AEW Five Fingers of Death 5/11 - 5/17 Part 3

AEW Supercard of Honor 5/15/26

Survival of the Fittest: Athena vs Billie Starkz vs Maya World vs Yuka Sakazaki vs Trish Adora vs Zayda Steel

Chapter 1: Zayda Steel

When opportunity knocks, Zayda Steel answers the door. She bet on herself, left the possibility of artificial glitz and glamour to rekindle her love for Pro Wrestling and start back at the bottom. Hard work is rewarded and she found herself under Christopher Daniels' tutelage. She lost a proving ground match to Athena back in April but found herself with a second chance, defeating Hyan to take the injured Persephone's spot in Survival of the Fittest. 

The match itself began with Athena and Billie at odds, Billie not wanting to tow the line. After a bit of shoving, Athena dragged Billie out to the floor by her hair to try to get her back on the right page, her page. Zayda saw opportunity knocking once again and she, Maya, and Trish surrounded the two of them. Athena tossed Billie into Zayda and ducked Maya and Trish's blows. 

Later on, opportunity would present itself again. Athena had survived the onslaught of Maya, Yuka, and Trish and was standing dominant in the ring. Zayda, throwing caution to the wind, slipped in with a chair and tossed it right at the champion's face. With some effort she lodged it in the corner. Maybe it took her just a bit too long, as Athena was able to reverse the subsequent corner whip. Zayda crashed hard and Athena pinned her, feet on the ropes. There would be other opportunities, other days, and Zayda would be there, ready and waiting.

Chapter 2 - Trish Adora

Trish Adora made her own opportunities. After crashing into Maya when Athena ducked, she sat out, watching Billie and Yuka criss-cross and rope-run against Athena and Billie. She asserted herself when the moment was right, chip on her shoulder, power coursing through her, and took out Billie and Zayda with a double spear. 

After Zayda was eliminated, Athena tried to continue on with the chair on Yuka. Maya may have been the one to come in with a Kendo Stick to break it up, but it was Trish who snatched it from her and flexed and stretched with it, beating Maya first with the stick and then with a chair. 

While she was busy with Maya and Billie was fighting with Yuka, Athena set up a lego set of chairs on the floor. Satisfied with her construction and feeling far more animosity towards Maya than Trish, Athena suggested a fortuitous alliance, Athena and Trish leaning down hard on Maya. But Athena doesn't have allies, she has minions, and Trish Adora is no one's minion. Refusing to let Athena berate her on the apron, Trish fired off on the champion and chokeslammed her through her own chair tower. 

Billie, initially at a loss, became enraged and targeted Trish. She had set up a table and had been working to put Yuka through it, but now she turned her all of her attention to hefting Trish up onto the announce desk and putting her through the other table. Trish fought her off, smashing Billie with a Death Valley Driver onto an announce desk that did, much like Trish herself, simply did not break. 

Back in the ring, Trish went for the kill on Yuka, throwing the Lariat Tubman at her. Yuka ducked and it hit a stumbling, still recovering Athena with the lariat instead. Trish went to capitalize but Yuka caught her with the Merry-Go-Round and pinned her. Trish had been a force in the match. She had the champion beat and it was only due to an interloper that she didn't have her pinned and eliminated too. There's more on the bone there. Athena needs challengers, and Trish, like always, has a point to prove and the strength, skill, attitude, and wherewithal to back it up.

Chapter 3 - Yuka Sakazaki

Yuka drifted through the match, the smile on her face tempered by a grit of her teeth. When everyone surrounded Athena early, it was Yuka who picked her moment and came off the apron to actually get her. She fought evenly against both Athena and Billie as the match went on. After Billie failed to put Trish through the table, Yuka successfully managed to put Athena through it, not just insult to injury after getting chokeslammed into the chairs, but injury to injury as well. 

When Trish hit the Lariat Tubman on Athena, Yuka could have hung back and let Athena get eliminated from the match, ensuring a new champion, but that's not how Yuka operates. She meets the challenge before her. She is a creature of action and motion, of life itself. Athena had tossed a trash can into the ring and despite Athena pleading and begging Yuka not to do it, Yuka struck true. Yuka may be good natured, but she wasn't about to have the wool pulled over her eyes. Instead, she took trashcan in hand and maneuvered to the apron, hitting her magical girl splash with the can. Again, Athena was saved, this time by Billie.

Thus ambushed, her moment lost, Yuka quickly fell to Billie's Avalanche Starfall cradle facebuster. But as she went to the back, she knew that she had the champ all but beaten and that she could hold her head high.

Chapter 4 - Billie Starkz

Which brings us back again to Billie. Billie, Billie, Billie. Twice rebelled against Athena, twice defeated. Inaugural TV champion, lost the belt. Made it to the finals for the inaugural Pure champion, lost. 22 years old and woefully lost. A new college graduate, but forever a MIT Student. 

Her defiance here was feckless and quickly subsumed. Her fire? It came and went. She fought hard against Yuka, only to get swept under and choked in the ropes. She was infuriated by Trish's action and went right at her, only to be dropped onto the announce desk with a Death Valley Driver. She saved Athena with a chair, but those chair shots seemed to lack a certain amount of heart. 

After eliminating Yuka, it was now two-on-one against Maya. Athena was hurting so maybe Maya had a chance, but Billie was able to come out on top in their exchange with a Destroyer. That meant when Athena did make it back into the ring, two kendo sticks in hand, things looked very bad indeed for Maya. Athena tossed one to Billie, dark master to apprentice. But where Billie's heart is clouded, Maya's is pure, and she fought back, right to the point where she was jousting with Billie on the top, chairs draped upon the mat beneath them. Athena went to strike Maya. Maya moved. Billie got cracked and then crushed with a powerbomb off the top. 

Maybe there's a light off in the distance. Maybe there's a path towards it. But for Billie Starkz, it seems so very far off.

Chapter 5 - Maya World

This left Athena and Maya. While she is, in her own way, an apprentice to Athena, Maya's never been a minion. Instead, she's become the possible heir apparent that Billie no longer is, the Final Girl who might be able to not just survive the horror story that is Athena, but to be the one to actually end it. If Billie is looking for a light, Maya glows all on her own, a light to combat Athena's darkness.

But she wasn't going to be able to defeat it here, not in a match like this. Up until this point, the threat to Athena had been the numbers, the unpredictability. There could well be a final encounter between Athena and an ascendant Maya, but not on this night and not in this way. 

That's not to say she didn't account extremely well for herself. She did. She turned the tide very quickly. Athena had used every weapon imaginable (save maybe for the ladder that she and Billie had set up in the ring), leaving her just her own precious belt left. Maya ducked it and took over with a nasty DDT on the apron. She hit her Reinera slam but couldn't put Athena away. Then she went for the ankle lock. 

Athena can sometime be craven, can often be underhanded, but she was no quitter. Billie, holding a white towel, on the other hand, is prone to being overcome by emotion, and she had so much to feel here: the sting of defeat and disappointment, the further sting of her defiance once again deferred, her honest care and affection towards Athena, no matter how she treated her. Put all those together, and she had every reason to throw in the towel. Athena wouldn't let her though, not just stopping her but altogether dragging Billie into the ring.

That was the distraction Athena needed, and one giant O-Face from the top of the ladder later, Maya, her own brightness temporarily extinguished, was staring up at the lights, and Athena had survived another day.

Chapter 6 - Athena

Diamante rushed out to help Athena celebrate. They browbeat Billie, though not with any real malice or seriousness. As things stood, it was all well past the point of that. For the most part, Billie had come through. 

More than that, through hook and crook, Athena had come through. She had defended her kingdom, had stood strong in the face of maybe her greatest challenge. The numbers were against her, and yes, at times she hid behind Billie, but at others, she faced three people down at once, running from corner to corner to inflict damage and pounding her chest in victory after the fact. 

That led to her getting a chair thrown at her face by Zayda, of course, and in truth, she had terrible luck (hubris?) with the weapons in the match. Every time she tried to escalate, furiously kicking the set-up chair out of the corner to use it as a weapon (that organic, alive element of unpredictability that Athena brings to her matches that almost no one else in wrestling can match), setting up the chair tower, the table (well, that was Billie who set it up), bringing in the trash can, trying to use the belt... it all backfired on her. She survived, but only because Yuka saved her once and Billie the second time. 

Were she just a queen, she might fall to circumstance like this: a plot, a conspiracy, the odds being against her, but she's more than that. She's the forever champion, the fallen goddess. Someday she will fall, someday she must, and yes, her own hubris might be a large part of it, but it will have to be both epic, and this war was epic, and personal and intimate, in all the ways that this was not. 

As a match, it was smartly put together, mostly solved the multi-person problem of people just laying around (in part, by eliminating Zayda relatively early so that the numbers were off and Athena could either be convalescing or setting up contraptions to be used later), and was extremely character driven. 

As a story, it call came together fairly well, leaving much on the table in the best way. Yuka, Maya, and especially Trish all have a claim for the future. Billie's tension percolates all the more as she desperately grasps at light now even further beyond her grasp. 

As a defense, it is another giant notch upon the largest belt in wrestling, as Athena shakes the dust of her peers off and marches ever towards the greatest legacies still left before her. 

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 5/11 - 5/17 Part 2

AEW Collision 5/16/26

Darby Allin vs Sammy Guevara

MD: There's a peace to be found in inevitability. The character of Darby Allin is careening towards destruction and he feels better than he's ever felt in his life. His body cannot sustain this pace. He cannot last. It's not suicidal tendencies. It's the universe falling into its proper place. He is champion. He will defend that title at every opportunity. In this, he has purpose. He will fight as hard as humanly possible. He will drag his opponents down into the depths with him. He will survive right until he won't. There is no place for doubt. There is no place for questioning. There's barely any place for thought. It's not nihilism. It is nirvana.

That's why, upon entering the ring as his music played, he bowed his head towards the mat. It wasn't exhaustion, save maybe for the exhilarated exhaustion of a job well down. It was peace. Perhaps it was a shallow sort of peace, one without true introspection, but it was peace nonetheless, and a peace associated with having climbed the highest of mountains, achieved the greatest of goals, a sort of peace that very few could contest.

Which is why he did not see coming Sammy Guevara boot crashing straight down upon his head.

....

And that's all I got. Sorry guys. I don't think I was feeling this one. I caught this a day later. Lots of wrestling this weekend. That meant I had already seen both the insane swanton off a ladder through a table, and then the very interesting spot of Darby passing out during the Scorpion. 

What I didn't realize, because you can never realize much from clips, was that they were basically how the match started. After curb stomping Darby, Sammy beat him a bit more, cut him off a bit, and put him through the table. About a minute later, Darby had gotten Sammy into the Scorpion Deathlock and passed out. And then maybe half a minute later, Darby was back on the top rope and Sammy pushed him off.

Darby IS the exception to every rule. He IS the cockroach that will survive the apocalypse. On some level this does make sense in context, a greater context of not just the match but his entire reign, hell, his entire life. 

But I'm not at all sure this maximized the dramatic tension (in fact, I'm pretty sure it didn't). After this, Sammy stayed on Darby but Darby kept trying to come back. Some of the cutoffs were quite good like Sammy hitting a cutter on Darby as he tried for a tope. It made some sense given who and what Darby is and the overall hierarchy at play, and to a lesser extent the fact that Sammy was fooling around a bit, but just because something can be waved away on paper doesn't mean that it will work for everyone in the moment. While I'm usually drawn in by Darby's bumping, selling, and desperate attempts to fight back, I think this one had lost me and didn't quite get me back.

You know what could have gotten me back though? If I saw something brilliant in the character of Sammy Guevara, something I could latch on to. He was cocky. He hit his stuff. He went right after Darby to start. 

But who is he? Is he the guy who despite being a pro wrestler in a kayfabe world is still desperate to get that 5* rating from Dave? That's kind of interesting in its own way so long as he's the only one like that and he plays into it as a character and not as the guy behind the character. That he sees himself as an artist and that his art isn't appreciated due to cronyism and lack of opportunity and being screwed. THAT could be interesting in its own way so long as he stayed fully immersed in a fictional world. 

Or is he the guy who was supposed to be someone at 26 in 2019 and now is looking around at 32 having seen his peers and even those younger than him pass him by, someone who realizes that despite the swagger, despite the mustache, despite still calling himself a pillar in a world where the other pillars have long since stopped, that he's running out of chances. That's interesting. It could create a sort of wretching, wretched desperation, one that either he hides behind a mask or behind self-delusion. 

No, he's not either of those things. He's not much of anything. The problem is that sort of character has to permeate through literally everything he does. You have to feel it dragging itself out of the screen and crawling down your throat. It has to make you uncomfortable, not in the way an overt horror character makes you uncomfortable, but in the way something far more real, something that reeks of disappointment and failure, might make you uncomfortable. That could be compelling, massively compelling, but it would mean that Sammy would have to be incredibly self-aware, incredibly vulnerable, incredibly brave.

And there aren't many wrestlers today that brave. I don't fault him for taking half measures and playing at playing at something instead of embracing it. Who the hell wants to embrace failure as a path to success? But this is pro wrestling and counter-intuitively, that's a path, and I don't see all that many other paths for Sammy anymore. He's pasted over his old workrate stylings with a patina of smarmy stooging to try to keep up with a changing world, but the entire endeavor lacks soul and verisimilitude. 

If he could somehow pull it off, maybe we might feel uncomfortable in a good way, in a compelling way, when we see Sammy Guevara wrestle. 

Instead, we're just uncomfortable in a bad way, all the more so when he takes a massive bump or hits a massive spot. 

With Darby, it is serene. With Sammy, it is jejune. Worse than that, it is mundane. 

In every way that Darby Allin is found, Sammy Guevara is lost.

He worked hard. He hit clean. He'll get some stars. 

But he won't find what he's looking for.

Not like this.

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Super Dragon and the Greatest Match Ever to Happen in Pacifica, CA

Super Dragon/Spanky vs. Jardi Frantz/Bobby Quance APW 5/11/02 - EPIC

ER: I was at this show. Terra Nova Hight School in Pacifica. It was top to bottom one of the best wrestling shows I've been to, and I've been to a ton of great wrestling shows in my life. I was 21, there with friends, and the show was loaded. A small four man title tournament meant we got two good Robert Thompson matches and two good American Dragon matches, the latter being their arm work main event. Three great singles matches, a strong undercard, but this tag was the match we were talking about on the drive home. This tag match is the best match of the dozen or so shows APW ran in Pacifica in the late 90s/early 00s, many of which I attended. I wish I remember the Excalibur vs. James Watkins match. I'm sure it had a great clothesline. Cheerleader Melissa and Sara Del Rey in a trios? That was probably good too. Chad Collyer worked American Dragon in the first or second match of the night, and after his match I saw him sitting up in the bleachers watching the show. I went up and sat with him, asking him a bunch of annoying questions, so I don't remember much about those two matches. 

I doesn't matter, nothing on this card can compare to this tag. Only one match in Pacifica APW history comes close and that is the Westside Playaz (Robert Thompson/Boyce LeGrande) vs. Jardi Frantz/Vinny Massaro match from 5/6/00. That one is not far off, but this match clears it. Two of the greatest all time APW tag matches. APW even ran a tag team tournament show in Pacifica now that I think about it. The people of Pacifica demanded to be treated as a Tag Team Territory. You need to run a strong tag match at your Pacifica show in 2002 if you run one at all, and you don't even need to make the rest of the card good. This card was good, but had it been garbage we would have still spent the drive home talking exclusively about this match. On paper, it was exactly what my friends and I wanted to see in wrestling. It was a dream. Our special West Coast version of the burgeoning super indy dream match. That it actually delivered on the on-paper promise was what made us true believers. 

Every man enters separately. The first sounds we hear are "Down With the Sickness" because Bobby Quance is inspired by no other man. It feels impossible that nobody else in indy wrestling history would have used Disturbed's nu metal classic as an entrance theme, but Bobby Quance was somehow the only wrestler who had the vision. Jardi comes out in a kimono to Hayabusa's theme, which is some tremendous weeb cosplay after going one on NOAH tour a year earlier.  Spanky continues the rib of coming out to songs with long or constant instrumental intros, coming out to the Proclaimers' "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" with an intro long enough to make more than one adult man yell "get to the fucking ring already." These guys were all about their bullshit and nothing was going to stop them. 

While I was there in attendance, I have no memory of chanting SUPER HOMO at Super Dragon and don't believe it's a chant I would have participated in. However, I recognize that it was a very loud chant, and with only 200-300 people in attendance any loud chant would require many participants. There is no video footage that confirms me doing or not doing the chant, but this was 25 years ago and we were all still collectively processing 9/11, so who's to say who did what at Terra Nova that night. I also don't remember Spanky working shtick around throwing his pubes at Jardi so some things just get lost to time and memory.

Jardi Frantz is now a well kept secret; a mostly forgotten wrestler only thought of by those who were there or those who memorized DVDVR 500s. I was there for basically his entire west coast APW run. He had evolved into a pretty great wrestler by 2002, a real slimeball who was surprisingly tough. A babyface only be default. His matwork was really strong and he got a lot of quick leverage over Spanky. This was during an era where APW was pushing all of their graduates to do real wrestling training and all matches had focused matwork. It was a great era. It's an era that should exist in full on tape and yet is the most unreleased great indy wrestling of the era. The Dragon/Quance matwork was an excellent example of their matwork ethos, worked like snug World of Sport, less flash more weight. Quance used his speed for leverage and rolled Dragon into a crucifix that had strong physics. Dragon had a stunning camel clutch application where he forced Quance into a full nelson and maneuvered that painfully into a heavy weight camel clutch. I wish he held it instead of quickly moving to a Gedo Clutch, I wanted to see him twist Bobby. All the matwork was tough.  

Things really took off when Spanky and Super Dragon fully cut Quance off. That was when they got everyone's attention. A lot of people in 2026 probably don't know the name Bobby Quance, but he was a super fast learner who looked like the next West Coast super worker from go. This was less than 10 matches into his career and he hung impressively with the rest of the very advanced guys in the match, and he was a good and right fit getting cut off. He played great from under and Dragon is best when he's sadistically going after someone. Dragon had an amazing back elbow cut off that started it all. A back elbow that would have played in 1983 Georgia. Spanky slid a fast loud kick into Quance's face and catapulted him into one of those Super Dragon chops that sends an echoing snap through a building. Spanky's pinfall attempts are as painful as his offense, every pin a stump puller, stretching this boy's ligaments. When Dragon did a springboard kneedrop onto Quance's stretched out torso and cleanly rolled through to the far side ropes to talk shit, everyone in Pacifica knew they were seeing greatness. Imagine Hayabusa with the attitude of Deranged. Sounds like the best wrestler ever. 

Jardi was great as the veteran Kings Road partner teaming with the guy who was 100% taking the pin. He gets a lot of impact on his basics, even if he doesn't look like a guy who would have hard bodyslams or heavyweight biels, a legdrop with unexpected impact from long slender legs. Spanky and Dragon bump big for Jardi's shine, Spanky going over the top to the floor on a missed charge while Dragon wraps himself around the ringpost. Jardi's running senton over the ringpost into them had the same energy as 1997 Juvy. Quance's shooting star press over the ringpost into them had energy that wasn't even imagined five years before. I remember being blown away the first time I saw someone do a standing shooting star, or Kidman doing his shooting star press off the ring apron. Quance, pro for a few months, shoots himself into brave new pro wrestling possibilities. It's as if several dozen people saw Blitzkrieg and decided to become wrestlers so they could invent more dangerous versions of flipping onto someone, acolytes forming over three years. 

Super Dragon was the best at taking Bobby Quance's offense. Quance wasn't around long, but he fought Super Dragon a lot during his run. Dragon was the SUWA to Quance's Dragon Kid. They're doing 1997 Rey vs. Juvy with their own spin and they're really great at it. Dragon is Juvy, decapitating Quance's Rey with a downward angled springboard spinning heel kick to the back of the head, catching and folding on Quance's springboard huracanrana. What takes it beyond, is neither Rey nor Juvy were as vicious as Super Dragon, and that viciousness ramps up to a big finish involving Dragon ragdolling Quance multiple times. There's a wild sequence where Quance is murdered by a cradled brainbuster, Jardi hits a 450 splash on Spanky that Dragon breaks up with a top rope double stomp, Quance gets whipped into a pair of brutal Burning Lariats, it's all just monstrous. 

I wonder how many other people went to the Taco Bell near the beach that is designed like a surf shack. That's a thing you used to do in Pacifica after seeing some of the best wrestling of your life. 

COMPLETE AND ACCURATE SUPER DRAGON

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Found Footage Friday: APACHE~! SKAYDE~! HECHICERO~! RAYO~! FIERA~! LUCERO~! SANGRE~! ULTIMO~! ATLANTIS~!

Gran Apache vs. Skayde DTU 4/18/10

MD: We're all happy that Black Terry, Jr. is posting matches. He's posted this one here and on Facebook, so give him clicks:  https://www.facebook.com/reel/1681600072845956. Here we got up close and personal for a super enjoyable encounter. Apache was able to keep up with Skyde on the mat the whole way through and had a bunch of thunking power moves, while also bringing multiple dropkicks, a moonsault attempt in the middle, and then the two dives at the end. There was something a little clunky about him at times. When he went over for the rolling Boston crab set up for a rowboat, he had a hard time getting over, but it never felt collaborative. It just added to the grit, and, in my mind, set up the finish where while he took Skyde out, he was spent from the effort he put in on the dives and couldn't beat the count either. 

What made this jump off the screen, however, was how sharp the holds were. They were so good at unlocking holds with little shots and bits of positioning: a twist of the arm one way so as to twist it another, a cradle that wasn't meant to be a pin but to set up the next hold, a transition from a kickout right into the next thing. For the most part Apache pressed the advantage. He had bit of a size, came off as an all arounder. Where he stumbled was not accounting for the fact that one side of the ring happened to have barbed wire all over it and he careened into it on rope running. Later on, there was a bit of added drama that for him to get a rope break on a hold, he'd have to grab the ropes on that side of the ring. It didn't play into the match too much past that but it created a more interesting environment for them to joust in.

While the crowd groaned a bit at the finish, they had no reason to complain with the action up til then. Apparently BT, Jr. is going to be posting every Monday so we'll have lots to look at over time. 

PAS: The 2010's period when Black Terry Jr. was just releasing incredible indy lucha every week (and we would get new FUTEN shows) was one of the most rewarding periods of my pro-wrestling fandom. IWRG and the smaller lucha promotions were just on fire, awesome cool matches every week with guys like Black Terry, Negro Navarro, Dr. Cerebro and many more just killing it. Lots of that stuff has been only sporadically available in recent years, and I am pretty sure this is a match which is completely new. Apache is a guy who dipped into that 2010s indy lucha world, but wasn't a mainstay, so it is especially neat to get to see him stretch, and more Skayde is also always a treat. This is a match which just fulfilled expectations, I came in expecting great looking Llave, some cool exchanges and a little Apache high flying and it just checked the boxes. My expectations are pretty high for this stuff, and while it didn't exceed them, just hitting them is pretty great.  

ER: Had I been there live this is something I still would be thinking about. Black Terry Jr. is back and puts you in the front row of lost lucha libre like few. Phil isn't exaggerating about how much the original BTJ handhelds meant to his fandom, I remember all the excited phone calls and texts about every single new upload, leading down the Black Terry rabbit hole, documenting some of the coolest lucha that had mostly to that point gone unseen by all but the most dedicated lucha heads. I don't think I've ever seen Gran Apache in any of BTJ's handhelds, and the sight of Apache in an environment like this looks totally foreign to me. It's beautiful. Live, seeing two old guys (well, 50 and 45, youthful for our brand of lucha) working llave and the hardest fucking mat possible, it's the thing I want from my lucha. We see them fully up close rolling through exchanges, Apache rolling through leg locks that get tighter with each roll, going through what feels like a 12 step process to knot up Skayde's legs. Apache's llave somehow looks more graceful while Skayde's moves more heavily. I don't mean that as an insult to Skayde's work, I thought the heaviness added to the pendulum swings of his llave, his floating majistral looking like an act of magic physics rather than fast Quackenbush precision. Skayde's single legs and cinched in crabs looked ligament tearing, and Apache is wise to just start slapping and punching him the longer we go. 

Apache's punches and slaps were one of the first things that got me into actual lucha libre, believe it or not. I was mostly familiar with lucha through WCW, and Psychosis/Rey/Juvy matches from Japan or ECW. When my family finally got cable TV in the year 2000 it wasn't long before I found Galavision, and discovered Gran Apache slapping the shit out of Oscar Sevilla in his little Sears portrait matador suit. I was fully onboard the Apache express from one match, and here every punch and slap to Skayde brought me back to those first ones I saw. I never got to see Apache live (I saw Skayde once, during a period where he had gained weight and got outshone by a 60 year old Solar) and the sound of his strikes live must have been incredible. 

7 minutes into this I yelled "There's barbed wire in there?!" to my living room, as BT Jr. had kept that angle hidden. There's a whole side of the ring with barbed wire around the ropes and while these men mostly stay away from the wire, Apache does accidentally hit it once and yelps loudly, a hilarious camera reveal. It also leads to my actual favorite shot, late in the match, as Apache punches Skayde in the face. The afternoon sun glows behind them and The Barbed Wire Side of the Ring looms in the foreground unused, the kind of lucha vision only seen in outdoor tent lucha. Now that BTJ is back, who knows how many more similar visions we will see. We'll write about every one. 

Caifan Rockero I vs. Rey Hechicero 2/13/09

MD: Likewise, Rob's gone through a channel posting a ton of things and pried out what seems to be new or lost or recovered, perfect for us. And for us, it doesn't get too much more perfect than an incredibly blurry match between Caifan and Hechicero from 09. I'm pretty certain AEW fans have no idea how old Hechicero is and how long he's been doing this. I saw my share of his stuff back when I first started getting into lucha, including an apuestas match with Caifan from a year after this one, so this is like going home in some ways.

They go almost 30 and it feels like a series of a hundred mostly disconnected exchanges, each one interesting and experimental in its own right. They're all full of struggle. For a lot of it, Caifan is the aggressor and Hechicero has to get out of something, though he has his share of hefting Caifan up as well. Sometimes it's clear what they're going for and it works beautifully. Sometimes you're left to wonder. There's a shoulder breaker Hechicero does twenty minutes in where I'm not sure if that's what he meant to start with. Other times, though, the struggle is wonderful. When Hechicero went for a tapitia, he only got it after slamming Caifan's head into the mat a few times in a way that I'm not sure I've ever quite seen; simple but it worked very well within the sequence. Caifan hit his arm cradle suplex twice. There was a bit more of a sense of build for the second one, but you still wonder about him having to go to the well in such a long match like that.

They did escalate to rope running but then they'd take it back down. So much as there was a narrative, it was one of increasing exhaustion and damage over time. You believed it because they were doing so much. The moves did get bigger to a degree, more off the top, for instance. When Hechicero finally stunned Caifan enough to get the hold he really wanted, it felt more like him outlasting Caifan than anything else. I wouldn't call this particularly focused, but it was certainly imaginative and fun. 

Atlantis/Rayo De Jalisco Jr./Ultimo Dragon vs. La Fiera/Sangre Chicana/Charles Lucero 9/6/92 Plaza De Toros Monumental

MD: Lucero was a replacement for Tugboat Tyler. They didn't even update the graphics. But he's part of what made this fun. We've seen the rest of these guys go at it, and yeah, I'll always be glad to see Chicana and Fiera, but a relatively young (relative to a lot of the footage we have of him fifteen years later) Lucero in the mix was novel.

A lot of this is the rudos stooging all over the place, Lucero pretending Atlantis fouled him, Fiera having Ultimo run over his back, everyone playing into Rayo's act. Again, some of the novelty is seeing Lucero feed into it. Eventually Chicana punches Rayo in the skull while he has a hold on and the rudos take over. Atlantis comes back with a chair on Chicana and it feels a little unwarranted maybe but who knows what these guys were up to otherwise. The tonal shift is especially weird as they go into everyone-in-a-headlock-at-once and la estella and a celebratory finishing bit for the tecnicos but hey, we're not going to complain too much about mean Atlantis chairshots. This too, like everything else this week, was fun. 

ER: I love when 15 minutes of VHS tape trader quality lucha shows up, talk about a trip back. There's always something new to observe, always somebody who stands out that you weren't thinking about earlier that week, month, or year. Charles Lucero was someone I didn't know about until his matches with Hechicero, Rayo a lot of people didn't know about until he was older and lazier and up his own ass (complimentary, and pejoratively) and here they're both a perfect set of rivals. In the primera there's this great early moment where Rayo is teasing his matador attacks on Chicana, before just rushing past him to double hammer fist Lucero off the ropes to the floor, just swinging that Mexican Polish Hammer into his chest. His misdirections to throw off Lucero's timing are wildly entertaining. I enjoyed old conceited Rayo but whenever I see the stop-start routines done in younger Rayo speed it feels like some of the best lucha trickster work we have. La Fiera was also a standout, because early 90s Fiera is always going to be a standout, and here he was especially gifted at making 1992 Ultimo Dragon's offense sing. Great pairing, an accompanist who knew how to make a guy feel like a star.  

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Belief (AEW Five Fingers of Death 5/11 - 5/17 Part 1)

AEW Dynamite 5/13/26

Darby Allin vs Konosuke Takeshita

MD: Wrestling isn't about being real.

It's about being true.

And the engine of truth is belief.

Darby Allin is the rare sort of wrestler that makes us believe. It's in the name, definitional, right? A huge aspect of belief is making our suspension of disbelief as easy as possible. If our disbelief isn't suspended, we spend all of our time looking at the strings, thinking about how the trick is done, feeling like we're smarter than what we're watching, focusing more on the craft than the narrative unveiling before us. 

And that can be ok, especially on a second watch, but it's a level of distance, a level of disconnect. 

With Darby matches, we don't have to worry about it. Our disbelief is suspended. There are plenty of ways to accomplish it. I'll talk about some more when I get to Takeshita. But Darby? He does it the hard way. Maybe you could call it the hardcore way. He crashes and burns again and again in order to keep our eye on the ball, so that we stay focused, so that we don't blink. 

He takes hellacious bumps, not just at the hands of his opponents, but at his own hands, utilizing his own body as his deadliest weapon, making the diabolically brave and foolish calculation that whatever his opponent might take, he can take just a little more. He sells it all, grasping, crawling, scraping, writhing, and it feels like the sort of trick he can only do once, to blow himself up so that he can express that pain to the world and draw every viewer in. Except he does it again and again and again.

And over time, that builds up a second sort of belief, the belief that he can survive it all. Endless kickouts are a problem with all modern wrestling, but not with Darby, because Darby is the exception that proves the rule. With him, it never feels excessive, because he lives and breathes a different sort of more tangible excess, and it makes us believe that you just can't keep him down for three seconds. What's three seconds in the face of everything else he gets up from?

Then there's Konosuke. If Darby is reaction, then Takeshita is action, the other side of belief. He towers over opponents, has precise technique, moves with such ease and explosiveness. Darby Allin survives explosions. Konosuke Takeshita is the explosion. 

When he hits Darby with a German Suplex off the top and holds the bridge, it's a seemingly impossible physical act made believable, plausible, immersive, by his presence, how he carries himself, and that little extra bit of we know about him, the fact that he wrote his thesis on the German Suplex. 

In that regard, they're two sides of the same coin, both able to make the impossible seem possible and the possible seem incredible. 

There's another aspect of belief, however. That presence of Takeshita? It's partially because the character of Konosuke Takeshita believes in himself completely. He believes that he is the Alpha. He believes that he is a World Champion waiting to happen. He believes that he is better than Okada. He believes that he can beat Darby; he did so once before after all.

I'm not convinced that Ciampa believed that, that Brody King believed that, that Kevin Knight believed that, not deep down. PAC wasn't a rational actor to begin with, so let's leave him out of this. Knight wrestled conservatively, right until he couldn't. Ciampa compensated with a wild streak, Brody with a bestial streak. They overcompensated, overstretched.

Takeshita did not overstretch. He did not take foolhardy chances. When Darby tried to throw himself at Takeshita, Takeshita stood firm and swatted him down. He had answers for everything Darby tried and Darby had so few answers for the problem of Takeshita. Too big. Too strong. Too sure. Darby moved out of the way causing Takeshita to crash knee first into the stairs. Takeshita brushed himself off and took back over. Darby cleverly vaulted over him and then kicked out that selfsame knee and locked in a guillotine like he did with Knight. Takeshita just hefted him up and escaped. Too much.

Darby does outlast his opponents. He sends them both through the meat grinder and he comes out of it, sinew hanging off of bone to match his painted up face, more in his element, more able to survive. But he outlasts them another way as well. He breaks their spirit by surviving all of their best offense, their best attempt to put him down; by kicking out again and again. 

Eventually, Takeshita (being too much) finally did hit that power drive knee. And Darby kicked out. Takeshita was not shaken. He had other tools in his arsenal. Or maybe he'd just slam his knee into Darby's skull until his head was no longer attached to his shoulders. He had options. 

Don Callis, however, did not have that same sort of faith. He had been provided the Dynamite Diamond Ring before the match, an extra piece of insurance from an MJF who does not quite believe in himself enough to put his hair upon the line, not unless he has absolutely no other choice. Once Darby kicked out of the knee, Callis' belief in Takeshita was shaken and he enacted Plan B. Clon rushed to ringside to distract the ref. Callis gave Takeshita the ring. 

In doing so, he did far more harm than good. Takeshita refused to use the ring, for to be forced to need it would shatter his confidence in himself. And he was momentarily distracted in getting rid of it, which helped to let Darby recover.

There was a bigger issue at play though. He realized in that moment that Callis did not believe in him nearly as much as he believed in himself. Darby may have been able to survive up until that point, but he couldn't crack Takeshita's armor, armor forged through faith and confidence, through belief. 

Callis did that hard work for him. 

And Takeshita, instead of pressing on, went back to the well, back to the stairs on the outside even though the gambit had failed before. Thus shaken, he fell to the same overcompensating, overstretching, of Darby's previous opponents. Darby reversed things, and Takeshita ate a Scorpion Death Drop onto the stairs because of it.

The beginning of the end.

Belief is everything. Wrestling is not just a series of loosely connected spots. It is action and reaction. It is a building built over time. The cement that holds it all together is belief. Sometimes it is created by bumps, selling, execution; sometimes by confidence, presence, body language; and sometimes by the characters' belief in themselves and how that shapes a narrative and touches our hearts out in the crowd or through a screen.

You may think that what makes Darby Allin great is the daring, the bumping, or even the selling, but those are just the means. You may think what makes Takeshita great is his execution, his intensity; even, I suppose, simply his moves, but those too are just the means. 

Darby and Takeshita are great because they are so good at getting us to believe.

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80s Joshi on Wednesday: Devil! Ripper! Jumbo! Mimi!

Volume 3

6. Devil Masami & Monster Ripper vs. Jumbo Hori & Mimi Hagiwara March 1982 

MD: My biggest takeaway here is that all four of these women had improved quite a bit from 79-80. But my bigger takeaway from this and the disc overall so far is that Mimi has gotten very good. Generally, I think of her selling and emoting and we saw a ton of that in the Devil’s singles, but this was more about her taking stuff in the moment and dishing it back out. She matches up very well with Devil. Meanwhile, while not quite as improved, Hori is still much better at working her size and asserting herself.

The combination of the two, combined with a house style which has shifted to more even wrestling and not just chaotic heels steamrolling people, gave this a much different feel than it would have gotten a couple of years before. Ripper wasn’t nearly as protected, though she was a bit on the finish, managing to clothesline both Mimi and Hori before they ducked and got her back (that drew Devil in with the stick to end the match). Mimi had a lot of clutch roll ups out of nowhere while Hori was able to just ragdoll Devil at times. We didn’t get a Hori vs Ripper match up though the match seemed to build to it. They had a singles eventually  but we don’t have it on tape. Devil did take over in the second fall and it was by smashing Mimi in the head with a chair a few times; it didn’t matter how assertive the babyfaces were in the face of that. I’m not sure this one ever really settled down but it each fall had a nice, exciting, sprinty feel to it, at least. And it’s convinced me that I’m right about how far Hagiwara has come and the fact she probably doesn’t get enough credit.

K: 2/3 falls main event tag match. Pretty common on AJW TV at this time.

The purpose of the first fall seems to be developing the feud between Devil Masami and Mimi Hagiwara. Not that Monster & Jumbo don't contribute anything, but there's no real big moment from them, although part of that might be when they're all brawling on the outside the camera is following Devil & Mimi fighting a lot more often. Even compared to their last singles things feel a bit more frantic in how they're throwing themselves at each other desperate to gain the upper hand. It's a good vibe. Things look pretty dangerous when Mimi hits her special backdrop and looks like she almost drops Devil on the back of her head, and then straight afterward picks Devil up for what looked like a very low piledriver. Devil sells it extremely well or is legitimately knocked loopy...

I actually think it is Devil just selling really well though, as she's still acting like she's been knocked loopy in the 2nd fall, however takes a perfect bump for a Mimi punch which, if I can break kayfabe a little, obviously wasn't hard enough to actually put her on her ass. Very good Devil performance here.

This second fall is when we switch to showcasing Monster Ripper a bit. The moment she tags in for the first time, she shoves Mimi and Mimi goes so far flying backwards the crowd audibly gasps. Great bump, but also very effective in the wider context as this gets over that Monster is superhuman strong and we should be very worried about the babyfaces in this match, but also future matches Monster's gonna be in on this tour. Monster also gets to throw around and suplex Jumbo Hori when they're paired, which you don't see often.

Mimi gets hit with a big backbreaker and it's her turn to still be selling when the 3rd fall starts. Devil hits a nice Jumbo Tsuruta style running knee, I've heard that she was one of the few AJW wrestlers to watch men's wrestling, so that might have been evidence of it. She also looks really good crush Mimi's throat with her shin and then dragging her across the match in that position so she's in the heel corner. I've seen that move from Yumi Ikeshita before, but the not the dragging across the mat escalated version. 

There's no 'big' moment to point to here, but Mimi's selling in this whole section is very good. She looked exhausted and struggling to just hang on and survive. Even her elegant rollups still have an element of 'just acting on instinct' in them. Melancholy is in the air. She's doing a lot of work here and it's not that much of a problem that Jumbo Hori, hasn't really done much. She hits a couple of cool looking powerbombs in this 3rd fall but other than that her tagging in feels like just parts where Mimi can get a break. 

One of those matches that’s clearly good, if not entirely satisfying, but you’re definitely wanting more. But of course I would say that wouldn’t I? 

***1/2
  

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 5/4 - 5/10

ROH TV 5/7/26

The Infantry vs Eddie Kingston/Ortiz

MD: I don't get a lot of chance to talk about the Infantry. I'd like to talk about the Infantry. I'm going to talk about the Infantry. 

If you asked me my take on Bravo and Dean in 2023, I'd tell you that they had a real WCW C-Show vibe to them, that sort of Men At Work or Disorderly Conduct feel. Mean Mike and Tough Tom. Nothing wrong with that. My kind of thing. Good hands. Guys you want on a card. Guys who could put over people you want to push and make them look good in a five minute or seven minute or ten minute match, whatever time you had to fill. A good team, but a low ceiling as high energy babyfaces who could engage the crowd early in the night and do their job well. 

They have come so far from that point and I'd argue without a ton of machinery behind them. You want me to liken them to someone now? I'd compare them to DDP, someone who put in the work, honed his act, got better and better, and ultimately was undeniable. Obviously, they're not entirely (definitionally) undeniable yet, but no one that takes the time, seeks them out, and pays attention would think of denying them. Right now, I don't see a ceiling except for the imagination of bookers. 

They're an incredibly alive, immersive, engaged act. Constant movement, constant working (their opponents in the ring and on the apron, the ref, the camera, the crowd, each other, other members of STP at ringside), constant jawing, constant innovation. They keep adding to the act. That could be anything from Ishin Gundan style clubbering in the corner to Dean utilizing the Bronco Buster to Bravo sitting on the apron and talking to the camera or playing to Christyan XO at ringside. Bravo has fun strikes, and I think his crossover punch looks a good as almost anything else in AEW/ROH. 

And they manage all of this while leaning into the strengths of tag team wrestling instead of just letting it fall to excess and become a structureless mess. 

Look at the Eddie/Ortiz match. Ortiz scrapped with them early, but they managed a blind tag and took over on him. They cut off the ring in about six different ways: Dean knocked Ortiz from a neutral corner into the Infantry's with a European uppercut. When Ortiz tried to proactively fight his way out, they caught him and started the tandem clubbering. That drew Eddie in and when the ref pulled him back, they Dean took the initiative to choke Ortiz into the ropes with his foot. He tagged right before Ortiz could start to fight back and Bravo cut him off. 

Ortiz was great here, constantly fighting back and looking for opportunities. When Bravo put him up in the tree of woe so he could throw punches, Ortiz proved himself to be anything but helpless and started biting Bravo's hand. Bravo in turn, stomped away. That drew Eddie and Dean took advantage. Eddie chased Dean around ringside, Bravo ambushed him, and they both attacked Ortiz. This is just great tag team wrestling, great heeling, using the rules as something to push off of to create a compelling narrative instead of running from them in the name of "creativity." The things they were doing here were far more creative than most endless bomb spotfests, because it was all creative within meaningful boundaries. 

From there, it's more cutting off the ring. Bravo shot off with Garvin stomps to Ortiz' extremities, but each one drove him back towards Dean in the corner. Dean came in, worked a hold. Ortiz fought up, got some hope, got cut off to Eddie's chagrin, and they took back control in their corner. That meant a tandem whip in, the Carlie Crossover punch, and Dean adding insult to injury while Bravo talked to the camera. They're just an incredibly complete, multi-faceted act at this point. 

After drawing in Eddie one last time, the match made it to the hot tag, but only after making Ortiz really earn it. The belly-to-back suplex he got just opened the door; he still had to dodge one last attempt to cut the ring in half and roll his way to the corner. Things broke down accordingly. Eddie cleaned house, trapped Dean and then both in the corner with his Kobashi chops (stooging; another facet to the act), and Ortiz got some revenge with a spinebuster and tandem Russian Leg Sweep/STO.

They transitioned quickly from comeback to finishing stretch by breaking up a Doomsday Device attempt and then took it home sharply, focused, avoiding sixteen false finishes and going with a banana peel instead. They hit a powerplex, which I'm not sure I've ever seen them do. Ortiz broke up Boot Camp, Eddit got his exploder, Ortiz snuck out a a drive forward pin, and they cycled into the post-match with STP going on the assault and Mance Warner making the save, building to the next thing.

Really good, focused, character-driven, technically sound, dynamic tag team wrestling that was built upon all the fundamentals of building up pressure and letting it all boil over that the art form is all about. They could have had a similar match a couple of years ago, but it wouldn't have had the same over the top confidence that makes them stand out so much now. It's the combination of the two, the substance and the style, that makes the Infantry special. People may not always consciously notice the substance, but it's there as strongly as any other team in the company, and they've picked their own stylized lane when it comes to laying sizzle on top of it, the chip on their shoulder driving an aggression that sticks with you as a viewer. You could slot them anywhere on the card and they'd deliver. 

Between Eddie's frustration on the apron, Ortiz playing his role extremely well, and the Infantry owning every aspect of this match, this reminded me of an entirely different sort of WCW match, something like Horsemen vs Rich/Morton where it was still a TV match, still niche, still relatively low stakes, but where some of us still remember it very fondly.

AEW Dynamite 5/6/26

Kevin Knight vs Darby Allin

MD: This was a solid and clever progression from the previous couple of weeks. It started out as a babyface title match, and rarely do 2026 title matches really feel like traditional NWA style title matches in the build. This did. They began by wrestling. There's something really refreshing about that. It was character-driven too. Darby's dangerous on the mat, but Knight is dojo trained. He saw how Darby kept luring people or dragging them into endless escalation, into mutually assured destruction. Darby is, as previously noted, a cockroach, and I mean that in the most complimentary way. He survives the escalation when others cannot. That's how he wins.

For most of the match, Knight was ready for it and he kept his head. That meant sticking to wrestling for as long as possible. The problem, of course, is that Knight didn't get to fully decide. Darby is a proactive, engaged competitor, a champion, one who feels like he is fighting for his life. Where Knight slipped was when he let Darby control the pace. That's when they crashed into one another with flying clotheslines, when they started rope running only for Darby to change things up again and go to striking instead. In that regard, it really felt like a world title match, like a game of human chess.

Still, Knight showed restraint and maturity. Darby has a need for excess, a need to push things farther. It's how he wins but it's also how he feels alive. Kevin Knight? He feels plenty alive all the time. He's doing fine. He's living his best life while Darby's living the only life possible for him. So when he dropkicked Darby out of the ring, he didn't go diving after him. He took a beat, took a breath, slid out and kept control. Very smart pro wrestling.

Darby is, however, a raging river, and even the strongest dam can only hold off against the rapids for so long. Knight took every opportunity but Darby kept coming. He tried to go after the leg, but Darby would have no part in it. He tried to control the pace, but there was only so much he, or anyone else, could do.  Eventually, Knight could put up with no more. Darby positioned him into a chair on the floor like he'd done with previous opponents. Knight avoided their fate (usually a missile dropkick from the top downwards), but Darby ended up in the perfect position for an insane Knight aerial attack, and Knight couldn't refuse. 

The subsequent clothesline from the top over the announce table was spectacular but also clearly a strategic mistake. Knight came out of it worse off, hobbled. Darby was prone, but Knight was a half step slow in taking advantage. He followed up with the Coast to Coast dropkick that had previously taken out Darby (at least that's what they tell us), but despite that and the UFO that followed it, he couldn't cover Darby in time due to the injured leg. When Darby rolled away on a second attempt, Knight had no choice but to follow and he walked right into a trap: Darby kicked out the leg and got the guillotine that eventually set him up to win.

Overall, another strong title defense driven by Darby's penchant for escalation and his opponent having to weigh the cost/benefit of keeping up or pulling back. Knight had managed well right until he didn't. I'll be honest that I would have been happier if the finish was set up by Knight coming up short with the Coast to Coast due to the injury. There's a tendency for AEW to overdo finishes here. Knight wiping out on the Coast to Coast would have been just as dramatic as him hitting two huge moves but not being able to capitalize and would have gotten over the consequence of what happened even more. That's a nitpick though. Overall, this, like the previous two matches and the PAC match that followed was very good. Hell of a title run so far.

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Found Footage Friday: 1980 HANOVER~!

9/17/80 Hanover

Chris Colt vs. Axel Dieter

MD: Watching Chris Colt in dark blurry 1980 Germany footage is a real joy. There's no other word for it. He wrestles like the whole world is out to get him. Like he can see them coming from every angle. And they're also purple elephants. What a guy. He was complaining about hair pulling before they even locked up. With every exchange he won he tapped his head like he was a genius. Then he walked right into some immediate comeuppance and he complained some more. Just antics with every exchange. Some great bits that were clearly bits but that never felt like bits. They just felt like him being off his gourd. He'd press a dirty advantage between falls just kicking and stomping away but Dieter would just come back and give him the what for. Post match, he tried to charge in an attack only to end up upside down in the turnbuckles. That's Chris Colt for you. We're lucky to have had him even for a moment.

ER: Chris Colt wrestled this like he was Eddie Gilbert in Puerto Rico, a foreign invader stooge who threw cheap shots and resorted to punches when home hero opponent wasn't even considering them, meanwhile getting completely upended on 90% of all exchanges. If you had told me Chris Colt doesn't have any offense and just gets by on drama, stooging, and bumps, I'd believe you. He wrestles this like a manager who doesn't think he's going to win the match but wants to be as disruptive as possible before losing. Even the ref is through with this guy before his entrance music has stopped. Colt takes forever getting his clothing off and the ref just pulls his shirt off over his head. It's like Colt took that moment and tried to have a defiant tantrum until he lost. I loved how most of his cheap shots lead to him getting hit, trying to attack after the bell and getting tossed aside, attacking Dieter after his loss and getting dropped off the turnbuckles onto his head. The man took a back body drop like someone who didn't expect to get flipped in the air, like an America's Funniest Home Video where someone gets double jumped off a trampoline and breaks their collarbone. 

Steve Wright vs. Sal Bellomo

MD: This went the full five rounds and it was a lot of fun. Babyface vs. babyface. Sportsmanlike though it did boil over a bit down the stretch with a fast-paced big bumping (Wright) strike exchange and some wild rope running where Wright would keep getting Bellomo off balance as they worked to the bell. Before that, it was very back and forth. There was one round where Wright had a headscissors on the whole time, but a lot of the early stuff was Wright being a nuisance with his cartwheels and escapes, only for it to build to Bellomo to have a cartwheel of his own. Lots of hanging on to holds as well, even though escape attempts. When Bellomo got one over on him, Wright would be good spirited for the most part, clapping even on his back. They did some very high level work, including some monkey flip spots where they changed direction and pin exchanges going back and forth. I don't know how much substance it had over all, but everyone watching enjoyed themselves a great deal. Just good, strong professional wrestling for its own sake.

ER: This was so good, real pleasant, watched the entire long draw with a big smile. It's tough to do babyface vs. babyface and do it sincerely, and these two might have been the best to try it with. The German fans obviously love Wright, but Bellomo is the Germany revelation that we love so much. These fans get behind their home hero and love this spry Italian, and it creates a real nice environment for their work. Anyone who is only familiar with Sal from seeing some kind of awful 20 minute undercard draw against Samula has no idea what Hanover Bellomo is like. He and Wright don't hate each other, even though it gets more competitive and the handshakes get a bit more teeth clenching, and instead we build to a bit of competitive oneupmanship that never feels like the same kind of grating athletic display as Eddie/Malenko. Bellomo works like a World of Sport legend, I was stunned by his skilled headscissor escapes and the way he works Wright's brand of tough guy athletics. I don't know what 70s matwork exist of Bellomo but his German work is different than any US work of his I've seen, yet he never looks out of place doing it. He is adept at doing complicated exchanges with last minute twists, and there's this great moment where things tip over and Wright shoulderblocks Sal off the apron to the floor. It's a different kind of toughness than they'd been showing and came a bit out of nowhere, a fall bigger than the back body drops and other spills he'd taken. Great way to peak the action, great match to spend some time with. 

Caswell Martin vs. Le Grand Vladimir

MD: Night and day from the last match. The second Vlad hit the ring, even before getting announced or taking gear off, he had tossed Martin out over the top rope to huge boos. When things got settled and he WAS announced, the boos came back even louder. This went the full five rounds as well, but it was a different animal. At the bell Martin got some revenge but Vladimir kept trying to contain him. Early on that didn't go so well. Martin kept slipping out including a great up and over on a top wristlock and the Zangiev escape on a headscissors. Vlad would pull the hair to keep the arm and then express to the ref that it couldn't be possible for him to do that as he, himself, was bald (even if Martin wasn't). There was a whole round where Martin controlled on a cravat going in and out of it and that was well done. After that, Vlad had enough and goozled and stomped and got carded once or twice but controlled until a big comeback from Martin down the stretch. Fans were super into it as you can imagine, and things kind of bounced around with that until the bell and the draw. 

UFO vs. Tom Shaft

MD: Shaft is sort of limited by this point but he does those limited things pretty well. Against someone like UFO, that's enough. His shots look good. He had some nice rapid fire punches to the gut as they were firing back on one another. He had this clothesline to the top of the head and some sort of jumping knee or kick that worked. And he'd bump when it made sense. First round was a lot of UFO using holds and controlling but at the end of the second, Shaft went flying over the top on a shot. He came back in between rounds to get revenge, and then they slugged it out for a lot of the third before UFO won with a sunset flip. Shaft yelled at people after the match. It's interesting to see him since we don't have a lot of footage at least. 

Achim Chall/Michael Schneider vs. Moose Morowski/Ed Wiskoski

MD: Fun while it lasted but it didn't last long enough. You never know coming into these if you're going to have a near classic or if things will just end off going off the rails early. They worked over Morowski's back to start with Schneider bearhugs and these great jumping double knees to the back from Chall. Wiskowski is a wonderful stooge in these matches, eating a bunch of dropkicks and then doing a Buddy Rose-esque fall through the ropes to the floor. Heels took over by swarming and drawing in Chall, and it all sort of led to nothing as Morowski hit a backbreaker and Wiskowki came off the top with a diving headbutt to draw a DQ. If it was just for a fall, that would have worked because then they could have gotten it back quickly from the damage done and the babyfaces would have had to fight back from injury but that was just the match. I'm sure it paid off later but we get these scattershot.

9/20/80

Kim Duk vs. Louis Laurance (JIP)

MD: We come in at the end here. Laurance is far smaller but he hits a bunch of dropkicks until he gets trucked by a Duk dropkick the pin. Not much to say. 

Steve Wright vs. Takashi Ishikawa

MD: Wright really is the Johnny Saint of Axel Dieters. It's a good act, but it gets a little old. The cool thing is that Ishikawa could completely keep up. And the other good thing about Wright, of course, is that after all the cartwheeling and bounding and kip ups and laughter is done, he is actually a tremendous bumper and seller, and he did so here for Ishikawa after a pile driver. that was in the second round and they went into the third more even, slugging away a bit until Wright caught him with a very impressive twisting backslide for the pin. Could have had a bit more of this.

Chris Colt vs. Caswell Martin

MD: This was a lot of fun, the most fun you'll have watching wrestling this year, maybe. Colt has those voices in his head and a chip on his shoulder. He'd try all sorts of things and Martin had not just an answer, but often a hilarious answer to everything. He'd climb around in a headcissors and toupie out. He'd suddenly have a hard head and goad Colt into punching it. He'd have Colt walk up the ropes in a full nelson and give everyone a thumbs down before dropping him. He'd get dropkicked and then drop him right back. Bit after bit after bit after bit. During the round breaks, Colt would flail about to the music and mess with the crowd. He'd get a few shots in or toss Martin out but he could never hold the advantage for long and it was all so entertaining that we're probably happier that way. Martin finally twisted and turned him all around before bridging his way for a pin. Great fun.

 

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80s Joshi on Wednesday: Mimi! Devil!

Volume 3  

5. Devil Masami vs. Mimi Hagiwara (WWWA Singles Title Next Challenger Tournament Final) 3/7/82

K: So this is the state of play going into this match. Monster Ripper just returned to AJW, she tagged with Wild Kazuki in the match before this one defeating Jumbo Hori & Nancy Kumi. She has a title match against Jaguar Yokota booked at the next big AJW show on April 7th at Yokohama Cultural Gymnasium, which they're already promoting. This match is the finals of a #1 contenders tournament, but that title shot will be against the winner of Monster Ripper vs. Jaguar Yokota at the next big AJW show after that, which is July 19th at Ota Ward. GOt that?

This has one of the wildest starts to a match you'll ever see. Right at the bell Devil grabs her cane and charges at Mimi swinging. Mimi flees to the outside with Devil chasing after her, Mimi picks up a chair and they have a medieval duel on the outside swinging cane and chair at each other. It's kinda funny when the bell rings, I hadn't noticed the match hasn't formally started yet.

That crazy start makes everything feel high energy and heated as they start wrestling in the ring. That and Devil's disturbing yells as she takes delight in maiming poor Mimi. This is hardly original insight here but yes what makes this rivalry work is you've got an all-time great offensive wrestler beating up a great sympathetic seller. Less talked about though is Mimi's got some great offense of her own. Her first big comeback (that doesn't last long) is just her throwing flurries of punches that knock Devil down. She doesn't scream 'great puncher' when you look at her and her skinny arms but she actually makes it believable with how much conviction she throws into them. 

Devil has a cool hold where she wraps up Mimi's arm in a sitting armlock, and then does forward rolls to clinch it in more, like she's countering a rollup but she just rolls all the way through. This is a start of a really good heat segment where Devil deploys a new method of torturing Mimi's arm every 30 seconds. A bit later on she's got Mimi's arm wrapped up in the ropes, contorting it around while her Devil Legion goons are getting cheap shots in. 

Mimi does a bit of prolonged arm selling that gives Devil's heat section feel like it had consequences for the whole match. When she puts Devil in the figure four she lifts herself up with only the good arm instead of the usual two. She goes for her special backdrop but isn't able to hit it properly with her arm hurt. To correct this injustice caused by the interference earlier, Lioness Asuka runs in and bodyslams Devil while Mimi goes up top to hit her flying knee, but the referee won't count the pin. Can't remember if I've mentioned this before or not, but AJW refs are very reluctant to call for DQs, so they'll do stuff like refuse to count a pin if someone just did something illegal rather than DQ them.

The finish is Mimi getting beaten up by Devil & goons on the outside and is counted out. It's a fine idea but the execution was lacking. Firstly, the babyfaces are completely ineffective at stopping the heel seconds from attacking her and it makes them look a bit useless, secondly it looked like Mimi had got into the ring in time but was counted out anyway. I don't think we needed a double injustice when her being attacked by Devil Legion already achieved that, so that just made the referee look bent. But still this was a very good match, almost great, and now we have Devil Masami world title match to look forward to.

***3/4




MD: This was the finals of a tournament and there’d be a big trophy at the end and everything. And I suppose a title shot? Devil had left her cane on the top rope as she was getting her robe off. The second she got it off, she grabbed the cane and charged and we got a fun bit of dueling with Mimi snatching a chair, before things broke down. Duel is actually a good word for the early goings here. It felt almost like a joust with each wrestler flying at one another simultaneously to see who would get the hair/head and whip the other down. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen it done quite this way and it was neat. There was much more of a sense of urgency to it than some of the face offs we see today.

Match opened up when Devil pried off an arm and really went to work with it. There was a nice long short arm scissor sequence where Mimi was able to roll her over but not do much else. Devil also used pumphandles over her shoulder but she decided to drag Mimi across the ring at the same time and it looked brutal. And of course they wrapped her arm in the ropes and everything broke down again, Mimi’s close-up emotive selling stealing the show. Mimi did escape and took Devil down to put on a figure-four. The selling never lasts too long in any of these matches but I really appreciated Mimi trying to manage the figure four with just one arm. While it got broken up by Devil’s goons, Mimi had some help too and after an assisted body slam came off the top but the ref wouldn’t count it due to the interference.

Beginning of the end here was Mimi flying off the ropes and tragically missing a cross body, landing on her arm and rolling to the floor. This broke down once again but this time half the seconds were keeping her from getting back in to beat the count and the other half were trying to push her back in. Devil just stood there, feet towards the rope, to block her and draw the count out. The commentary treated it a bit like a loophole in the rules, and Devil won the big trophy in a very unsatisfying way. That didn’t stop her from blowing big kisses to the crowd though. Mimi is really one of the most interesting and emotive sellers of all time. I don’t think that’s a crazy statement. 

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The Top of the Mountain (AEW Five Fingers of Death 4/20 - 5/4)

AEW Dynamite 5/22/26 and 5/28/26

The Top of the Mountain 

Darby Allin vs Tommaso Ciampa/Darby Allin vs Brody King

MD: Imagine yourself at the top of the mountain. Not just any mountain. Everest. The top of the world. You overcame injury to get here. You trained. You planned. You paid in both money and sweat. Hard work. People have chased this literal high for centuries. There you are. You made it. You planted a flag. 

You look out upon the world. For a brief moment, you feel one with the universe. You feel at peace. Everything is okay. 

Then you look down.

You realize that what comes next is a climb back down. You realize you have to reenter society. You realize that your communing with nature is over. What's next is life. 

The mountain was a hard challenge, but it was also an easy answer. 

Why live? Why strive? Why fight? Why grow? Why try? 

Because there is a mountain.

What is my purpose?

The mountain.

What now?

Revenge.

Another easy answer. Darby Allin, I am afraid to say, seems to gravitate towards easy answers. Hard outcomes, but easy answers.

The Death Riders put him out, so he spent months fighting them. When he vanquished Mox, it was on to Gabe Kidd who had gotten in his way when he was going after Mox.

And when that was done?

Well, it was time to find another mountain to climb, wasn't it? Mountains are easy. Mountains make sense. 

In professional wrestling, Darby's chosen trade, the mountain to climb is the World Championship.  

So he went off. He planted his flag. He claimed it.

Oh he said that the problem was he cared too much. I wouldn't call his promos heartfelt, but they were raw, a man trying to convince the world that he had convinced himself. I wasn't convinced, but I found them compelling nonetheless. That's Darby Allin for you. Compelling. You don't want to look away. Or maybe you want to but you can't. 

Darby was on top of the mountain again. He was one with the universe. He felt that peace. He found that purpose. 

You could see it on his face. Watch him come down from the rafters to save Kevin Knight after his match with MJF. Listen to the fans chant for him. This is a man who has found nirvana. Who found the easiest answer in the world, even if it he had to take the hardest road to get there.

But this time, there was something different. 

Unlike Everest, he didn't have to leave.

So long as he could defend the title.  

The purpose of a champion is to defend the title. 

An easy answer. No introspection needed. Just blood, sweat, and bruises.

So that's what he's done and that's what he's offered.

Everyone wants the belt for different reasons. For Adam Page, it was redemption. For Jon Moxley it was validation. For MJF, it was legacy. And the challengers want it for different reasons as well. 

The common truth is that they'll do whatever it takes to get it, and that it's up to the champion to define what that is.

"What that is" when it comes to Darby, is escalation. He throws himself at his opponents (literally, as he did at the start of both of these matches), uses his own body as a weapon, and endures, and endures, and endures some more. He is the exception to every rule.

He shatters so many narrative norms, takes so much damage, causes so much damage, does three insane things in every match, comes back and does it the next week. Could he do just one and it be framed to be all the more important? Probably. Is the sum still greater than its parts nonetheless? Undeniably. 

He is excess. He is overwhelming. Yet, it's all grounded in the wear and tear upon him, in the scars upon his body, in the way he drags himself instead of moving. There's a moment in the Brody King match where he just clings on to the protective mat as Brody drags him, pulling it back. I've never seen it done quite that way but it sums up Darby. He hangs on.

How does he win? By pushing his opponents to his level, past their own point of survival. He drove Ciampa to hit the Psycho Driller to the floor, a move that took as much out of Ciampa as Darby. He drove Brody to charge through the barricade. Darby managed to move and it was the beginning of the end for Brody. 

They had size advantages, especially Brody. They had strength advantages. They controlled. But Darby kept coming. He kept taking every risk, kept using his own body. Maybe if they kept their cool, stayed the course, remembered their advantages, they could have defeated him and won the title. But he raises the temperature more and more until he forces mutually assured destruction. He raises the stakes to a point where no one can survive, no one but the cockroaches. No one but Darby.

That's where Darby finds his peace, the only places, at the top of the mountain, and in the dust of annihilation.  

He kicks out again and again, probably too much. It felt like too much in the Ciampa match. It would be too much if anyone else did it. It will be too much when someone else someday copies it. But with Darby, it makes sense, because he is fighting for his life. He'd rather die than lose the title because to lose the title means to fall from the mountain, to be left without answers, without purpose, to have to figure it all out again, to have to live life like everyone else. He'd rather die. He can't bear that. He has to stay on top of the mountain. 

His body will give out before his will does. And we'll watch every second of it. It's a trainwreck in motion, not just one of the body either, not just one of spots and bumps. It's a trainwreck of the soul, and who are we to look away?

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Found Footage Friday: OMNI 84~! SPOILER~! GARVIN~! JAKE~! ROAD WARRIORS~! ROOP~! ROGERS~!

GCW Omni 4/22/84

Tommy Rogers vs. Bob Roop

MD: We come in JIP here and you get the ambiance immediately as people in the crowd are shouting "hit him!" and "break his arm!" These two matched up very well for an opening match. They had a nice rope running exchange where Rogers ducked a clothesline and hit a cross body and some really good hammerlock switches. Rogers had an interesting sunset flip in this stretch too, one where he had to really struggle to get over and it's so different from anything you'd see today. He controlled on the arm for a bit but Roop took over just by grinding his heel into Rogers's face after standing up out of an armbar. So simple, so nasty, so effective. He really kept things moving on offense, switching between jumping knees and neckbreakers to just holding the ropes to step on Rogers' throat and and using an abdominal stretch. Rogers just punched his way back but it was with a perfect bit of 'fed up' head shaking and the punches looked good, especially after Roop sent himself sailing off the ropes right into one. Then they went into Roop bumping around for him until Rogers lifted up on a corner charge and got a roll up out of the corner. Different sort of opener than usual given the contrast. I enjoyed it.

ER: Based on the 10 minute call, this is only JIP by 30 seconds or so and it's great. Rogers is small but has real power, Roop leans into Rogers' offense and bumps with real respect, and punishes Rogers when the match calls for it. Roop is a dense, tough guy, and Rogers hits him and uses leverage in a way that makes his long control compelling. Roop is great at selling Rogers' focused arm work, at one point gripping the rope to slowly stretch out his arm, using the ropes to provide restraint while he rolled his shoulder. Roop is Shooter Ned Beatty, strong at injecting realism into matches where you might not be looking. When Rogers holds onto a bodyslam and turns it into a quick nearfall, it's the only time I've seen that spot look like a shoot. Bob Roop can be so realistic in everything he does, that every part of my brain believed he was trying to bodyslam Rogers. I wasn't expecting Rogers to snare him and drag him over when Roop tossed him away from his body. 

Roop moves to control by standing up in an armbar, one of my favorite spots. I love when a guy holds the bar, legs straight to his opponent's body. As he's standing, trying to break, Roop pulls himself up straight by the ropes, ref Nick Patrick focusing on Rogers' shoulders. When Patrick makes Roop break, he does so while stepping down onto Rogers' nose and mouth. Roop is great in control. He does no unique offense, but he does it using movement that nobody else uses. His elbowdrop lands heavy and his legdrop looks clean. His backbreaker has great bounce, truly backbreaking. He throws a straight right punch that might be the single best punch on the show. Several of his punches are in consideration. He bumps for Tommy Rogers' comeback like Tommy has the best punches on the show, arms slapping the mat in big rolling back bumps, going up for a back body drop, toppling over for a knee to the gut. There's a great misdirection before Rogers gets the win, as he wriggles out of a bodyslam and throws a dropkick upon landing, but Roop coolly takes on step back to avoid the dropkick. Roop doesn't capitalize, but the last minute doubt in Rogers win made his sunset flip after ring more true. Georgia was great at that kind of finish, setting up the win with a near loss like a marathon runner briefly stumbling down the final straightaway. Fantastic back and forth, a real tough opener. 

Tim Horner/Sweet Brown Sugar vs. Les Thornton/Rocky Jones

MD: I think Rocky Jones was Mike Masters. Again, it's weird to have a tag as the second match of the card on these Omni shows (from what we've seen at least). This was a fun one though. Jones and Thornton were in matching blue. There was a long shine where they got clowned a ton, first by Sugar on his own and then with phantom tags in headlocks. The heels did something similar with headscissors but it was a phantom heat too as the babyfaces took over soon enough. Horner got greedy and attacked Thornton on the apron and got swarmed for his trouble. Lots more switches behind the ref's back by the heels and the crowd hated each and every one of them, making that same audible buzz that you'd get for punches back then, just the negative version of it. Some good hope spots and Horner getting dragged back before he got a maybe-too-easy tag to Sugar and the babyfaces romped the heels on the way to a Sugar missile dropkick and Horner roll up and victory. 

ER: I'm not going to pretend I know who Rocky Jones or Mike Masters are, but now I have 15 minutes of this man who is shaped like an approximation of Buzz Sawyer and The Gambler. I don't think he has a whole lot to offer the babyfaces while being controlled, clunky about getting into headlocks, but when the match - too late - moves into Thornton and Jones controlling and isolating Tim Horner he suddenly comes into his own. The match comes into it's own once they go full heel control. While I wasn't engaging with Sugar and Horner's babyface headlock control, the Omni crowd was. 

I perked up when Horner tried to cheap shot Thornton on the apron, a confident move that backfires instantly as it grazes Thornton and Thornton sells it like a graze, returning fire and bashing Horner's face into the turnbuckle. Rocky throws an elbow to Horner's eye as he's tagging out. I loved the heel control, Rocky picking Horner's leg really close to a tag out, the physical weight of them dragging Horner back to their half of the ring, the energy Thornton puts into kneeing Horner in the back from the apron, heels trading headlocks behind the ref's back. Sweet Brown Sugar's hot tag has some hot punches, and his butt wiggling dropkick off the middle buckle was fantastic, whipping his legs out in front of him in flight to catch Rocky over halfway across the ring. When Horner tags in for the O'Connor Roll, he rushes into his so enthusiastically that he runs face first into Rocky Jones as he's shoving his body into the ropes, and I liked his dumb guy babyface dedication to not half-assing it. 

Jake Roberts vs. Brad Armstrong

MD: Definitely a tale of two or three matches. Jake is fascinating to watch for the first five or six minutes of this. Go back, if you've already watched, and watch again and just focus on his feet. Usually that's not the sort of thing we tell you to do around here (it's not that sort of blog) but he has these lanky legs and the long pants and just the way he moves around the ring, a stutter start or a bound towards the corner, is really interesting. There are inputs that I don't know enough about the actual mechanics to pick up or judge and on the top of that list is footwork, but I can tell you that his here is fascinating. 

Likewise, he's so good at playing around in the corner, drawing Brad in, complaining to the ref, taking up time, frustrating everyone, getting heat. For the first few minutes of this, I barely remembered he was wrestling someone or that Brad was in there. I was just watching Jake do his thing. 

And his thing for most of the match was to sell his stomach. Anytime there's motion, either him flailing about or Brad cutting him off with a shot to the guts, it's great. Even when Brad lifts him up for a bearhug, it's really good. The problem is that there's probably six or seven minutes of this match where Brad is just laying on the ground with Jake in a bearhug. The issue isn't that he's laying on the ground with Jake in a bearhug. It's that neither of two things are at play: 1) it's not the heel doing it to the babyface and 2) there's nothing that I know of on the line here. Jake's not the champion. So while the fans do care about the outcome; that's clear from the finishing stretch, there's no major stakes that would benefit from Jake being super vulnerable and on the verge of losing (not having ball control) for a brunt of the match. And since it's the babyface doing it to the heel, while the fans are fine seeing Jake writhe and hurt, they can't get behind Brad from underneath in the same way.

When Jake does take over he focuses on the gut too and it's good stuff, especially how he conducts Ellering to interfere or distract the ref. The finish is good too as Brad comes back with some shots to the gut and a great dropkick and Jake is able to just slink his leg over to the ropes to survive the Russian Leg Sweep. Brad gets revenge on Ellering for jumping in the ring to point that out but then eats the DDT. Fans are definitely into it. But that middle section was rough, not because it was a hold, but because it was the wrong person doing the wrong hold in the wrong match.

ER: I am not a Brad Armstrong fan. I acknowledge that he is a Good Hand but his Good Handedness gets in the way of him being a Better Worker. He limits himself in ways that undercut his talent, positioning himself in an underdog position that defined him in ways that could have been avoided. I can't get invested in his work, I rarely get invested in his matches. The right thing has to happen for me to engage with Brad. 

One of the things that makes me engage with a Brad Armstrong match, apparently, is a tremendous 20 minute selling performance from Jake Roberts. I'm not sure if it mattered much what Brad did here, because I could not stop watching every single shiver, shake, and cringe that Jake did. Master class. Did Brad Armstrong have good offense? Maybe? For a guy with a great body who was never taken seriously against heavyweights, I don't think his offense was as good as Tommy Rogers'. But Jake's selling sure made me buy into Brad's offense for a startlingly long match. Does Brad have a really good headbutt to the stomach? I'm not sure, but I sure bought into it seeing the way Jake covered up and flinched after taking it. Jake sells Brad's whips into the turnbuckles like he's feeling them in individual vertebrae. The way he falls to his butt multiple times after taking an unexpected shot was the kind of selling we praised Kawada for on message boards 25 years ago. Every little movement of his, every recoil, is worth a note.  

But what you want here is the way Jake sells Brad's bearhug. It's beautiful, even if it seems ridiculous that this tall drink of water who looks like a drunken little league coach would ever be found in a bearhug. You don't enter into a Jake/Brad match expecting it to be this long, and you definitely don't expect Brad to be wearing Jake down with a bearhug for any number of reasons, but it happens and I loved it. You get to see all the ways Jake tries to escape, all the bargains he makes with God and the Devil to be released. Trying to break with a handful of Brad's tight perm, his hands shaking as he's brought to his knees and Brad meets him there. When Brad tightens the bearhug, Jake actually leaps up into his arms the way Scooby would leap in Shaggy's arms after being scared by the ghost of an old prospector. Jake slowly falls to his back and Brad follows with the hug, Jake trying to fend it off by pressing his forearms into Brad's face bones. I found all of it captivating. 

When Jake is in control, he does some things totally unique to him, the way he drills offense to take small advantages. He hits a pair of sliding punches/shoulderblocks into Brad's kidneys that reminded me of the sadism you see in Abdullah The Butcher matches, a targeted missile that had fast closing speed and real impact, and something I've never seen before. I love Jake's messy fighting, how he kicks and shoves Brad to the floor when they're both on the mat. You don't see enough guys kicking at each other from prone positions, it's all getting into position now. Jake kicks at Brad from his back in smart and opportunistic ways, not caring if it looks messy and dirty. Boots hit just as hard from your back and side as they do standing. 

Jake Roberts made me buy into everything Brad Armstrong did, which is no small feat. It was a given that eventually Brad would focus his attention on the wrong man, and it's hard for people to mentally overcome that inevitability while watching his matches. Jake made me take interest, and when Brad actually hit the Russian legsweep it felt like others believed as well. It might sound easy to fill nearly 25 minutes with a Good Hand, but there's a difference between filling time and actually making it interesting. Jake did both. 

 
Ron Garvin vs. The Spoiler

MD: Really interesting set up here. Garvin's title is on the line for just the first ten minutes and Spoiler comes in with a plan. That's to work a headlock for the first half of it or so to really wear down Garvin. Then when there's just a few minutes, he really hones in on the throat. He has this amazing move he does where he puts the neck against the throat and kicks at the rope causing Garving to spiral back. But he also hits a neckbreaker and drives Garvin's head into the mat and climbs the top to drop neck first on the top rope as he drops to the floor himself. And then the last minute or two is all about Garvin just surviving. He does, but keep in mind he's basically not got a single piece of offense in the whole match.

But the match goes on with the title no longer on the line. And that's really interesting, because then what's it going to be? Usually, it's the babyface who is chasing and then he's going to get the win on the heel after the time limit. Now it becomes Garvin going for revenge for what's been done for him and trying to survive a pissed off Spoiler who knows he can't get the belt. The match switches between those two themes. Garvin starts by wielding a chair to get back into it. 

Once into it, he tries to get his punches in or to work on Spoiler's leg, but Spoiler is too big and strong. At the same time, Spoiler goes for the claw at times but can't get it on, in part because he has to defend against the punches. He is able to work the leg however. Things build past a few comebacks and momentum shifts to a great ref bump where Spoiler redirects Garvin into him. That allows him to start with the claw. Garvin fires back but Ellering gets a chair in on him. There's an awesome comeback where Garvin has to punch his way back into the ring and a great finish where Spoiler comes off the top but Garvin catches him with a punch. This was a little aimless after the ten minutes were over, but that almost worked in the match's advantage because it was about both wrestlers trying to score points and make something out of the violent opportunity given to them now that the title was no longer on the line.

ER: I love this shit. The crowd didn't seem to want a 37 minute match where Spoiler works holds while weathering punches from Hands of Stone but I sure do. Spoiler has such a unique way of using the ring and using his opponent, and I'm not actually sure the crowd enjoys watching him do anything. That doesn't matter to me, because I am so enthralled with his style. He's great at selling for Garvin, he's greater at beating Garvin's ass, stretching his leg, strengthening his neck with choking. When a match starts with a collar and elbow tie up this good, I guess I'm locked in for 35 minutes or so. I love a tough lock up, the legitimacy of it, the struggle. Spoiler shoving off the bottom buckle to get the small advantage. Spoiler's wide base on his side headlock to bring weight down on Garvin. Spoiler's perfect chinlock that looked like the most violent thing in the match, perfect camera angle on it like we were observing a cell phone recorded crime. I lost it when he rolled to his back to wrench it in tighter. 

Spoiler utilizes the ropes in ways that nobody else has, facilitating chokes that seem like something we should have seen in French Catch. The fans get so annoyed when Spoiler does rope chokes, and he has enough different variations that I'm not sure I can ever tire of them. When he's lying on his back, bending Garvin's neck back over the bottom rope, pulling down and back on Garvin's chin, that's wrestling. Nobody else does wrestling that looks like Spoiler's and that always makes me gravitate towards wrestlers. It's more common that when they do something different, they do it well. Not as many are just allowed to keep doing things wrong if they aren't any good. Spoiler finds endless ways to be annoying, tough ways to work holds. When Garvin misses a kneedrop off the middle - a great magic trick, great form on the miss - he takes over with holds targeting Garvin's leg. 

There's an honest to god reaction from Depressed Ordinary People Donald Sutherland, a man who I can't make sense of. He and his wife are front row center at every Omni show, and neither has shown any kind of interest in professional wrestling. I don't know why they're there. The most logical assumption is that their teen son drown to death practicing for a swim meet and they've been left in his wake to attempt to maintain their routines and move forward while being stuck in a specific year. Like the territories in 1984, I guess. Maybe his wife loves pro wrestling and drags him there every single week and forces him to sit through tough matwork that is the least interesting thing in his world. He doesn't react to any wins or losses or dangerous spots or adept exchanges, but he laughs with the two hesher teens sitting next to him as Buns of Stone Ronnie Garvin has those tight cheeks aimed directly at them. Spoiler has a knuckle lock held from his back, thrusting his crotch upward, to meet Garvin's Stone Buns, the arc of his thrust aimed directly at Depressed Atlanta Donald Sutherland and two teens that aren't made like that anymore. He laughs and shows emotion for the first time I've seen on any Omni show, a man who hates wrestling to his core and just misses his dead son, but can still laugh at wrestling when it looks gay. 

Road Warriors vs. Masked Superstar/King Kong Bundy

MD: I really enjoy 84 Road Warriors. They were raw but had such energy and didn't calcify into what they would someday be. They could have been anything. Hawk just flew around, both on offense and bumping for people. He came off the top at Bundy with an atomic elbow smash and then went for another and took the punch to the gut flip bump. A lot of this was just wondering how they'd be able to contain Bundy which is a great feeling for a Roadies match. Eventually they did it with a missed elbow drop, working the arm (including Hawk going up to the top to do it) and double teaming. Superstar was wonderful here. I haven't seen him as a face with the gimmick much but it had all of 89 babyface Ax fighting the Twin Towers which is a personal favorite. And of course the fans OOOHed for every babyface punch, a magical time. Bundy came back (with Superstar's help; all it took was a little) and hit that interesting inside elbow drop to win it which led to...

King Kong Bundy vs. Paul Ellering (3-minutes)

MD: I like how Ellering almost worked this like a cage match, desperate to escape the ring. Bundy had a lot of fun with him, tossing him about. He hit one kneedrop in the middle which was the most crushing thing I've ever seen. Looked amazing but I get why a big guy wouldn't do it often. He squashed him with a power slam and then lifted him up before finally finishing him and demanding the 5 count as time was ticking down. They really gave the fans their money's worth on this stip.

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