It was six minutes well spent.

After some more stooging and clowning from Eaton and Smothers, they got about a minute of heat on Morton, before he came back and they went right to a double roll up and some more Smothers jawing including the singsong promise never to come back and yelling at everyone to go home. The entire video was around twenty-five minutes; 35 with ten more minutes of heat would have been preferable, but it's hard to complain too much about what we got given the venue and the age and filled out bump cards of the wrestlers involved. 

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Found Footage Friday: LAWLER~! KAMALA~! LAWLER AND KAMALA~?! SHOCK~! AWE~! SMOTHERS~! STORM~!

Tracy Smothers vs. James Storm NWA Worldwide 5/13/00

MD: This felt like a big moment for Storm, in his early 20s, clean-cut, wearing black trunks with STORM on them. Apparently the heels (including Chris Champion) had won a stip where they got to decide when and where they wrestled, so even though they'd been booked to face Storm, they were able to send Smothers (being another heel himself) out there.

For the most part, it was by the numbers, but they're numbers I'm pretty fond of. Smothers got on the mic and said that if they chant Tracy Sucks, he'd leave, which he was probably doing in 4th grade math class to taunt the teacher, but it always worked. It was pretty obvious Smothers was leading him around, including all but throwing himself into a headscissors takeover and a 'rana on the comeback (the sort of basing which not only meant taking offense, but overcompensating to make it work) and bumping headfirst on a wheelbarrow reversal into a bulldog. There were a million plucky, athletic, flying babyfaces in the early 00s, and Storm was definitely one of them, but between Smothers' showmanship and a few well placed and unlikely kickouts, they crowd were entirely with him. The finish had Smothers slip on a banana peel and Storm able to turn an attempt at cheating to his own advantage for the big upset win. Post match, he got destroyed by a bevy of heels, but ultimately, primarily thanks to Tracy, he came out of this looking like a real prospect.

Jerry Lawler vs. Kamala Memphis Wrestling Power Hour 5/17/03

MD: Turner had posted a bunch of 00s Memphis a month or two ago but most of those were things that were already out there. This might have been as well but it's not anything we've ever covered. There's a really great match from JAPW in January of 03 between these two. This though, was just great studio TV.

This was nominally set up to be a 2/3 falls (or TV time remaining) match and it's amazing how much they accomplished in so little time. The first fall, if a standalone match, might be one of the best two-minute studio matches ever. Kamala moved around the ring with a variety of strikes and smashes and Lawler propelled himself back after taking each one. Kamala had big energy and presence but Lawler made it work by picking a different part of the ring to retreat to each time. It literally kept things moving. The strap went down after about a minute of it and Lawler was able to fire off shots (including one amazing punch against the huge canvas of Kamala that the camera caught perfectly), staggering Kamala and finally driving him back with a dropkick into the corner, but not able to take him down. When Kamala pushed forawrd despite it, it was a shocking moment as the strap had already come down, but he quickly lost control when he was firing back on Lawler and hit the ref to draw the DQ. Lance was great here, both referencing Lawler's traditional slow starts in how Kamala was destroying him early and then, at the start of the second fall, noting how sprly Lawler had jumped up after the DQ, even despite the strap-dropping not paying off.

Between falls, they had a lady in from a radio show to talk to Corey and a backstage bit with Jimmy Hart trying to pay off Kamala (and Kamala eating the money). The second fall was brisk, with Lawler stepping on Kamala's toes to make an inroad but Hart's people rushing in to cause the DQ. Kamala took offense to this and came to Lawler's aid for a huge pop. This set up a tag match the next week just in the studio, and that almost felt like a shame because this angle should have been able to draw for real. That first fall was masterful. Best two minutes of wrestling you'll see this month.

Jerry Lawler/Kamala vs. Shock/Awe Memphis Wrestling Power Hour 5/24/03

MD: I had to see this play out. Even ten years earlier, it would have led to a big show at the Coliseum. That's not this. It's just another four minute TV match, unfortunately, but they were just building up Shock and Awe. One was Del Rios. The other was a pretty green British monster, the sort that could accidentally do a nice leg drop and an amazing kneeling body slam to Lawler and then immediately get out of the ring because he was blown up and that wasn't exactly sure where to put his body for the double noggin knocker with Jimmy Hart as the ref was throwing things out.

But you're watching this for Lawler and Kamala and they were both individually good but I wish they would have interacted a little more. There was a bit of subdued smugness for Lawler on the idea that no matter how much Shock and Awe might toss him around, he always had Kamala ready to tag in. Eventually, he missed a fist drop and got slammed around a bit more until Rios missed a quizzical flipping senton off the ropes and Lawler kind of waltzed over (respecting the fact he had only gotten beaten up for two minutes or so) for a not-so-hot tag and Hart hit the apron to set up the match getting thrown out. Honestly, if this had another couple of minutes tacked on to each section, there was probably something worthwhile here. As it was, it was fun but not the magical couple of minutes that the singles TV match was.

ER: I know it's just the format we chose for our personal type spacing aesthetics a decade and a half ago, but I really love how we have the match typed out as Shock slash Awe instead of Shock & Awe. It's like the funniest wrong way the local news could get their name. 

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Found Footage Friday: MORE PARK IN PANAMA~! LORD JAMES BLEARS~! GORILLA MARCONI~! SMOTHERS~! SABU~!

Jan Blears/Frank Marconi vs. Sandor Kovacs/Harry Finkelstein Wilmington, DE 3/20/47

MD: We get around 7 minutes of this and it's with some sound effects and jokey commentary but it's also the earliest Lord Blears we have, a pretty good look at Kovacs and Finkelstein knocking Marconi around the ring, and a shoulder tackle heavy comeback by (Gorilla) Marconi. Kovacs hit pretty hard and Marconi took a nice bump to the floor (preceded by one heel warning the other with a tap on the back). Probably the biggest thing to see here, however, was Blears dropkicking everyone and throwing spin kicks (the Negro Casas variation). He went a bit overboard with it, and the finish was his hair getting pulled mid-air by one of the heels as he was dropkicking the other causing him to take a pretty nasty bump. Someone should steal that. They bumbled around a bit before the pin but it was pretty believable as a match-ender relative to everything else that was happening. I picture him as the old guy announcing things in Japan or chummily commentating in Hawaii so it was striking to see him quite this young.

ER: Is this just the beginning of Matt deep diving into Delaware Catch? Delaware is possibly the state in the union I think the least about (Rhode Island? Mississippi? Montana?), and I couldn't even tell you if there is or was any kind of wrestling scene there. Hogan never worked there. Flair never worked there. WWF skipped out on Delware during the Hogan years and came back when business was dry, so the people of Delaware at least got to see most of the one month Buddy Landel 1995 WWF run, or an Ahmed Johnson/1-2-3 Kid dark match that I would want to see. I wonder how much crossover attendance this match from 1947 had with Scott Putski vs. Leif Cassidy 50 years later. Some poor man in his 70s telling someone, "I was here when James Blears threw some pretty great dropkicks." Marconi had a couple of cool Delaware Catch bumps, including one charging through the ropes to the floor, and an even cooler one where he does a kind of trust fall from the apron into the front row. The closing segment between Blears and Kovacs had some real stiff uppercuts (as well as some atrocious Foley work SFX, just pots and pans clanking whenever anyone made contact) and I loved how all of Blears' dropkicks played into the finish. He just kept throwing them, low, horizontal, feet pumped directly out in front of him, and just as I thought "man he's thrown like 9 of these straight, they're gonna catch on here", Finkelstein blocked one by grabbing his hair mid-flight and yanking him to the mat. Kick ass. 

Principe Island I (LA Park) vs. Principe Island II (Super Parka) 1988 Panama   Pt. 2

MD: Park (PI 1) was the champion here. This is after the mask match with Sandokan. His uncle, billed as his brother (we'll call him PI 2), had just lost his mask and had shaken hands with his opponent after the fact, angering PI 1. He's become a tecnico accordingly and his challenging his former partner here, now representing Panama. They start this out with some really basic and rudimentary holds: headlocks, wristlocks,etc., and I just get it through my head that PI 1/Park is still early in his career and obviously he'd trained with PI 2, so things would stay simple but well-worked and full of basic struggle. Not a bad thing at all.

That's not at all what happens though. Things escalate and escalate and escalate until midway through the primera, PI 1 hoists his uncle up on his shoulder and hits sort of a fall away FU out of a fireman's carry. Park had all of his physical charisma and as much agility as he'd ever have in his career and they were moving on to handsprings and bounding springboard armdrags off the ropes. Park was more than happy to tumble head over heels into the ropes or through the ropes. All of this builds to an amazing finish with PI 2 hitting quebradoras to rousing applause from the crowd, and finally launching himself through the ropes with a tope which Park ducks, leading to a mindblowing sunset flip onto the floor and the countout. Really just an amazing primera.

The segunda started with a bunch of cutesy mirrored stuff where the idea was that they knew each other so well, and quickly moved along to Park using all of the tricked out submissions that they had kept in their holsters in the primera. This built as well, crescendoing to Park diving through the ropes with a huge midair flip and the countout fall.

Then for the tercera they went right into one pin attempt after another. I'm not going to say it was all smooth, but there was plenty of technique and imagination. Very back and forth and with the idea that it could probably end at any moment. Park hit a flying hammer. PI 2 dropped him with a sit out powerbomb. It all built to two huge (if conventional relative to what came before) dives, a nearfall I bought with Park's spinning back kick (as he had used it to win a fall against Sandokan previously) and a very slick switch into a Gory Special for the win. It felt like two guys who knew each other very well, with big ideas, a black canvas, and no reason not to put it all out there. I'm not sure there's any 80s lucha title match on tape quite like it.

ER: We have been posting newly unearthed unseen wrestling footage every Friday for 5 years now, and it still amazes me how much high quality is appearing on such a consistent basis. We are truly living in golden times. As much stuff as we've written about, it's all still exciting, and this footage of LA Parka working Panama is the earliest Park we've written about. It's an incredible find, illuminating a peak even longer than Park diehards have realized. This is a long, exhausting title match that was grueling in the way that family feuds can be, evidence of the kind of inspired brilliance Park has brought across 5 decades. This had big longform drama, 30 or more pinfall attempts, tons of bumps into a firm ring and even bigger bumps to the floor, huge dives, inventive roll-ups, just a real ahead of its time find. A lot of the exchanges felt so modern, some impressive body control from a guy who looked like a lanky punk and another guy with incredible John Oates Private Eyes hair. 

LA Park has to be considered one of the greatest bumpers in wrestling history. His bumping here in his mid-20s is as big as our biggest bumping luchadors. His Jerry bump is as high as Jerry's, he hits the turnbuckles so hard on a whip that the crowd clearly thought he broke the ring, and he had a bump backwards through the ropes on a kickout that's a great example of him using a bump to surprise the viewer. He was bumping this well in 1989, and in 2023 he's still known for painful falls, on an increasingly larger frame. His uncle takes his own big bumps, including hard fast one to the floor that gets him met with a super fast tope suicida, like a bowling pin being whipped into his head. He powerbombs LA Park onto the back of the head later, but nobody was getting out of this war easy. They built to several plausible finishes and knew how to end each fall in a big way. The tope suicida sunset flip that left Park on the floor made the entire arena lunge out of their seats and swarm the ring. LA Park's straight suicide and Super Parka's incredible long distance plancha did the same. Maybe some of the pinfalls went on too long, maybe some falls could have been trimmed, but this felt like a big 80s territory title match the whole time. Outstanding. 

Tracy Smothers vs. Sabu UWA 4/14/99

MD: Everything you'd want from 16 minutes of these two in a random indy, starting with Smothers jawing on the mic, leading the fans in one chant after the other by threatening violence on all of them and begging them not to chant ECW since he just got fired from there, and ending with him shoving the bald ref around and eating a stunner from him like he got shot by a cannon. In the middle, there was plenty to see: Smothers challenging Sabu to chain wrestle him and that lasting for about a minute before elbows and punches entered the fray; most of the transitions in the match being Smothers grabbing at a leg or Sabu sneaking an awkward kick in from the ground, or Smothers just tossing himself at Sabu, nothing pretty, nothing clean; Sabu jumping all around the place; Smothers jawing at everyone proclaiming Sabu not to be too tough; the table introduced relative early and then the guy with the camera having to change film/batteries/etc, and missing the eventual spot. You don't even care about the last one because there was just as much chance the wrestlers would have missed it anyway. This was great fun and a good use of a quarter-hour.

ER: This is a perfect match, because you can show it to your buddy who has never heard of Tracy Smothers or Sabu and he gets to see almost the entire routine in full in the perfect setting: an expo center at a fairgrounds in a mid-size Tennessee town. Tracy threatens everyone in the building with mass scale homicide and hilariously says "I don't want to hear anyone chant ECW. I just got fired from that place." I don't think I realized Smothers was fired from ECW in 1999, but he would know better than I, and sure enough he didn't work any dates starting in April until returning several months later. What's fun, is that this Tracy/Sabu match might be the first one we have, as he and Sabu wrestled on several ECW house shows, but not until Tracy returned later in 1999. Tracy was in great shape and basically worked a Will Ferrell bit the entire time while also being violent. He worked this like a dad that wasn't just yelling about his Dodge Stratus, he was also throwing stiff elbows to the back of the neck and punching Sabu in the kidneys and standing on his throat. 

I thought the work was really tight. Sabu kept punching Smothers full force in the forehead and Smothers leaned into all of them, so they always looked good brawling each other into position. The first ECW VHS I traded for in the 90s was a house show where Sabu moonsaulted face first onto an upturned table leg. Here his jaw is still taped up and Smothers throws several punches into it. They found smart ways to set up prop spots. When Sabu first grabbed a table and started dragging it to the ring, Tracy played dead until one of the legs started to collapse, and the second Sabu went to fix the leg Tracy pounced on him. Tracy could be downright great at occupying himself while waiting for someone to set up a table or a dive. I love how he got himself back onto the table, by missing a clothesline into the ringpost and taking one punch right to the face to fall right on it. Our cameraman gets really poetic, turning away from the action before settling on a wheelchair, picking up the action again when Sabu and Smothers were already lying in the remnants of a shattered table. We got the Scorsese of Cookeville filming this wrestling over here. 

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Found Footage Friday: SMOTHERS~! CENA~! MYSTERIOS~! REIGNS~! USOS~! PANAMANIAN APUESTAS~! MICHAELS~! WELL DUNN~!

Cirujano de la Muerte vs. Emperador Panamanian Lucha 1988

MD: I'm not sure if anyone else is keeping up with the vein of Panamanian lucha we've gotten over the last year but we'll be sure to revisit it now and again. This was a mask match that dropped recently and it was bloody, heated, minimalist, and at times a little odd in ways that's right down our alley. Cirujano de la Muerte, being the Surgeon of Death, had the traditional medicinal wrestler white mask look. He reminded me of the Assassin or Dream Machine in some ways. He had pretty solid strikes that came from interesting angles and once he ripped the mask and really got going on Emperador, used an object to high effect. He also had a way of stooging on his bumps and strutting around the ring like a chicken to get maximum heat. I'm a fan. Emperador, in his eventual comeback after getting bloodied up, had a novel sort of running, jumping hammer shot, but otherwise, his strikes weren't as good. Still, he ripped at the mask and worked a wound and the crowd went nuts when he got the objects and started to get revenge and made the surgeon's white gear red. It was short lived though, as Cirujano smashed a bottle over his head and went back on him as they moved towards a finish, an out of nowhere 'rana.  There were a copy of spots in this, coming occasionally at slightly odd angles like Cirujano's strikes did, but for the most part this was straightforward woundwork the whole way through. Post-match continued the antics as Cirujano got what was coming to him. A match like this isn't for everyone, but to us, it's timeless and effective and beautiful. Now if Emperador just had slightly better punches.

ER: It's always a joy to find stuff like this. We have some full territory documentation of several 1988 territories, and then you get something from Panama that looks comparable to other stuff from that era while also looking somehow influenced by nothing. You can't really tell who they learned on, and it reveals a lot about how a lot of this is just knowing when to hit your beats and pace the momentum. Both throw their signature strike in a way you haven't seen anyone quite replicate, Cirujano throwing a hooking jumping right hand, and Emperador throwing a variation on the Baba chop. Nobody else throws a Baba chop, nobody else has quite the same hopping headbutt delivery as Carlos Colon, nobody throws a punch like the Crusher; these two have their own strikes, that might not be as good as those others', but they are different and I always like that. Cirujano had an all time great dance taunt. It was part chicken dance, part merengue, just a flawless combination. It's like Paul Lynde doing Jagger. If Jeff Jarrett had learned this dance taunt instead of just aping the Fargo strut, he would have been the biggest heel in Memphis. Emperador has some fantastic stumble selling, rolling and bouncing into and off of the ropes, like a standing Red Bastien gag, theatrical but really great body movement. There's mask ripping, a fucking bottle of chianti used as a weapon, a real good crowd brawl that sends people running (including a great dad running off with a little boy under each arm), and a mirthful unmasking. Love it.  

Tracy Smothers/Chris Michaels vs. Well Dunn Brandenburg, KY 2000s

MD: Some of my favorite wrestlers are the ones that are always on, always in the moment, always engaged. Terry Funk, Negro Casas, Nick Bockwinkel, Eddy Guerrero 97-on, Eddie Kingston. There are those guys and then there's 2000s Tracy Smothers, the guy who breaks the meter. There's not a moment of this match, including the period before and after it starts, that he's not engaging, engaging with his partner, with his opponents, with the ref, with the crowd, with the ring announcer, with his valet, with the laws of physics. He engages so thoroughly, so constantly, so dynamically, that he invokes wrestling to one of its highest possible degree, he engages with a reality of his own making and forces us to watch. That's a bit different than drawing us all into a shared reality where we toss away, for a time our suspension of disbelief, but it's certainly fun to watch nonetheless. 

I'm not sure if the crowd believed any more than usual on this night, but they certainly felt something, and he didn't give them a second to catch their breath long enough to think about any of it. He was constantly and consistently jawing with the fans (almost causing one guy to charge the ring simply because Smothers called him old repeatedly), trying to trick the ref with phantom clap tags, frustrating the crowd by trying to start a babyface clap when he was clearly a heel, bumping off of his opponent's offense and taking an extra bump just for the hell of it, hugging Michaels when something went his way, taking a powder after feeding like a champ when they didn't, from the first moment he walked out, to the finish where he got his comeuppance after using an object, to the post match promo putting over their next appearance at the next show and getting his heat back almost instantaneously by teasing the crowd that there was more to come. Michaels and Well Dunn played their parts, but you could have sent him out alone with a mic or with a broomstick to wrestle and he would have move hearts and fried brains just as soundly.

ER: This was pure heaven. Tracy Smothers has an act that makes me laugh at things I've seen him do a couple dozen times, playing some of the oldest hits in wrestling and always playing them with passion. Tracy is the angry southern Iron Mike Sharpe, and I'd hope you know that is a high compliment of an excellent character. Mike Sharpe did some of these routines in opening matches in the Northeast for a good decade, and Tracy takes it and ups the anger and violence and death threats. It's beautiful. This is Tracy stooging, stalling, and aggressively pointing fingers at every person in attendance. He gets into it with an old man, threatens to punch an "old hag" in the face, threatens kids, anything but actually lock up. This is a match where Tracy does more fake tag hand claps than I think I've ever seen in a match. Tracy Smothers holds a good crowd in a small rundown Kentucky building in the palm of his hand for 15 minutes, and I don't think he did any offense other than a handful of well timed (and loaded) punches. 

I like Well Dunn a lot, and I like Chris Michaels, but this could have been Tracy with literally any three wrestlers on the planet and been the exact same show. A team like Well Dunn is almost wasted in a role like this, because this was a role any green babyface team could have pulled off. Tracy was the ultimate in-ring safety net in a match like this. There is a lot of Not Wrestling and it is all Very Entertaining Wrestling. Tracy takes a couple of big bumps, one on a noggin knocker on the apron, others just bumping for punches, one just because he didn't realize Steve Doll was behind him. The match built to a great Rex King hot tag where he lays out Smothers and Michaels with consecutive hard clotheslines, and does his awesome hooking heel kick in the corner. Tracy's valet distracts King and Smothers blasts him with a loaded fist, then does the most hilarious and ridiculous pin, sitting down on King's chest and flexing his biceps, leaving himself wide open for King to steal the win. The post-match is great, with Smothers and Michaels blindsiding Well Dunn with a great loaded fist (Smothers) and an excellent superkick (Michaels, far and away the biggest piece of offense in the match), then some classic Smothers mic work. When Smothers ends the night saying "I got a major surprise for you on the 8th. Somebody's gonna DIE!" you know that's the good stuff. 

John Cena/Rey & Dominik Mysterio vs. Roman Reigns/Usos WWE 8/1/21

MD: This was just last year, but it's found footage to us. It's a little amazing how conservative this was structurally, very Tito Santana, more so than you'd expect out of a Strike Force tag even. Rey started, teased Cena coming in but ate a cheapshot. That meant he had to handle things himself and when it came time to tag, he tagged Dominik. They hit a double team, but Dom got stuffed by the Usos pretty quickly and then played face-in-peril for most of the rest of the match.

Reigns came in sparingly, but I really liked how the first hope spot, where Dominik tried to fire back on him, was less about him potentially getting the tag and more about him daring to show defiance. There was a real sense of hierarchy there that almost never plays so well in WWE. As the beating continued, he got his reps in against the Usos, with some subsequent hope spots better than others (the one where he kicked them both over the top from a prone position was pretty dubious). Meanwhile, Cena and Rey worked the corner as well as you'd expect. Cena wasn't going to be in for more than a couple of minutes, but he was still having a blast out there. After the hot tag, Cena played the hits, though there was a pretty inexplicable ref bump that didn't feed into anything. I wouldn't call the structure of the match lazy so much as it was distilled and set up to hype the crowd as much as possible to see the attraction. It was still a little weird when you think about it, because in a babyface Andre trios, for instance, he'd do more in the first third and wouldn't be saved all for the end.

ER: I really liked this, and I think it's another piece of evidence that Dominik is an underrated worker. He's not ever going to be his father, but that's a dumb statement because no other wrestler is his father. This whole match settled down pretty quickly into a 12 minute Dominik vs. The Usos match, and I thought Dominik was just as good as the face in peril as the Usos were at bumping for him and preventing his tags. I liked how Dominik stood up to Roman on the apron, and how that got him an immediate headbutt that lead to his next 12 minutes of trouble. Everyone in the match had main event house show timing down perfectly, with Dominik really good at getting *this* close to Cena's reaching hand before an Uso would get him back to the corner, or a great moment late in the match where both Usos gets bumped to the floor and Dominik begins his slow crawl to his corner. Roman was great on the apron as his cockiness turned to frustration and his frustration turned to panic, yelling at both Usos to get up off the floor to stop the tag. Jey eventually ran in and dropkicked Cena and dragged Dominik by the leg back to their corner. 

It's all house show timing, but the timing needs to be there or it just feels rote. I don't think this ever felt rote, I think they teased it along really well and the crowd just wanted to see Cena the longer Dominik took a beating. When Dominik did finally make the tag it was explosive, making me feel a nostalgia for Cena that I didn't realize I had. I didn't actually know Cena worked any house shows last year, just thought he worked Roman at Summerslam. Seeing he worked 15 matches - all house shows and dark matches save Summerslam - was a surprise, and after years of hearing every male in the building loudly boo him, I loved hearing everyone cheering for him like they were little kids. 

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RIP Bobby Eaton Pt. 3

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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New Footage Friday: If Anyone Says Tracy Sucks Everybody is Going to Die

Tracy Smothers/Tommy Rich/Dougie Gilbert vs. Sabu/Ricky Morton/Bobby Blaze CAPW 2/11/01

MD: The first thing Smothers does in this match is berate the crowd on the mic. The second thing he does is stomp and try to get a clap going. It's beautiful stuff. This was really good stuff, actually. Blaze worked a lot of it for his side, both in the shine and as face-in-peril and he looked more than solid. Smothers did most of the heavy lifting for the heel side, stooging all over the place during the shine, including some good comedy bits and a really believable pissy fit dive set up for Sabu. The heels did what they were supposed to, cutting off the ring well. The comeback was basically all Sabu vs Smothers and they did some inventive things with a chair that seemed perfectly natural. I would have liked to see a bit more Rich and Morton but this was pretty much rose to the level of the talent and the time.

PAS: This a match with five all time greats, and we get a match built mainly around a tubby Bobby Blaze, not how I would have laid it out. We do get great moments from everyone else though, Tracy was heatseeking even while teaming with all time heatseekers like Rich and Dougie, I also loved getting to see Sabu as a hot tag which is a role he is great at, but not something he does a ton. Getting a hot tag and flinging chairs at heads is a great way to play that role. I could have used more Morton, Rich and Dougie, but that is pretty much always true. 

ER: We hate Bobby Blaze now? I don't think I could describe this match as "worked around Bobby Blaze" as it felt more like "Bobby Blaze was involved more than necessary because Ricky Morton, Doug Gilbert, and Tommy Rich looked like they didn't want to get involved in any way whatsoever". So we did get a lot of Bobby Blaze and 2001 Blaze doesn't look as good as 1998 Blaze, but I get actual laughter and enjoyment out of seeing he and Smothers work a juniors strike exchange like they were doing a weird southern old guy version of Liger/Kanemoto, ending with a Blaze rolling kappo kick. Smothers does maybe my absolute favorite bit of his, which is when he tries to start a clapping chant for himself and his clapping slows down as he realizes people aren't going along with it. Really this is the perfect kind of match to uncover and memorialize Smothers, because this match felt entirely focused on Smothers to me. He takes on Blaze and gets the match to the point where his boys are working him over, he sets up the brawl to the floor that leads to a huge Sabu dive into everyone, and then he's the one in there for the finishing stretch as Sabu runs wild. This felt like a match that Smothers was controlling front to back, and doing fun Tracy stuff all throughout. He busted me up throwing total doofus karate chops at Sabu in the corner, does little dances after getting reactions, and does all his wild eyed bumbling as hot tag Sabu is running wild on everyone, finishing with a nice triple jump moonsault. 

Tracy Smothers/Chris Hamrick vs. Eddie Kingston/Blackjack Marciano IWC 7/17/04 - GREAT

MD: Wildly different performance from the others we're watching this week. Here, Smothers plays it almost completely straight, easy and fun at times, but mostly reserved, doing what works in his role and letting Hamrick bring more flash, yes, but also letting Kingston really have all the rope he needs to get himself over. He gives him room to jaw and stooge and argue with the crowd, just giving him an effective, solid, credible straight man to help establish himself against. Kingston takes it for all its worth, constantly entertaining and fully committed to who he is, even if all of the physical smoothness wasn't fully there yet. This probably had a bit too much goofing and needed a bit more time with the heels on top but everyone had a good time with it and even in a loss, I think the heels looked better coming out of it than they came in.

PAS: It is fun to watch Tracy work straight man. He is usually such a force of personality, here he hangs back and lets Kingston take the lead. Lots of fun heel shtick from Eddie, trying to change a Go, Tracy, Go chant to a No, Tracy, No chant, flexing his flabby arm, and covering his ears. Hamrick doesn't take either of his two craziest bumps, but does hit the turnbuckle really hard with his crotch, and hits a cool springboard moonsault to the floor. We get a hot tag where Smothers breaks out his Tennessee Tae Kwon Do to take down both Wild Cards. I agree it could have used a little more straight wrestling, but it was enjoyable stuff for sure. 

ER: This was mostly an awesome Hamrick/Kingston showcase, and I am totally fine with that. Hamrick looked really vicious here (he and Kingston have a punch exchange on the floor that I wish I could have been sitting front row for) and I loved Hamrick showing off all the super athletic things he could do while Kingston showed off all the great ways he had of entertaining a crowd. I loved King getting boring chants and then just hitting a bodyslam on Tracy and a "Who's boring now!?" knowing that any other move would have gotten a bigger reaction. Hamrick had a really impressive split legged moonsault to the floor (making sure to shift his body right before landing so he landed sideways into both Wild Cards and not plow through a few fans). Hamrick is arguably the best non-Chris Hero thigh slap wrestler of our day, someone that doesn't abuse it and knows when to use it, and has the kind of perfect timing that really adds to a superkick or him kicking Marciano in the chops from the apron. There were things I didn't like: Hamrick's Indian deathlock/standing dragon sleeper took way too long to be interesting, and I wish there was a longer heat segment from the Wild Cards (I thought what we got was really good, and didn't mind so much great Hamrick action, but it would have made the match structurally more sound), but you can't much cooler with Hamrick's bananas finisher. Marciano flips into a sliced bread and Hamrick just drops him with an over shoulder seated piledriver, just a nasty explanation point to end a man. 

Tracy Smothers vs. New Jack Money Mark Productions 5/7/16

MD: When consuming a match like this you almost have to unlearn everything you've been conditioned to think about pro wrestling and look at what's before you instead of some generic star rating rubric. Smothers here (as an effective and engaging character, not as the actual person) reminded me of George C Scott in the Film Flam Man or the King and Duke from Huck Finn. Old southern confidence man, trying (and failing) to get the fans to believe in something that simply wasn't real. I've seen plenty of heels appeal to the crowd on a pull of the hair or tights that didn't happened, but it was more elemental here, weightier somehow. He started the match by conning New Jack into wrestling instead of brawling, and they wrestled like two broken down guys, maestros moving at one-sixth the proper speed. Because both of them were attuned on the same level, the go behinds and late match whips somehow managed to feel like two old wrestlers barely able to move but still operating under the norms and rules of pro-wrestling physics. None of it looked nice, but it all felt somehow valid within the broader reality they exist in. It's to Smothers credit that despite being such a legend and a character, someone everyone in that crowd knew like family, he was still able to get them so thoroughly behind New Jack.

PAS: It is pretty strange to see New Jack of all people, work a no bumps match. This reminded me a bit of 2000s Jimmy Valiant matches, where you have two pros who know all the tricks but are really fragile. New Jack retired in 2013, and while he has wrestled a handful of times since, his body is clearly broken. Tracy is a guy who is  great at coasting on shtick, although a bad house mic and questionable HH recording means we can't hear a lot of the mic work. Charming to watch, although the actual stuff in the match is pretty bad. 

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RIP Mitch Ryder

PAS: I used to buy XCW-Midwest DVDs from Mitch Ryder in the early days of Segunda Caida. We reviewed a ton of them and it sort of established SC as the kind of place that would review a dozen XCW-Midwest shows. Ryder was a breath of fresh air in the "do a bunch of stuff" era of indy wrestling and was always good for some bumping, bleeding, and brawling.


Mitch Ryder/Todd Morton/Tarek the Great/Bull Pain vs. Ian Rotten/Mark Wolf/Tracy Smothers/Sabu IWA-MS 10/20/01

PAS: Overbooked as it gets, but totally awesome. We probably didn't need a surprise partner (although Sabu is always great in that role), a Tarek the Great face turn AND a Tracy Smothers heel turn all in one match. The Tarek turn added nothing to the match and could have been scrapped. Still everything else was great, Pain cracking Ian in the jaw with a baseball bat, Todd Morton doing two crazy cage dives (including walking the side of the cage), Sabu taking a bump off the side of the cage to the floor, and tons of blood. Ryder was mostly on the outside of the cage running interference, throwing Wolf into chairs, brawling wildly with Smothers, punching Ian in his bloody head. Finish was some classic IWA White WorldStarism. Tracy puts on the ref shirt to count Bull down, only to jump Ian, then the Bad Motherfuckers beat Ian down while the fans throw things. Corporal Robinson tries to make the save by walking the rafters to the top of the cage, Ian's wife Patti tries to hit Tracy with a stick. Total Fentanyl clinic riot which is one of the best things about IWA.

JR: When I was in college I had to take an acting class as a general requirement. I was not a strong actor but I remember I did one scene with a partner and our thought process was “if we just cause chaos the entire time, it will cover up our distinct lack of talent”. It worked well enough.

I thought about that while watching this. As a wrestling writer, I’m someone who is constantly trying to identify narrative. I legitimately can’t do that here. There is a story and it’s established well, but I think to mention it or try and define it would in some ways take away from the sheer spectacle that unfolds. Every single person in this is insane. Sabu shows up early and spends almost all of his time bumping from the cage to the floor. Tarek turns face, the sniveling henchman finally growing a spine and standing up to the abusive Bull Pain and paying the price. Pain holds court, despicable and massive from the first moment, at once the center of everything and completely separate from it all.

Almost everyone is wonderful here. Smothers gets to work his greatest hits throughout, working as a fiery babyface and then turning mid match and working as a heat magnet for the rest, trying to start a riot every step of the way. Every single person takes a bump that they absolutely regretted moments after it happened. Todd Morton did two cage dives!

Of course, we watched this in tribute to Mitch Ryder. I wouldn’t exactly call this a showcase for Ryder, but his makes the most of his moments. In some ways, it’s a good microcosm of his career as a whole: while others will certainly have more words devoted to them, more camera time thrust upon them, in the moments that Ryder was the focal point, he stood out. The door of the cage was slammed on his back and he stooged and pranced like Rick Rude after an atomic drop. In the chaos on the outside, he flung himself around. Chairs and tables and fans scattered around him. He talked trash into the camera, filling the frame with his insane, sweaty face. In short, he was a wrestler. He did everything he was supposed to do and he did it well.

ER: When somebody seeks out an "IWA Mid-South" match, this is the kind of match they have in mind. This was undistilled IWA, the kind of grimy bloody violence you want to see, and the kind of match that's impossible to pick a favorite performance. Mitch Ryder's team come out to Eruption like they are zit faced teenagers, and jump Ian's team the second they come out from the back. And from there we got a perfectly messy terror of stiff punches, crazy bumps, and high emotion. Todd Morton was a real loon, doing TWO cage dives, and it's actually amazing how quickly and easily the shortest guy in the match can scramble up to the top of a cage. Morton hits a pinpoint accurate elbowdrop off the rafters ABOVE the cage, and later hits a frog splash on Ian off the top of the cage while fully protecting Ian. Sabu runs into the chaos and every time he pops into frame he is taking a way too dangerous bump, like falling out the cage door onto his head or getting kicked off nearly the top of the cage all the way to the floor. Tracy Smothers was a big Tasmanian Devil, and two different times I had to check and make sure the tape wasn't on 2x speed. tracy was throwing impossible to block punches, the kind of punches that look much more like the punches someone would throw in a parking lot fight. He was beating people around ringside, throwing Ryder meanly into a table and big cooler, and on his way out he clearly hit a fan. Ian bled about 5 seconds into this and didn't stop, then took constant offense from 4-5 guys for the duration of the match. Ryder was the real heel personality throughout this, taking stooging bumps, yelling at the camera, getting tossed into the crowd, running interference to kick guys off the cage as they were trying to get in, orchestrating Ian getting his arm slammed in the door, and that's all important. He wasn't doing the flashy stuff in the match, but he was constantly the guy doing the important stuff to bridge the violence, to kill time with charisma until a big spot from Morton or Sabu. Glue guys are underrated and important parts of big bloody cage matches, and they don't come more underrated than Ryder.


Mitch Ryder vs. Ian Rotten IWA-MS 11/22/01

PAS: This was an old fashioned walking tall babyface match with Ian putting up half of IWA-MS against Mitch Ryder's hair. It was a fans lumberjack match and Ian is seconded by Sherri Martel. Ian Bill Watts himself all over Ryder who bumps and bleeds the way you need to in this match. Ian adds disgusting headbutts to the big punches you would normally see in this type of match, and both guys get soaked by the end. Ryder is great at finding little moments to take over control while mostly giving the fans what they want to see by bumping around. The finish felt kind of blown by the ref, which is my only beef. Finish has the BMFs and CM Punk stop the haircutting, beat up Sherri and shave Ian's head. Keeping this feud going, I am not sure about bailing on stips like this, but the BMF's are always great to watch beat people down.

JR: So the stipulation here is that if Ian loses, Ryder gets 50% of IWA-MS. Does that mean they would then book by a two person committee? I’m really interested in how this would’ve worked.

Am I alone in thinking there is something about Mitch Ryder’s face, especially when it is masked by blood, that is similar in some way to James Van Der Beek? I’m not saying Ryder looks like him per say, I’m just saying that a drunken Ryder probably at one point claimed he looked like him. Anyway, it adds to the whole effect of scumbag heartbreaker.

This match is ludicrous. Ian selects fans to be the lumberjacks, four of whom were obviously pre selected and one was a spur of the moment call because Fanin and Prazak thought it would be funny and yelled loud enough for Ian to hear them. They essentially serve no purpose after some initial lip service that Ryder is trying desperately to escape. In some ways, the early portion of this is similar to what Phil and I wrote about with Methlab BattlArts, but with Ian cast in the role of conquering babyface. Ryder is good at helping Ian project that same sense of foreboding and dread, as though a match with Rotten is always moments away from slipping completely out of control.

Ryder does well enough while on top. A match can go far on simple things when the participants know how to work the margins. Ian is great at bleeding. That may sound silly but it always looks both grotesque and sympathetic. Ryder understands where he needs to be at all times, working the cut, using the sleeper enough times where a finish would be credible but the predictable escape is warranted. While the finish here is obviously a mistake, the work before is hearty enough to still be enjoyable.

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New Footage Friday: Last SMW Show Ever!

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

Wolfman vs. Sgt. Rock

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

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


General Jim Cornette vs. Butch Cassidy

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

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


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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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