AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 10/12 - 10/18 Part 2

AEW WrestleDream 10/17/26

Jon Moxley vs Mark Davis

MD: I'm writing this about a week after the PPV. I just saw the match. The way AEW PPVs usually work for me is that I get to watch the first hour or so before I have to take care of some parental duties and I usually just catch the rest over the next few days. Which I did for WrestleDream, including the Tailgate Brawl which I thought was a great, varied show.

But I held off on Mox vs Davis. I knew it was going to be heavy. I had to be ready for it. Then they went and ran a big angle on Dynamite and I knew that I should see this before that and long story short, I caught it today.

Part of the hesitance was that I knew it'd be heavy and I had to feel up for it, sure, but part of it was that I knew I'd be compelled to write about it and I don't know how to deal with Mox.

When I wrote about Cassidy vs Mox on the PAC tribute show, I did it as sort of an alternate reality Mox, a difference in perception and perspective. That was fine for a one time thing. It would not do this match justice.

The problem is one of sensitivity and appropriateness and is ingrained with the nature of pro wrestling and what makes it unique and special.

I imagine if you're reading this, you've read other things I've written about Mox. I love writing about the character of Jon Moxley. He entered into a pact with Bryan Danielson to shape the future, and then, for any number of reasons (call it a mid-life crisis; call it seeing what Roman was doing over on the other channel and feeling like he was falling behind; call it dissatisfaction with how things had turned out; call it envy over Bryan being champion and Moxley not), he crossed a line and didn't look back. 

I saw him as a hypocrite, a villain, a tyrant, holding the AEW Men's World Title hostage for the better part of a year and putting the company under siege. 

And that meant he became really, truly interesting once he lost the title and then had to deal with the weight of what he created. He had a bandit legion who needed victories and plunder, mouths to feed lest they turn upon him. He ran from Darby's revenge, was on his back foot against Kyle, yet through dogged desperation and a few dice rolls going his way, he won the Continental Classic. 

Food on the table. It let him spout empty platitudes (or full platitudes that he himself said in the light but then refused to follow in the dark), let him play the gallant knight and warrior once again. All the way through mentoring Ospreay, losing at All Out, and so on.

He was an emperor with no clothes, Fagin with his Artful Dodger, a demagogue pulling the wool over the eyes of his army and the fans, but never over himself, never truly.

He never had that peace. He always knew deep down it was a lie. And in part, that's because he never truly paid the price, never was betrayed. In a world where corruption rules and consequence is fleeting, this fictional character never got his comeuppance, not really. 

I've written a lot about it. You know how I feel. Right? Great. 

So here's where we stand. The divide between the people portraying pro wrestlers and the pro wrestlers themselves is much thinner than in other forms of media. If an actor dies tragically, their character is written off in the show, often in a way that makes the most sense for the plot. 

The character of Jon Moxley is clearly carrying the weight of tragedy. The way things played out in his backstage segment. The way this match played out. The death of PAC (of Ben) weighs on him. If this had happened on a television drama, you could put the onus on the character of Jon Moxley, make it so  Mox's actions led to the death of the character of PAC (not Ben), that it was his comeuppance, that it was the spiritual cost for everything he did. That would make this match make sense, would tie together the story, would give everything a cathartic path forward. It would be good fiction and I do think it's what many TV dramas might do. 

But the divide is so thin in pro wrestling that you can't do that. You can't suggest that. Ben was PAC and PAC was Ben and Jonathan Good is Jon Moxley and Jon Moxley is Jonathan Good. They are but they aren't but they are. I can't suggest that. I won't. I won't engage with it that way. It's terrible. I'm not going to write about that story, no matter how powerful it might be, and no matter how well it fits the heartfelt performance that Moxley gave. It's clearly what drove the performance.

So I don't entirely know how to deal with this otherwise. 

But I am going to try.

Jon Moxley hit rock bottom. It was cumulative. It was based, in large part, on his actions over the last year and a half. He had been running past consequences, past life and death itself, had been wrestling not through it, but past it. So long as he never looked down, he never fell, not really. He'd convinced the world, but never himself. And that was fine, because he thought he could run forever. He couldn't. The weight, both perceived, and so, so very real, had finally dragged his head down. He looked down. He fell.

And when you hit rock bottom, sometimes you find a monster at the bottom of the pit waiting for you. That monster was Mark Davis. 

Mox is a canny beast himself, especially with his back against the wall. This wasn't the first time in the last year he was in a tough situation. He came out there ready to survive. He was used to bullying his opponents. He couldn't bully Mark Davis. That's fine. He could out wrestle him. 

But he couldn't. Davis was too strong. He was able to snatch a limb and turn Mox's grip back around. Just like that. 

That was fine too. Mox would just go meaner and dirtier. 

But he couldn't. Davis was too strong. He was willing to go just as mean. Just as dirty. Moxley got a few shots in, but Davis struck back, and one of his shots was worth five of Mox's. Davis has a way of channeling that strength to hit you from odd angles. A clothesline while you're laying down, a half crab over a guardrail, the cross section of bestial power and opportunistic creativity. 

So Moxley bled. He was used to making his opponents bleed. Here he bled. The visuals were striking. Moxley retreated to the floor multiple times, and he laid there, blood dripping off his head onto the mat. When dragged back into the ring, white ring ropes found themselves adorned in crimson. Davis' chest was much the same. 

Moxley had bled before though. Maybe he'd never been in this exact situation, had never made it all the way to the bottom, but he had been low before. He was resilient, determined, dogged. He came back as he had come back so many times before. 

And Davis put him down. Hard. Pile driver on the apron hard.

Mox sat in his own blood, back against the guardrail as the referee tried to convince him to get back into the fight. He was done. He was spent. It was over. 

Until it wasn't.

The Continental Title means no one at ringside, no interference, but then, as the last grains of sands were slipping down in the hourglass that was Jon Moxley, hope hit him like sunlight rising in the east.

Marina Shafir. Daniel Garcia. Not at ringside but behind the rail, inspiring him as he had inspired them.

For so much of the last two years, Jon Moxley did not practice what he preached. That's what made him a villain. 

But those things that he preached were often good things, had value. That's why he was so dangerous. They were complicated like any other big ideas, but growth through adversity, through combat, through struggle. Those can be very valid things.

He helped reward Marina Shafir's hard work and determination with opportunity. He picked up Daniel Garcia after his opportunity had faded to dust. He offered them what they needed. Perhaps the act was self-serving in intention. But the act was still the act.

That's the thing about wrestling through it. About fighting through it. About doing the deed, day after day after day after day. It adds up. Intention doesn't matter nearly as much as outcome. 

That had worked against him when the Death Riders were formed and he claimed grand things and then committed horrific ones. But as Continental Champion, it worked for him. He was still the Jon Moxley who had ended Bryan Danielson's career, but now he was doing valiant things week in and week out. 

If you do the right thing for long enough, then you too start to become right in doing it. Consistency of action matters most of all.

He had hit bottom. It wasn't due to a betrayal (though that would come later). But he had hit bottom, and now, baptized in a pool of his own blood, Jon Moxley was reborn. 

The Mox that reentered the ring wasn't a bullshit artist, wasn't an emperor with no clothes. He was the Ace, the Wild Thing. He had lived among the beasts, dragged himself, his people, the company, through the mud, committed acts that could never be taken back, but one step after the next, he was fighting through it, wrestling through it, clawing and grasping his way back towards the light, buoyed by those who he had both led and misled, who were better than him, and that reminded him of the better him that he had once been.

He redirected Davis and made him bleed. He moved with precision and focus. He ducked under a clothesline so perfectly and hit the Death Rider. He went for the Brutalizer, but had the grace and focus (a burgeoning inner peace) to shift positions and put on a choke. And then he didn't let go. He squeezed like his life depended on it, like the weight of the world was on his shoulders, and he let out all of the fury and grief and emotion within him.

And he won. He had made it through, not through all of it, because we're never through all of it and he will carry that weight forever, but he made it through the match, through this first step of dealing with his own grief, and I think, through the first huge step of coming back to the man he once was. Inspired by those he inspired, he lived up to his own myth and he won the day.

It was a bloody, heavy, heartwrenching match, full of physicality and emotion. It was probably one of the best matches AEW has ever put on because it was one of the realest and deepest matches possible. It was about things that are real and true and human, things that pro wrestling can tackle, but that it usually does not. And they executed it perfectly in their own way.

Rarely do matches have a thesis statement. This one did. The only way out is through. To me, the character of Jon Moxley had so much more to get through than beating Mark Davis, and even so much more than the events of the last month. He had to get through the last two years, through even more than that, through a lifetime maybe. And I have every reason to believe he's going to spending the rest of his life finding his way through. But I also have every reason to believe that he's going to make it. That's what Aces do. And no one in the world could honestly watch this match and deny him that title.

Read more!

80s Joshi on Wednesday: Jumbo! Yukari! Chigusa! Lioness!

Volume 5   

8. 1984 New Year's Marathon

K: This is a cut from a much longer segment of AJW doing various activities for New Year. Here it feels like a spiritual sequel to the first segment of the set, in that it’s mostly wrestlers running :) I also think it fits the overall vibe of 80s AJW in feeling like wholesome fun for the most part, then there’s an ominous bit of foreboding at the end…

Oh and a bit of trivial, there’s a wrestler in the race almost no one will recognise called Masami Yagishita. She retired very soon after this, and later resurfaced as a referee in JWP. She’s still on the scene now as referee Tommy.

Addendum

Bonus: Chigusa Nagayo & Lioness Asuka vs. Jumbo Hori & Yukari Omori (WWWA Tag Team Titles) 1/4/84

K: This is the biggest of the bonus matches. The one which I had the toughest time deciding whether to include it or not, and still think I may have got it wrong. The reasons for inclusion are very strong. It's the first Crush Gals title shot we have footage of (they had another title shot against the Dynamite Girls of 8/27/83, but we don't have that one), it's a very good match, some think great. It also apparently did a great TV rating, and is part of the story of how they ended up becoming such a strongly pushed act.

Reasons against? Firstly, it's really long. I'd have to cut out two others matches to include it (I was giving myself time limits to not push people's patience), and I couldn't pick two matches from this Volume to remove without thinking nah, it's not worth the price. Secondly, we only have a little over half the match, so it's hard to assess it. I wouldn't give it a rating for instance. Thirdly, we're going to have another Crush Gals vs. Dynamite Girls match soon, so it's not like we're missing this match-up entirely.

The bonus matches volume was basically made so I could include this somewhere. So let's go. I'm going to start by absolutely BURYING Yukari Omori's terrible outfit for her entrance. Why is she dressed in a zebra-fur giant sports bra thing. Who on Earth thinks that's a good look? 

The crowd are loud and seem to be cheering for both teams, but Crush Gals clearly have more support. We get a pretty heated bit of argy-bargy before the introductions. Crush Gals did something similar with Devil Masami & Itsuki Yamazaki back in November before their match, so it's a bit illuminating to see that they did this for a babyface vs. babyface match too. Dynamite Girls don't come across as heelish here, both teams are being equally aggressive.

I don't remember ever seeing a match start like this. Crush Gals get jumped, and immediately get put into... double sharpshooters? It's the kind of spot you'd expect to see in the middle of a match where the babyfaces embarrass the heels for a bit. But in this context, it seemed to convey that Crush Gals are the less experienced team and need to level up quick if they aren't gonna get steamrolled by the (relatively) veteran pair.

Next segment of interest. Chigusa gets isolated by the Dynamite Girls and they focus their attacks on her right arm. Chigusa is really expressive in her selling and trying to struggle out of things, even if she can't get much offense. They milk this a bit, could have milked it a bit more imo (especially since they're going long) as this was good stuff. It gets wrapped up quickly though when Chigusa rolls to the outside to get her shoulder bandaged, then gets back in the ring, does a quick comeback with an enzuigiri, gets the hot tag to Asuka and before you know it Asuka's got the pin to take the 1st fall looking as strong as Goldberg.

Good set up, abrupt payoff. I don't think having Asuka look so strong like that served the narrative well. It would have worked better if her getting that pin was more flukey. Coz that's how the Dynamite Girls react. They're mad and really throw themselves at it and things feels more like a brawl in the 2nd fall. They make some mistakes too. Jumbo allows herself to get put in the sharpshooter by Chigusa, but Omori isn't having it, walks over and just breaks it up without regard for the rules and then hits Chigusa with a big top rope dive to the outside for good measure. Even worse is a bit later though, when she hits Chigusa with a guillotine legdrop where she's just lands right on her face. Take that you little punk.

It feels a bit harsh considering it was Asuka who got the pin and not Chigusa, yet she's barely got any focus. But nevermind. When Asuka does get in she also puts Jumbo in a sharpshooter, and Omori also comes over to break it up by repeatedly smacking Asuka in the face looking very mad. But it has no effect on Asuka and she just keeps the hold locked in, she's just that much stronger than Chigusa. I respect that that's the narrative they're going for, but it does result in a match where Chigusa is the one carrying the narrative and Asuka's role is really just to tag in for a little while, kick ass and then tag out for Chigusa to mostly get beat up again. I don't think they get the balance right.

Chigusa is pinned at the end of the 2nd fall with a big 2nd rope powerslam from Jumbo Hori. At the start of the 3rd fall her selling is awesome. I might say, Mimi Hagiwara-esque. She even has wet hair for some reason, echoes of the 1/4/82 tag. The moment I saw her like that I can feel my blood pumping.

The big change in the 3rd fall is that Lioness Asuka drops being the Goldberg hot tag and contributes a lot more. Certainly on the selling side, it's her turn to get isolated and beat up now. We see a lot of great offense here. At one point the Dynamite Girls do a Demolition Device style move on Asuka, except Jumbo Hori does a big flying crossbody off the top. Soon afterwards (a bit too soon maybe, but it's hard to say with all the clipping), Jumbo is on the receiving end of a side suplex off the turnbuckle. She takes the bump like a champ (well I guess she is one). Chigusa does a crafty little riling up of the crowd while she's on the apron here, but this is Asuka's fall and she uses her strengths well to make this fall the most exciting one. She can work a crazy high-octane pace like no-one else except Jaguar, even when she's getting repeatedly dropped on her head. She also very well conveys being an overly-intense jock super athlete who just wants to win no matter what, but wants to win fairly. 

Doesn't happen though. The 60 minute time limit elapses without a decision in the 3rd fall, so we have a draw. First time there's been a 60 minute draw in AJW since the Rimi Yokota-Yumi Ikeshita match on 8/8/80 AFAIK. These certainly can be effective when used sporadically and it certainly seems to have done the job here. I won't rate this because of so much being clipped out, but it was an enjoyable watch.

MD: It’s funny. I know the boom period is right around the corner and I am expecting to love it, but I am going to miss 1983. Jaguar and Mimi as the lead babyfaces. The Dynamite Girls as the lead tag team. Devil teaming with Tarantula and then Yamizaki. Chigusa, Lioness, Tateno all on the rise. Ripper back in for a run. Galactica bursting onto the scene and then gone again. Yu and Matsumoto asserting themselves on the outside. We’re missing a lot of footage, but I enjoyed the year. I guess that means I’m probably going to really enjoy what’s coming. We have to get there first, and we start with the team of 83 and the team of 84 facing off against one another for the tag titles.

This is a remarkable match, even if we can’t fully wrap our heads around it. I honestly don’t know what was cut. I presume it was a bunch of holds and feeling out and I don’t even know. It’s a pretty clever series of cuts. There were a lot of moves here, a lot of stuff, some tandem offense from the Crush Gals, like a belly to back reverse elbow drop, a spike power bomb, a spike pile driver. Omori used the fireman’s carry gutbuster a couple of times. Jumbo at one point hit her power bomb, rocket launcher, front tombstone sequence. Big stuff. There was also more martial arts type kicks, and not just from Chigusa. What we didn’t see however, were the Dynamite Girls using their finishing sequence. When they did hit their big moves, they were broken up more than usual. 

The Crush Gals controlled for a lot of what was kept. I wonder how intentional THAT cutting was? Probably me being a conspiracy theorist? Maybe it just worked out that way. Despite that, the Dynamite Girls came out as the original aggressors and things did absolutely spill out to the floor violently and chaotically at the end. 

The other big takeaway was just how worn out and worn down Chigusa seemed as the match wore down. She was already excellent at portraying that deep deep selling where it affects her down to the soul.

So those are big takeaways. The biggest though?

From what I’ve been able to see, they had pushed the Crush Gals so hard over the last few months. They were equal against Jaguar and Devil teams, even beating Jaguar’s team at least once. Asuka had some amazing athletic exchanges against Jaguar. She beat Monster Ripper and Yamazaki in a two on one match somehow. 

And it was working. The crowd was starting to change. Mimi, the Dynamite Girls, Jaguar, all had fan clubs that seemed to be made of high school boys. They may still have been there but they had been invaded by a small encroaching legion of young girls with paper bullhorns chanting Asuka over and over again. The tide was shifting and nothing would ever be the same. 

Read more!

Tuesdays with Daddy: Week 7: vs. The Mississippi Mauler Jim Harris

Week 7

Big Daddy vs. “The Mississippi Mauler” Jim Harris 3/13/82

MD: This is probably not the best use of one of my 15 matches but it’s Kamala! We’ve seen him in Germany in the start of the 80s as Big Jim Harris and against the right opponent he really did have a lot to offer. He could have had an entire career never becoming Kamala and he still would have probably done pretty well for himself. 

This is interesting because it was set up as best two-out-of-three arm wrestling with a match to follow. I had picked this, in part, due to the length of the clip (just under ten minutes), but I realize now more than half of it will be the arm wrestling. That’s okay though, because you clearly can learn something from such things. You learn a ton about a wrestler from how they participate in the side bits, be it a worked weightlifting angle or boxing or this. It’s all about how they work it. 

And here Daddy worked it just like he works everything else. He let Harris take over to start, building up that sense of vulnerability and then thudded him down to a big pop. This was two-out-of-three. It made sense that Harris would do something cheap to win in the second right? But that bit of vulnerability Daddy always showed in one way or another never got to the point of real true heat and danger. It was always safe. Always reassuring. I could make some sort of parallel that the declined empire Brits wanted just a tiny bit of terror, a little bit of that (ultimately safe and sanitized) Doctor Who “hide behind the couch” sensation and then to have their fears reassured in the most definitive way possible. But that seems a bit too much for this project. 

Still…

Well, anyway, that bit of peril that Daddy experienced in the first would be the whole of it. For the second (which Harris decided he wanted to be on the other side of the table on which was a good bit of heeling, making excuses), he pressed Harris’ hand down quickly, only for Harris to pull away and stand up at the last second, complaining on the mic for all the ills of the world and how they were Daddy’s fault.

The match itself was just a few minutes and yes, a bit of peril up front with Harris putting on a headlock. The whips would soon start, back and forth and back again, the big boom stuff that was made possible by the smaller ring (I assume it’s smaller. It may just be that Daddy’s bigger, but it’s really just a few steps from corner to corner with the way these guys moved). There was a moment of Harris missing the hand at one point which didn’t quite make things seem more organic in a way a slip like that might. The waterwheel back drop pancake looked pretty exceptional however, and Harris (selling quite well with spasms and attempts to move) couldn’t beat the count after that. The crowd, of course, was elated. 

The criticism is, as always so far, that if Daddy gave just a little more, then things would have seemed more gripping in his victory, but perhaps they would have felt less safe and even, on some level, less triumphant and monumental, less larger than life. Which again, gives things that short Goldberg or JYD feel. That is, of course, not to say that he didn’t show vulnerability at all. He just did it in a very measured, and I think given the patterns, self-conscious way. Was it because he was afraid to be more vulnerable or because it worked and appealed to his audience? That I’m not sure of, but to say that he didn’t give at all would be a mistake. Overall, this was worth including because it showed that the act could transfer into connected elements like arm-wrestling while still being incredibly consistent and undeniably effective, if, perhaps, too hesitant and conservative.

ER: Look at The Mississippi Mauler in his beautiful red and white poncho, a look so strong that I can see a world where he's a major star even without playing a godless savage. There's just something about a cool black guy wearing a poncho like he's in an Italian western. It's like the first time I saw Bounty Hunter Brian Keith making his way to the ring in a poncho, how much aura he had...before I saw him wrestle. Mauler has his sick poncho, he didn't need a cheap tactic such as letting a deathly ill girl accompany him to the ring, like Daddy. This girl's dying wish was to accompany Daddy to the ring and well...okay that's very sweet and I love that it happened. 

I love a good arm wrestling angle and Mauler is great at what makes arm wrestling angles so good: The Bullshit. My favorite is him refusing to sit in the chair closest to him, rightly suspecting there's some foul play and insisting on sitting in Daddy's seat. When he loses the first (of 3!) arm wrestling falls, that's when he demands to switch seats back. Perfect. Pulling away from a loss, kicking the table away, logging off PSN just as you're about to lose a game, that's the behavior I want to see when there's arm wrestling in a wrestling ring. Mauler gets on the mic and talks about how arm wrestling isn't what he was here to do, pro wrestling is how he plies his trade. It's so great to demand certain rules, and the second you're about to lose under those rules, gaslight the people into thinking nobody was even here to DO arm wrestling. We're here to wrestle, I don't even know what this tiny table is doing here, we're supposed to be PRO wrestling. 

I loved their deeply sunk collar and elbow tie ups. I'm not sure I've seen someone go after Daddy so directly. We've all seen the shoulderblocks and the belly bumps but a direct collar and elbow, strength to strength, is rare. This is a good one, with Mauler widening his base, forcing Daddy to widen his own, both men in a heavy lean so you can really see Daddy's big belly sagging down between his legs. Daddy shoves off each time, with Mauler pounding his chest like King Kong, leaping and stomping and hopping, as much to intimidate as to celebrate that he locked up with Daddy and is still standing tall. 

Big Daddy's Irish whips remain among the strongest looking I've seen. Mauler is huge but I can't say I've ever seen Kamala run so fast as when Daddy whips him back and forth into the buckles. And boy do we get to see him whipped into the buckles. Is it just because Kamala is so young here? We have the German footage where he's even younger, but Germany didn't really have a lot of "running" in their heavyweight ring style. It was a lot slower, a lot more walking. Mauler should be thanking the turnbuckles, because they were the only thing stopping him here. He was whipped so hard, that the ropes went slack and ringside technicians were required to hold the whole rigging into place as the Mauler kept hitting the buckles. 

And my god does Daddy's waterwheel absolutely CRUSH Mauler. I watched it back several times and it looks like Daddy lands full weight on Mauler's face, and Mauler starts sputtering and convulsing, lying there looking like Keith David after taking Roddy Piper's worst. I've more often seen Daddy roll it off to the side, but here he just flattens the Mauler's face and even with fight in him, no man was meant to stand up from that. 

Read more!

AEW Five Fingers of Death 10/12 - 10/18

AEW Collision 10/14/26

Darby Allin vs Hechicero 

MD: Darby Allin pinned Hechicero in 14:10 to qualify for Clockwork Carnage after hitting two Coffin Drops on Hechicero, who was returning to the ring after both men were wiped out by a spectacular Coffin Drop from the top to the floor. Darby sold his leg during the match with Hechicero targeting it and took some of his usual big bumps. The crowd was tired but went up for the big moments and counters. **** 1/4.

So that's a review, right? I put it together quickly. It's not bad for posterity purpose. It tells you in broad strokes what happened. Darby won. Darby qualified. It was a little less than 15 minutes. It more or less had the crowd. There was a big dive at the end. Darby sold the leg. There were some counters. You look at this twenty years from now and you theoretically have some sense of what happened. You missed the show because you don't watch Collision (even after Dynamite) and you have some sense of what happened. What. You even have a quantitative sense of how good it is. 

But look at what it leaves out.

This was a qualifier match, yes. It was the last one. Darby had survived Kyle Fletcher in Paris the previous week and followed that by climbing a mountain, because of course he did. His leg was bandaged up. Hechicero smelled blood. This was his first AEW appearance since August where he lost a Continental Cup match to Nigel.  Hechicero, is of course, the CMLL Heavyweight Championship. It hasn't exactly been a satisfying reign. There was the poorly received Eddie match. There was a three way at Aniversario. It's not like he's been able to defend it on AEW TV either, despite being a Don Callis Family member.

People complained, for good reasons and bad, that this finish was not exactly up to chance. Darby's more of a draw in the main event of a PPV, even as a role player among other main eventers, than Hechicero is. Though maybe you don't elevate wrestlers without taking chances on them sometimes. But then AEW is run by a stats guy, even if he's one who's prone to sentiment like any other pro wrestling fan. 

Look at the situation though. Hechicero had a chip on his shoulder. Darby had a bum leg. We should care about the destination but only in so much as it informs the journey. We care about where they're going. We care even more about how they get there. Otherwise, what's the point of actually watching? Why not just run a simulation. The art is in how they choose to get from point A to point B and how they then execute that plan. 

And this match was incredibly artful and dramatic, even if the outcome was never entirely in doubt.

Hechicero was, as noted, like a shark smelling blood, stalking Darby to start. He didn't go right for the leg, but instead used Darby's need to protect it to twist at the arm and the neck. Darby tried to use his legs to kick back to escape one situation, but in his selling, he was slowed down enough that Hechicero was able to catch him on a leapfrog and drive him down knee first to the mat. He followed that up with a rear roll on a tapitia (then dropping Darby right on his knee) which all looked particularly brutal. It was a creative leveraging of Darby's flexibility, certainly.

The match would follow along those lines. When able, Hechicero would target the leg. That might be a reverse dragon screw with the leg dangling off the apron or just tying it up and twisting it, making sure to mock Darby and the crowd after the fact. When Darby found a way to edge back (primarily biting at the hand until his comeback later in the match), Hechicero would cut him off with more holistic and opportunistic offense. Darby couldn't capitalize further because of the leg. He'd get a jackknife pin but then would sell the leg by hopping on it losing leverage, or when he did get leverage, like after a reversal of a rear naked choke, his leg gave out after the fact, a cost/benefit decision that did not work out in his favor.

When he did finally start to come back, it was by letting Hechicero do the heavy lifting for him, he turned the conjuro spinning backbreaker into a crucifix bomb. The crowd started chanting for him after that, and he deserved it. He made it to the top for a 'rana, but only by reversing Hechicero's attempt to dangle him in a choke while sitting on the top rope. He followed that up with a Code Red, another move where he barely needed to put any pressure on his leg, and then trapped Hechicero in the apron to set up the tope and top rope coffin drop to the floor that would lead things to the finish. 

The story here was the color, variety, meanness, and adaptability of Hechicero's offense, and then how Darby's selling met the moment. It wasn't done to just check boxes. It limited his opportunities and created a cost for everything he tried to do. It impact not just what he did but how he moved, the best sort of selling. Meanwhile, Hechicero wasn't dogmatically just going after the limb, but instead meeting every moment for the possibilities available. Sometimes that meant going after something else to open the leg back up or because Darby was overly protecting it. That's a fascinating sort of pro wrestling, one where the moments truly do matter.

I did see complaints about the finish and how it was a copy of other Darby matches this year. I think the way he takes the wind out of an opponent is both opportunistic and logical and much more about the set up. How does he get them in that position in the first place? That's what's compelling more than the Coffin Drops themselves. Here it was by using Hechicero's moves as a way to position himself to hit something and then to throw his body at him when he had the chance. 

Where I do question it, however, is the need to have a pin in the first place. I'd argue that Hechicero was protected to a degree because he did beat the count and was simply ambushed on the way back in the ring, but with all the Champion vs Champion matches in AEW, they should lean into the 70s aesthetic and have some countouts or double countouts now and again. I can hear people grumbling already, but it's been so long  since this was a common part of pro wrestling, there's a chance to reframe and reclaim it. It's a tool like any other tool and in a CMLL Heavyweight Champion vs TNT Champion match, a finish where Darby just barely makes it back and and Hechicero doesn't could actually be compelling. Certainly, it'd make those finishes where both wrestlers make it back in a little more exciting to do the opposite now and again. A match like this where everyone more or less knew the winner coming in could have been a great place to switch things up and do it.

So that's the match. You could have covered the bare bones of the what like that first paragraph. You could just focus on the outcome and how many matches Darby won or lost this year and how many more you think he should have won or lost. Or you could lean into the third option and really try to immerse yourself in the art being created, in the excitement being generated, in details worth delving through. 

We've spent generations doing the one or the other, but I think everyone would be so much happier with the third.

Read more!

Found Footage Friday: 1986 UWF SUPERDOME EXTRAVAGANZA '86

UWF Superdome 6/14/1986    

One Man Gang vs. Brett Sawyer

MD: Brett Sawyer is the king of Vault footage and here he is again with another really good performance. Well, a glimpse at one. Only so much you can do in a couple of minutes, but the cat and mouse at the start was spirited and effective with all the build and payoff you'd want as he built to a two hands-on-one test of strength only for Gang to crush him in the corner. Much of the rest of the match was Gang hamhocks coming down on him. Occasionally Sawyer tried to get shots to the legs in to no avail, but the effort was appreciated. Things finally went to the floor and Gang got DQed using some chairs. Back in the ring more crushing as the fans stomped in rhythm for anyone to make the save (no one did). This accomplished what it set out to do.

Robert Gibson vs. Baron Von Raschke

MD: It's always surreal to see Von Raschke in weird settings bumping without bending as he was want to do. Morton's up against Flair second from the top (we don't have that match) and Gibson's here on the undercard against the Baron. Fans were behind him but more in a general sense. After a quick shine, meat of the match was an armbar where the Baron kept going for a hairpull and it was fine but it didn't really get any extra heat. There's probably a different crowd where this match would work in front of but here, they just went up for the goosestepping and the claw attempt. Gibson blocked it, which was moderately dramatic stuff and then after Baron tossed him, he turned a slam attempt from the outside in into a small package for the win. Certainly not the best match we've seen out of the vault this year.

Koko B. Ware vs. Jack Victory

MD: This felt way bigger than you'd think. Victory had Mad Maxine with him and Koko had Dark Journey (babyface). Another weird pairing or set of pairings but they'd built it with Maxine bullying Journey. Maxine did not have a long run but she did pop up a number of different places, like Kamala in her own way (Kamala was also on this card vs Link but we don't have that). Florida, Continental, here. An attraction doing attraction things. 

We come in JIP here and the early stuff based around punching is great. Koko has just an awesome flurry to come back and the crowd goes up for it until he crashes and burns in the corner (which also looked great). Then Victory leans on him a bit until Dark Journey comes out, causing a huge pop. We lose the audio to a degree here but can still hear Ross. She's enough of a distraction to let Koko get a snap schoolboy takeover which has an almost power bomb impact to it. Looked great how Victory threw himself back for it. Post-match Maxine and Victory are poor losers but Journey gets big revenge with powder and a low kick and the place goes nuts. I imagine this probably made TV in part at least somewhere as we have commentary but it did feel like a memorable angle and a big deal, even if you wouldn't think Koko and Victory would be the ones involved. You'd almost think it'd be Taylor and Sawyer instead for instance.

Buddy Roberts & Terry Gordy vs. Blade Runners

MD: Hayes was fun on the mic pre-match letting Gilbert know that if he stays out of this, Hayes will stay out of this, but if he doesn't... This is an only time match up between Warrior and Gordy and it's a weird visual, let me tell you. Fun start to this where it's chaos and the ref has to appeal on the mic to Gilbert and Hayes to calm things down. I'm not sure I've ever quite seen that. 

Match itself had a Buddy playing face-in-peril. That meant some bearhugging from Sting, but most of it was Sting and Warrior working together. Lots of quick tags and double teams off the ropes. Eventually Buddy ducked one and Gordy came in to even the sides and he and Warrior crashed into each other with a double clothesline for a very unsatisfying (but still larger than life) double KO as neither met the ten count. 

UWF Television Title: Terry Taylor (c) vs. Buzz Sawyer

MD: This aired on Power Pro but it's likely a footage upgrade with just the crowd noise and we'll cover it. I've read someone recently question why Buzz was used so well by Ole and Watts when he was such a bad person (maybe Ron Starr's book?) but look at how he gave and gave on a big show like this for a guy like Taylor. He tried to lure him in with handshakes to start and got clowned. He got a little advantage and crashed into the turnbuckle. Taylor controlled on the arm for the next few minutes including hitting a big cross body. Buzz only took over because Taylor missed a second one. Then he honed in on the ribs/back because of the miss with bearhugs, basically. Taylor came back but ate the power slam. Buzz missed a top rope splash and lost to a sunset flip, clean. Then he demanded Taylor get back in the ring to have another impromptu match, ambushed him, immediately fed for a comeback, and lost to a quick Thesz press, again, definitively. I imagine one squash the following weekend would wash away any shame from this loss too. But he put over Taylor like a million bucks here. Maybe Taylor won due to Buzz's own mistake but then he won again even more definitively. You get a completely loathsome character who's as talented as Buzz was and that would do business on a big show and it makes sense why the guy got used as well as he did. 

Ted DiBiase vs. Michael Hayes

MD: I really love this pairing, especially when Dibiase is the babyface. Dibiase vs the Freebirds is probably one of my favorite feuds of the 80s honestly. It's a huge testament to Hayes that he could be a de facto babyface earlier against Gilbert and the Blade Runners and then go full on heel here. This starts with some great BS (even if maybe not all appropriate in 2026). Dibiase gets the fans chanting. Hayes moonwalks. He goes to the second rope to preen and Dibiase jumps up to shake the ropes messing with his balance. Criss Crossing ends abruptly with Dibiase putting a fist up and Hayes taking a powder. Hayes tries a cheapshot in the ropes but Dibiase ducks and hits a series of jabs before paying off that big punch. Hayes takes another powder. Hayes hits a bodyslam and struts. He hits an armdrag and shimmies. So Dibiase hits an armdrag and two bodyslams and the fist drop and then after a pause, struts himself closing the parentheses. Perfectly parallel pro wrestling. The fans are into all of it.  

Hayes plays mind games and gets a temporary advantage but misses a kneedrop after a strut. They do some legwork and tease the figure four but that leads to the actual heat which is mostly Hayes leaning on Dibiase's injured neck. It's just a chinlock with a hope spot or two but the fans go up huge for Dibiase firing up. Then they tease a kick with his head down for a back body drop but Dibiase dodges it and goes into his comeback. It was a clever and effective inversion. Finish is very wonky though. He hits the powerslam and goes for the Figure Four but Gordy comes out. Then he power slams him and pins him instead. Ref counts it. Gordy was mostly fresh. He's more foreboding and dangerous than Hayes (despite JR calling Hayes a Charles Manson like figure). If you used Buddy in that role it would have worked a hundred times better even though it would have still been an annoying and illogical bait and switch. Ah well. Post-match they beat on Dibiase and tease the pile driver but Dibiase gets free and gets out the glove to a huge pop as the Birds run away. The good in this was very good but I'm sure people would miss it all because of the finish. 

Street Fight: Bill Watts & Dusty Rhodes & Steve Williams vs. Ivan Koloff & Nikita Koloff & Korstia Korchenko

MD: This is a come as you are street fight. Watts' shirt is too small so he looks like Ricky Morton with the cut off shirt. He had to be aware of this. I do like the idea that the Soviets come in their gear. The Americans are in jeans like normal relatable people (Watts' shirt notwithstanding). The Russians are alien creatures with a broken society that we can't relate to. Etc. It's effective even if seeing these guys in street clothes would have been more entertaining decades later.

I don't have a ton else to say about this one. It's less than ten minutes in and out and mostly chaotic brawling. Dusty and Watts position themselves to save Williams from a double team once or twice. Ivan gets the chain out early and does damage with it. Finish has Gilbert try to intervene with a weapon but (I think) trip on the way in letting Watts get it and the win. Post-match Watts clears house with the chain and then gets to whip Gilbert a bit, but not enough that there isn't more meat on the bone. The one view meant we missed a decent amount of the action and Dusty sort of disappeared because of that in a way I'm not used to. Plus, given the build, this was the Watts' show after all.

Read more!

80s Joshi on Wednesday: Masami! Yamazaki! Jumbo! Yukari!

Volume 5   

7. Devil Masami & Itsuki Yamazaki vs. Jumbo Hori & Yukari Omori (Fuji TV Cup Tag Tournament Semi Final) 11/28/83 

K: Sums up the state of 1983 AJW footage that one of the best matches we have is a semi-final match from a tournament where both the other semi-final and the final are missing. On the other hand, it’s great that we have this.

Dynamite Girls are the tag champs (the titles aren't on the line in this tournament), after winning them from Devil Masami & Tarantula in June. Since then Devil's been tagging more frequently with the more junior Itsuki Yamazaki. If I was allowed to retroactively name tag teams I'd call this pairing the Jumping Bomb Devils.

Itsuki gets a bit of a showcase here. At first Devil is assisting with her big jumping moves in a way that it looks like she's using Itsuki as a weapon, but when she's in the ring alone she more than holds her own. She does an unusual move where she pushes Jumbo Hori into the ropes, and when Jumbo rebounds back going backwards, she kicks her in the back. It felt like a backwards Irish Whip? Pro-wrestling physics. 

Devil and Itsuki isolate Jumbo Hori and target her back. There's a really mean moment where Devil has her in her own corner just within reach to make a tag, or at least she would be, if Devil weren't standing on her hands while smirking. The heat builds up a bit and leads to great shift in momentum when Itsuki makes the mistake of going toe-to-toe with Yukari Omori, who shoves her across the ring so hard she almost completely clears it. Yeah go Omori! Her offense is getting better and better. 

When Devil gets in to even things out, she does it by hitting Omori with these big punches where she pulls her elbow back, clenches a big fist for a good couple of seconds to get the crowd's attention, before clocking her with it. It's a good way of building a bit of suspense for the punch and suits her well.

Devil and Itsuki are the heels here, but they're not doing anything especially heelish yet. The main way they garner heat is they're a lot more inclined to double team to get themselves out of predicaments. In the 2nd fall we get a bit of this when they both jump Omori to allow Itsuki to unload dropkicks and take the advantage a bit. Itsuki then pulls Omori outside, presumably for a bit more pummelling, but this is a mistake as it gives Jumbo Hori license to intervene and suddenly Itsuki is getting double teamed herself and thrown onto a table while Devil arrives too late to help her. Bit of just rewards.

Itsuki's just more mad at this, we get a little shout-off between her and the Dynamite Girls, which leads to her throwing Omori into the heel corner for Devil to do a BIG lift and throw down to the floor. The heels take back control after Jumbo is knocked to the outside, and then they do this cool combination move where Itsuki is standing on Devil's shoulders and they hold hands while Devil walks most of the way across the ring before Itsuki jumps off her shoulders for a big splash onto Omori for the pin. Great finish there.

Oh this match is really good and exciting. There's constantly something fun happening and heat just seems to build and build. The crowd are also pretty hot, one of the best crowds we've seen in a while.

Soon into the 3rd fall this has escalated into a crazy brawl. Devil Masami has got out her bokken and is attacking both babyfaces with it. Omori seems angry but incapable of doing anything to stop Devil's ferocious attacks so instead vents her frustration by beating up the referee. This doesn't really help matters. In fact Devil drops the bokken soon afterwards, but is able to finish Jumbo Hori off with a big seated senton off the top rope.

They pulled off having a really heated fight plus lots of cool innovative offense and a fast-pace almost throughout. Classic Zenjo style and a great match. Then they follow it up immediately with a hot angle as the Crush Gals get in the ring, presumably angry about how their fellow finalists got their win. I liked how Itsuki kicks out at the Crush Gals while standing on the apron, looking all aggressive and nasty. It looks like they're about to calm down and they shake hands, exchange words, then suddenly Devil throws a punch at Lioness Asuka and all hell breaks loose! Seconds are rushing the ring as well to separate them, including Tarantula wielding Devil's bokken.

I'm just frustrated now that we can't see the Crush Gals vs. Jumping Bomb Devils tournament final. We just know the Crush Gals won that won.

****

MD: The other semi-final was Crush Gals vs Masked Yu and Tarantula (Crush Gals won). They cut back to Chigusa and Lioness throughout this match as they’re watching on a screen in the back. Lioness is heavily bandaged and looks put upon for most of it. That feels like a theme. I’m pretty sure Devil was taped up and Hori definitely was, her back taped under her gear. 

And it wasn’t just for show. Masami and Yamazaki went after it immediately, heavily focusing their attack. By this point, they’d been teaming for months and Devil was able to assist Yamzaki in bounding about. Some very mean stuff here, both taking it outside and Devil just stepping on Hori’s hands as she taunted Omori. That backfired to a degree as it let Omori come in, but the Dynamite Girls still had to fight their way back (mainly to the Jumbo hot tag) and it wasn’t until Yamazaki missed a senton off the top that they were able to capitalize and pick up the first fall. 

They kept asserting themselves well into the second fall, with Jumbo hitting her fireman’s carry tosses onto Devil and even after Yamazaki came in with lots of dropkicks. They vaulted her over a table on the outside pretty effectively, for instance. But then Devil dropped Omori to the floor from a suplex position. That let her hit this shot off the ropes she was doing in this match (a cross chop I don’t remember them making as big a deal out of previously), Yamazaki to hit her fall away slams, and for them to finish Omori off with a great bit where Devil walked across the ring with Yamazaki on her shoulders to set up a splash.

Third fall was pretty heated. While the fans haven’t quite turned over into whatever they’d become in 84, the Dynamite Girls were more over than they probably get credit for (though I can’t say for certain that Devil/Yamazaki didn’t have supporters by this point either). It looked like they were going to turn things around too. Hori’s transition where she catches someone in a bearhug and then does a twisting slam out of it was very effective dramatically. They twisted things up though. Devil made catch the bearhug twice. Then when she lifted Devil up to the top to pull her off head first as she was want to do, Devil almost got a win with a sunset flip. These sorts of inversions felt new to me. After that, everything broke down with Devil getting her sword and causing chaos. When the smoke cleared, she hit Ikeshita’s old seated senton off the top and got the win. Post match the Crush Gals came out for a staredown and, after a handshake, everything broke down. Unfortunately, we don’t have the finals but this semi felt very iconic for the time and in some ways like it was pushing the needle forward.

Read more!

Tuesdays with Daddy: Week 6: vs. The Mighty Quinn

Week 6 

Big Daddy vs. John Quinn 6/27/79

MD: I mentioned cheats last time and this feels a little like a cheat. The match goes 1:30 or so, but it’s worth seeing because of all of the pomp and circumstance. We rarely get to see Daddy in front of a huge crowd like this in a singles match. This was at Wembley Arena, and to watch him come down to the ring surrounded by a mass of people is pretty amazing. Again, I have no connection to this guy but I do have connection to beloved babyfaces and he sure was one. Some kid leaned over as he was passing by to kiss him on his cheek, either to pass him some luck or get some luck. 

While it’s obvious he knew what he was doing and what would get an effect and he leveraged his size and charisma and the SYMBOLIC weight of what he did, there’s also a sense that he’s some guy who wished in a well to be the biggest star in England and everyone just kind of got swept up by the magic. Maybe that WAS part of the magic, that there was something unreal about him, like a… cereal mascot. Like Captain Crunch. Or Popeye the Sailor Man. Again, the world is accessible. Door’s open. Come on in. He’s not going to look down on you. You can leave your worries behind and join this strange, wholesome fantasy. He reminds me here of a Jimmy Valiant, not the sort of guy society is supposed to root for but an absolute folk hero, larger than life yet on paper much “smaller” than what society’s ideal person is supposed to be. 

Quinn was billed from North America, though he was mighty. We’re ROBBED of his Mighty Quinn entrance that we’ve gotten in Germany. He seems a bit smaller here a year or two earlier but maybe that’s because he’s not towering over Bob “UFO” Della Serra. Haystacks, cool as can be in his giant leather jacket, gets on the mic and berates Daddy and the fans are irate. This was a great way to stall the two of them facing, or to break it up, to have Haystacks as “mentor” to an invading Quinn. Daddy was announced as “Accepting the Challenge with Great Joy!” which was a nice touch.

This is pretty fascinating to start because instead of leaning into the shoulder blocks like usual, Daddy just takes them. This feels intentional. It makes it seem like Quinn is stronger and bigger than he is. Usually, Daddy is able to lean in and shove back and here, Quinn hits him even. In all the shoulder blocks I’ve seen Daddy do (and it’s a big part of the act!) in the last five matches before this spanning multiple years, he didn’t just take it like he does here. And it’s not that he’d be taking a night off in front of the huge crowd in Wembley Arena. I’ve seen him enough to think it’s intentional and it was to add in a bit of doubt (Walton was wondering as the bell rang if he could do it). It meant the crowd popped all the more when Quinn whipped him (and again, he moved well) and Daddy crashed through him. 

Quinn responded with a leaping forearm that staggered Daddy, and then a few more for good measure. That drew Daddy’s brother, Brian Crabtree, a fancy-clad off duty referee, to the apron and Quinn rushed over to clock him too. Everyone in the crowd knew what a bad idea that was. Daddy looked out to them and the mood completely changed. Quinn had crossed a line. It was one thing to forearm Daddy in the face, another to attack a bystander, especially a beloved one. Three big vaulting body slams followed (variation: I’ve not seen him really toss someone like this before either). 

This was a ten count death match of sorts. No rounds. No time limit. Quinn beat the count but then got hefted over for the waterwheel backdrop (not the cleanest but that’s ok when Daddy is still landing on the guy). Even Walton lost his cool when the count reached 8, as he got elated with everyone else at what was about to happen. The place erupted. 

I think this would have been unquestionably better if Quinn kept it up for another minute or two even, just a minute or two, a few more forearms, maybe getting Daddy to his knees, maybe having Haystacks tripping him and him going down for a few seconds. Then they could have done the bit with Crabtree, right? But on the other hand, that was completely unnecessary and I’m not sure if the extra heat would have made the end pop better than this sort of justified almost religious instant comeuppance of a bully was. Crabtree took the damage and Daddy meted out the justice. At this stage of the act, in 79, in front of this crowd, maybe that was exactly as vulnerable as he should have been. Just like in the last match with the Emperor (what if the Emperor DID get that sleeper on Daddy instead of his partner McMichael?), what if Quinn didn’t lose focus? What if he didn’t cross such a line and kept it more sporting? Maybe that was enough for people’s imaginations. Clearly it was not just for 79, but for years to come. 

So this is funny, but now it reminds me of Will Ospreay a bit. One big issue with his matches is that it’s impossible to believe that he’s beatable in any way because he’s such a physical specimen and bounces back from everything. The solution has been to have him sell, sell, sell, though he drops it while on offense because he’s just too much, too all-encompassing, too unbeatable. I’ve said it before, but the actual solution is probably to lean into it, steamroll people when it makes sense to, and have him be vulnerable in other ways. That’s very much what they did here with Daddy. Maybe Will Ospreay could learn a thing or two from Big Daddy.

ER: This is the best Big Daddy entrance of the matches we've covered. No comparison We've never gotten such full color crowd level shots of Daddy being swarmed by old British housewives before. It changes everything when you see it. Filming him through the crowd was essential, it captured a fanbase that doesn't exist in any way any longer, which might make all this "who could like Big Daddy?" talk irrelevant. It was them, people you don't know who haven't thought about wrestling in decades, but might still think about Big Daddy. Look at the working class men who can't wait to get a hand on Daddy, to help lift him up onto the ring apron, eight different men all fighting for a chance to get a palm on part of Daddy's belly and ass. Those people are believers. Daddy is in full sequins, an old couple is with him and they are decked to the nines too, and I'm sure the Wembley Arena crowd recognized them. 

But it wasn't just Daddy, it was also Haystacks. Have you seen how incredible Haystacks looked, seconding Quinn? He's mammoth, but wearing clothes like a man. Look how good he looks in his gigantic perfectly fitted fringe jacket and boot cut black Wranchers. That is a look I would sport right this second, without a chance of competing with Haystacks' aura. I blame the 400 or so pounds he has on me, and the fact that I couldn't grab a mic and draw nuclear heat by yelling, "THERE'S STILL TIME TO GO HOME, DADDY!" People saw this as a threat, and it made The Mighty Quinn feel like a real threat. John Quinn is someone Matt and I have written more about than anyone, by virtue of nobody writing about John Quinn. We saw the undervalued asset and Moneyballed the hell out of early 80s Germany that nobody else had interest in. This is before that, and I was shocked by how differently Daddy worked Quinn than anyone else. The way Daddy works Quinn, in a match that barely goes 100 seconds, made nearly 10,000 people believe the impossible may happen. 

Quinn starts the match hitting three shoulderblocks that Daddy absorbs, and doesn't knock back Quinn at all. The next exchange - even though it ends with Quinn pinballed across the ring by a Daddy shoulderblock - doesn't come until Quinn successfully shot Daddy into the ropes. That was huge for me, because I think that's the first time I've seen anyone complete any kind of whip into the ropes without Daddy reversing. Daddy is not someone who gets shot into the ropes off a side headlock, he's a guy who stands firm, widens his base, and cranks the headlock in more snug. When Quinn actually started pounding Daddy with elbows I actually yelped. These were square to the jaw, the first one delivered with a leap, the others hard enough to force Daddy into a deep lean on the ropes. I have watched many Big Daddy matches and you just do not see someone start slugging him while landing several in a row. In many matches he takes no offense at all, so multiple straight elbows to the jaw that send him leaning in the ropes felt like Quinn was landing a combination on Tyson. 

Daddy's brother gets the worst elbow, a running shot across the ring that sent him flying off the apron. When Daddy starts unloading full release bodyslams (throwing Quinn out rather than slamming him down) and crushes him with his waterwheel, the crowd explodes to their feet and actually surges toward the ring. When it was clear Quinn wasn't answering the count, the rush of crowd had an energy that made it feel like the result MAY have been in doubt, which sounds ludicrous in hindsight. Did they actually believe Quinn could beat Daddy? Their reactions in every second of this video seem to say "Yes". 

I wonder if there was any crossover audience who saw both Big Daddy and any of the late 70s Ramones European tours. There has to be someone. On any given night the Ramones would perform at least 10 songs with a runtime similar to this match. Art boiled down to the essentials, one appealing to dead enders and punks, the other appealing to pensioners and the working class. Two mediums, the quickest and most economic delivery system possible, two very different societies. 

Read more!

AEW Five Fingers of Death 10/5 - 10/11

AEW Dynamite 10/7/26

Darby Allin vs Kyle Fletcher

MD: Darby Allin is an attraction. In all the history of modern televised wrestling, he's one of the only attractions I can think of that wrestled every week. You can argue that peak Goldberg or Rock would be up there. Which is not to say he's an attraction on the magnitude of either. Maybe you could argue Sabu as the closest comparison point. Maybe peak Jeff Hardy as well. Hell, maybe Mistico at either of his peaks too. He's something to see. He's going to do something spectacular. You're going to regret missing it. Wrestling is a three-ring circus and he's in at least two of the rings and the sideshow to boot: the death-defying stuntman riding a motorcycle through fire, the acrobat up on the tightrope, the skeletal geek who can survive incredible amounts of pain.

There's been some pretty tedious discourse the last few weeks about how well he's been protected this year too. Yes, Darby wins a lot. Yes, he survives a lot. But the attention to detail is almost there. We'll get to that at the end of this one. Wrestling is more than just stats on a spreadsheet. It's more than wins and losses. Wins and losses matter, but they only matter in so much as the journey matters too. With Darby, the whole point is HOW he wins, HOW he survives, HOW he overcomes the odds. That's what makes wrestling worth watching. He's protected so that the emotional tether is there when he somehow survives. He's protected so when someone actually figures out a way to put him down, it matters more. 

Some fans today seem to want fairness and parity. But there have to be stars and the stars have to be protected. It's not what someone deserves. It's about what moves hearts and minds, and if you're not letting yourself go along with a story because you're more worried about some wrestler getting what they deserve, you're doing both the wrestlers (including that wrestler) and yourself a disservice. The effort has to be there. The level of detail has to be there. But at some point you have to open yourself to go on the journey they're trying to take you on. Maybe you'll like the ride, maybe you won't, but if you constantly want to be on another ride instead, then you're never going to enjoy yourself unless you get exactly what you want, and trust me, that gets real old real quick.

So the question then becomes How. How does Darby Allin overcome? And what makes it interesting is the variance in opponents, a variance made all the more interesting by Darby's specific skills and his specific weaknesses. His deficits. And how some of his strengths end up being deficits as well. 

Styles make fights, sure, but so do body types and disparities between wrestlers. You put Darby up against a Mark Davis or Jake Doyle or Wardlow or Brody King and he has different challenges and different opportunities than if you put him up against a Kevin Knight or Myron Reed. The former may be explosive at times, but they are bigger, stronger, quick but not nearly as quick as Darby. The latter can't leverage a huge strength advantage against him but Darby can't outquick them either.

Kyle Fletcher presents a unique threat for Darby though, and that's what made this interesting. Kyle is strong, yes, muscular as can be, but he's also relatively lean compared to the mentioned monsters. He's quicker than them, not as quick a Darby but quick enough to recover a split second sooner, to be ready to counter. The strength and size advantage isn't as much as the monsters, but it's enough. It gives him an answer to some of the questions that Darby forces upon both the monsters and the flyers and allows him to force plenty of his own upon Darby himself. And those questions are what make pro wrestling interesting (if you allow yourself to engage with them, that is).

Here, Darby came right at Fletcher but Fletcher could push him back. Darby shot himself towards Fletcher instead, but Fletcher was ready to catch him and toss him. It was an ebb and flow, one where Darby had to push himself more and more earlier in the match in order to do damage. he put them both through a table very early on because nothing else was working. He continued to take the risks like he so often does, but Fletcher was better suited to catch him and back body drop him from one announce table to the next. 

Darby is, of course, a cockroach, and with every moment he survives, he finds opportunities to strike. It could be as simple as a line of blood running down Fletcher's back (from that first table break) and Darby running his nails down the spine to counter a top rope move. But again, Fletcher is a uniquely dangerous opponent for him, constantly grasping and straining himself. In this case, as he was getting pulled over, he snatched at the top turnbuckle pad and yanked it off. 

It built to a point of escalation. Darby threw his best shots at Fletcher, hitting him with multiple Code Reds, but when that didn't work and Darby had to escalate further he missed a Coffin Drop on the apron. Fletcher capitalized and hit a Brainbuster, but it wasn't enough. He went up to the top and crushed Darby with the Avalanche Brainbuster onto the exposed turnbuckle. That was, perhaps overkill. The effort not only sent Darby out of the ring to the floor (where he could not be pinned for the title) but hurt Fletcher's leg instead. By the time that Fletcher was able to get the bloody husk of Darby Allin back into the ring, it was too late. Darby had recovered just enough to kick out. Attention to detail. It's everything. Yes, Darby survived Fletcher's very well protected finisher but there were any number of mitigating circumstances. This matters. If this doesn't matter, nothing matters, and if nothing matters, then there's no point anyway. Then you're just looking at the spreadsheet and there's no soul to what you're watching. You might as well not watch at all.

Fletcher went for a power bomb. Darby escaped and redirected him face first into the exposed turnbuckle. He honed in on the legs with the Deathlock. Fletcher survived but was vulnerable for two Coffin Drops. People say we've seen the sudden Coffin Drops too much as well, but they almost never work the same way twice. Or they work in multiple different ways appropriate for the moment. That variance matters. Those details matter. I'd argue they're only the same if you list them out on paper. In the moment, in the match, they feel as organic and opportunistic as can be.

Look, you can have favorites. You can hope someone gets pushed. You can even get frustrated that someone you don't want to see pushed is getting pushed (and yeah, I get that Darby has some historical personal issues but most of the arguments I am countering are not people talking about that, but instead about ANY wrestler being protected as a bad thing, a desire for parity, and his finishing sequence). That's all valid to a degree. But it's also something completely outside of your control. We've had one Yes Movement in twenty six years of wrestling this decade. 

You should not just eat what they're feeding you. You should be critical. You should question things. You should look for patterns. You can disagree with me. You can disagree with the company. You're not obliged to watch every match. You can pick and choose. It's better if you pick and choose. Trust me. But you should also question yourself and try to figure out why you feel the way that you feel. 

Yes, outcomes should matter. Yes, they shouldn't always be predictable, but pro wrestling has (almost) always been best when there is hierarchy and there are people clearly pushed. Outcomes matter, but the journey matters as much as the destination, maybe even more so because the destination is pre-decided. 

It's the How (... and the Who and the Why and even the Where and the When) that makes pro wrestling interesting, far more so than the What. And the questions around How for Darby Allin continue to be fascinating for me week in and week out. 

Read more!

Found Footage Friday: LOS BRAZOS~! LAWLER~! REDD DOGG~! EDDY~! REY~! JBL~! hhh~!

Humberto Garza Jr/Principe Franky/Tigre Universitario vs. Los Brazos Monterrey 4/24/94

MD: Tecnico vs tecnico encounter with the Brazos vs locals. Pretty much as fun as it sounds. First two falls were a blast. Franky matched up with Brazo, Tigre with Oro, and Garza with Porky. Then they switched it around in the segunda. Primera had a couple of exchanges each with matwork/chain wrestling leading into rope running in the second. It all hit for me. Then Porky accidentally splashed his brothers and celebrated and they argued and hugged and you've seen it dozens of times and it always works. In the segunda, there was a bit more animosity due to a Brazos kick and this time around a stumbling but spectacular Porky splashed all three off the top to even the falls up.

Tercera had them trade holds (but not really break them up, which was interesting). There was a nice Porky/Franky exchange in there where Porky hit a couple of big power moves before stretching him a bit. He could have been an absolute killer in another world. Then they cycled into the tandem spots, like La Estrella with the associated 'rana, and back and forth leglocks where everyone got involved. After simultaneous pins. things got pretty exciting between Oro and Garza (I think, look, it's far away and blurry) before they pinned one another. There was a great nearfall where the Brazo got a killer grounded punch countering a pin attempt. But the fans, who were chanting for their locals the whole way through, got to see then go to a draw with the larger than life stars at least. Any new Brazos is immediately worth watching. 

ER: I don't know if there's anything that makes me happier than the words New Super Porky Handheld. Handhelds are my favorite kind of wrestling, the difference between a great soundboard recording or a great recording from the pit, and they can each reveal such different things about a match. It turns a match into a completely different experience, putting you inside a crowd to see what they're seeing. Super Porky is one of our greatest handheld wrestlers ever; he's a man whose case as a mega star legend grows more and more with every new Los Brazos handheld over a 15 year stretch. Early 90s house show Porky was a force of nature, the ultimate babyface who felt like a genuine cultural phenomenon. It's fitting that Principe Franky comes out to Selena's "Amor Prohibido". I don't think I've ever considered comparing Brazo de Plata to Selena, but whenever I see Super Porky working to god level reactions in some LA high school gym, it feels like the same kind of cultural secret. One broke mainstream for the saddest reason, one became the weirdest and completely botched WWE signing ever.     

Porky is a master entertainer, a legend who works every reaction from a packed Monterrey arena that on tape looks stacked with German Expressionist angles. Porky works just another match where every single movement gets a great reaction. It's like when Elvis is cracking jokes during the late night set at the International and he's actually funny and deserves laughs, in front of a crowd who would also love him if his jokes were bad. Porky has that charisma and as much variety in strong material. 

All three Brazos looked strong, all match. Brazo de Oro is a high end great matwork guy who hasn't survived as a referenced name when discussing great mat workers. This is a long match and his gas tank through long match filling-while-engaging fast matwork was a highlight. Brazo is a consistent treat in the handhelds, for the brother who became the least worker by the 2000s he's a great fusion of Oro with a meaner streak. But everyone is there on their Sunday afternoon to go nuts for every riff Porky takes off with. When he splashes his brothers to end the first fall, you can tell the buzz in the crowd is caused by them all being familiar with the branching ways the aftermath could go. Los Brazos are so good at playing off learned material, expanding on regular spots and adding punchlines. As his brothers approached him, I was so giddy waiting for Brazo to smack Porky, and for Porky to shed wounded tears to squealing admirers, that I actually squealed when Oro pecked his brother was a soft kiss. Prime Brazos didn't ever miss. 

Have we all seen Super Porky actually getting STUCK under the bottom rope as a routine? My memory is terrible so forgive me if I've come to this conclusion on several Porky matches before but I'd like to think my declining brain would retain the image of Porky's big round butt hung up on the bottom rope like a crawling toddler held in place by his diaper. The referee ran over to him, freeing him so lovingly. He reworks the spot after the confusing and disappointing finish, where everyone is waiting for him to get back in the ring and he gets stuck trying to roll in. Nobody leaves the arena when the match is over, 1/4 of this link is just a packed arena celebrating Super Porky, lingering, drawing out poses so they can listen to the entirety of "Amor Prohibido", then only one month old. Undeniable.   

Jerry Lawler vs. Redd Dogg WWE 10/22/02 - GREAT

MD: Richard Land posts Raw and Smackdown feeds every month and usually that gives us a dark match with Steve Bradley or Scott Vick or someone, which is fine but not usually worth covering. This was in Memphis holding court against Jerry Lawler vs the future Rodney Mack. That's worth covering, even if it only went around five minutes.

Maybe I'm biased but this was very good. Dogg slammed Lawler to start and Lawler shot him a look and the Jerry chants started. Dogg did it again and howled. Then he hit a back body drop and was really feeling it, right until he went for another and the punches started. Lawler finished it with his own body slam and dropkick which Dogg sold by rolling to the outside and having a fit and the crowd went up big for all of this of course. 

They followed with rope running and Lawler caught himself on the criss-cross and strutted, and I wonder how many indie matches he did that in over that three month period. He dodged a corner charge and hit a nice bulldog and pointed to Dogg who sold it as the fans chanted again. Mack probably deserved to get a spot out of this one as he was playing into everything very well. He took over with a nice punch in the corner (selling his hand) but Lawler got his knees up on a splash and then dropped the strap in the most self-aware, funny way possible. This was a ritual celebration and at this point turned into a ritual slaughter Punches, mare, second rope fistdrop and Lawler could go back to greeting everyone at ringside as if they were old friends and kissing babies (well, maybe let's not).

ER: For as much time as he actually spent in WWF, there is so little Lawler match footage that I get excited anytime something like this turns up. Lawler is an excellent short match worker and every four minute Lawler match provides insight into who he was as a worker. This is a cool situation to see him work. He was far from a WWE regular in 2002 - his year saw him work three TV matches, two dark matches, and two house show tags - and here he gets to work as hometown legend vs. a larger, almost complete unknown who had been working house shows and dark matches. It's a great spot for Redd Dogg to be in, too, as he gets an opponent to sink his teeth into, someone who the crowd really wants to see succeed for them. To this point he'd only been in dark matches teaming opposite Charlie Haas, or working Batista on house shows. Against Lawler, in Memphis? Suddenly he has an actual canvas. 

I really loved the surprised reaction Lawler got, people excitedly rising to their feet when they realized Lawler would be wrestling, not doing commentary. Actually, it is really odd seeing him wrestling in a Smackdown ring. Have I seen Lawler wrestling on Smackdown? What is this Velocity? That never happened. I'm sure I saw some nothing Lawler match on Smackdown, but Lawler coming out to the Velocity color scheme is new, and gives this match some unidentified energy. 

This is only a few minutes, but few are better than Lawler at setting up a short story with payoffs. Was Bobby Eaton still employed by the company? Anyway, Lawler takes early match bodyslams that lead to his own later match bodyslams, he takes a dark match back body drop - I thought Redd Dogg set it up way too close to the ropes when he shot him in, but Lawler found a way to take a great one anyway - and the next time Dogg dropped his head for one Lawler dropped to a knee to punch him. The more Lawler makes his way into the match, the more the crowd reacts with glee, perhaps none more than when Lawler holds the ropes on a criss cross and floats into a Fargo strut like he was Fred Astaire. I knew I'd be rewinding any fistdrops that would be occurring, but I didn't expect to watch Lawler maneuver his way into a Fargo strut a half dozen times. I watched it frame by frame, watching his feet, watching how he hit the ropes and spun those feet lithely into place, strut locked into a groove. I'm happy we got a classic Lawler ugly dropkick, lest I feel the need to use the word "lithe" again. 

Redd Dogg's two big pieces of offense were two excellent right hands in the corner. I don't remember Rodney Mack having such great shutdown right hands, the kind of punch you only have to throw once or twice, like Chuck Palumbo's. Lawler's selling of the two punches, especially the second one that drops him to a knee and sends a hand to his jaw, feeling for any breaks. Loved how Redd Dogg shook out his fist after the second one, perhaps in reaction to Lawler's selling, perhaps because he knew what a great looking punch it was. As the rules state, anyone who shakes their fist out after a decent punch is automatically a very good wrestler. I've yet to find anyone who shakes their fist out while still looking like a bad wrestler, but I am excited for whomever eventually forces me to break that rule. 

It's WWF, so it was no guarantee that Lawler made a comeback in his hometown, but when he does we get yet another variety of strap drop: The crowd all knew the strap was about to be dropped, Lawler knew they knew and held up a finger waiting for their patience (the same way he held up a finger while in a side headlock, before backdropping Andy Kaufman), because he wanted to make sure Redd Dogg was looking right at him when the strap came down. Lawler waited to meet Redd Dogg's eyes, the way Stone Cold would get down into someone's face and blast the double middles straight into their eyes. Lawler finishes him with a bolo punch fistdrop from the middle buckle that lands so beautifully I watched it a half dozen times, just like the Fargo strut. Lawler shook out that arm the whole flight and if you didn't know what a Lawler fistdrop was you'd swear he just sent a fist into Redd Dogg's forehead as hard as he could. 

Undertaker/Batista/Rey Mysterio vs. Triple H/Eddy Guerrero/JBL WWF 7/19/05

MD: The biggest appeal of these dark matches is always to see wrestlers interact. I immediately want to see what JBL and Eddy teaming in 05 looks like, right? After their feud the year before. Our first image instead, however, is Triple H standing across from Rey and Batista flexing and Undertaker doing the throat cut, Rey in the middle, telling him he better damn well get out there and be David to a dubious Goliath. Apparently there was never a Rey vs Trips singles match. Seems like a huge oversight on his part as Rey would have made him look as good as anyone, right? This would have been the first time they ever faced off. 

So what happens? Triple H gets down on his hands and knees, begs off as a joke, punches the air like he was facing Little Beaver, and then Rey dropkicks him. Triple H sells it huge, sprawls out all over the place...

... and the fans start chanting Eddie Sucks. The Career of Triple H in a nutshell. 

Then the match goes from ridiculous to sublime as Eddy makes faces and tags in, the fans go nuts, and he immediately tags out to a scar-ridden JBL. JBL gets a shit eating grin, happy to be facing off against Rey, and then just as he gets in, Rey tags off to the Undertaker. JBL turns right back around, tags Eddy, and then he and Triple H take a powder, leaving Eddy in there with Taker.

The thing is, Triple H has to go along with it. He can't push against the heat here. He can undercut a babyface or someone with a political power disparity but he can't undercut Eddy. So after things cycle around to Eddy and Rey, and Eddy begs off and hugs Trips, all he can do is act like second banana to Shawn again and take the groan shot from Eddie's head as Rey runs over and slams it. Triple H is a survivor. 

For some reason, the crowd sweetening seems to go wild after that (even though it's a dark match) but they run a spot where Rey pulls down Triple H's pants and he runs around the ring, dragging Rey on the mat behind him, so obviously he knew what he was up against here. Then, during the ensuing Triple H/Batista "pec-off", JBL comes in posing like Road Warrior Animal and they all give him "too much, cut it out" expressions while he walks out of the ring with a kicked puppy face. Half the effort for at least an equal result.

(And yes, when Trips and Batista finally have an exchange and Batista clotheslines him over the top, the Eddie Sucks chants start anew).

Both Batista and Taker let themselves slip under a bit and then came back only for Rey to get caught in the fallaway slam by JBL. They worked him over on the outside, including a moment of JBL leaping over the rail as Taker got close. The crowd sweetening started up again, a wave of someone hitting the button every few seconds and it was pretty maddening. And so confusing. This is a dark match from 20 years ago! What the heck.

After some pretty solid cutoffs... look, when this dropped, I joked to Eric we'd get to see Triple H landing on a boot after a flying nothing and then staring at the lights for a minute before flopping. I was kidding. I shouldn't have been. That's what sets up the last burst against Eddy and the hot tag. Thankfully, it's not quite a minute, and it was made better by JBL trying to talk to Triple H through it, but, that's it for me. I'm out. Maybe Eric will mention Triple H taking everyone's finish or taking one last scare bump for Taker. Maybe he'll mention the drama of Taker milking a handshake to Batista and a fist bump to Rey. Me? I'm moving on to the next match.

Read more!

80s Joshi on Wednesday: Jaguar! Chigusa!

Volume 5  

6. Chigusa Nagayo vs. Jaguar Yokota 10/27/83

K: For many years the internet has incorrectly dated this match as being from “November 1982”. Even without finding the exact date, that was very clearly wrong. For one thing Jaguar’s hair is short so it must be after the May 1983 hair match, and Chigusa is way too developed for this to be a 1982 match, and she’s announced as being one of the Crush Gals.

So now that I’ve got that little vent out of the way, I’ll talk about the match. At the start we cut to a Wile E. Coyote cam (I will not reference Jerry Lawler’s commentary in these write-ups very often) view of the action, which I don’t remember ever happening before. It shows Chigusa openly aggressively with a flying kick (of course karate girl), but it isn’t long before Jaguar dodges her next attack and gets the better of her on the grappling exchange. Chigusa puts a lot of spirit into fighting back, she’s also delightfully noisy about it, she has a good wrestling voice, but Jaguar’s too much for her and looks like she’s in control. Chigusa has to work really hard to slowly counter a hold into a Boston Crab attempt, she even fails the first time but settles for a half-crab. I didn’t like that she just dropped it to go for an Irish Whip and kick on the rebound, could have done that a bit more organically, but I do like that it was the kick that gets her back on prolonged offense (similar to the opening).

There’s a really cool transition later where Jaguar gets a hammerlock on Chigusa, Chigusa tries to counter it by hitting her with a standing back body drop but Jaguar keeps hold of the arm and actually uses the momentum to pull her arm down with her and gets herself into an even better position to work the arm. Jaguar is the champ for a reason. They stick to the match narrative in the next transition, when Chigusa regains momentum by successfully hitting another kick, an enzuigiri this time. It’s not just a repeat of the previous segment though, as this time Chigusa really throws herself into a big volley of offense, as if she’s learned that she needs to capitalise on their opening as quickly as possible or else Jaguar will turn things around on her. She’s turns Jaguar over quickly this time and locks her in the Scorpion Deathlock (this has become a signature hold). Her inexperience gets the better of her though as Jaguar is too close to the ropes for that to last.

Jaguar’s a bit pissed at being put in the Scorpion though, she gets revenge by locking Chigusa into one of her own, and then she takes her for a walk outside and throws her onto the announce table.

When they get back in the ring, they do that spot where they’re both trying to lock each other into an abdominal stretch really fast while spinning around. I noted it because there’s a famous match in 1985 where people go wild for gifs of that spot, but actually Jaguar’s already doing it here (with a different opponent). 

I’m more impressed by the massive piledriver Chigusa hits here. There’s so much struggle in getting Jaguar up into position for it I can’t say for sure if Chigusa was going for that on purpose, or if she was just legitimately struggling to pick Jaguar up. It was very similar to how she did a piledriver on Noriyo Tateno in the match we covered from August. But this time she proper planted Jaguar right on her head cleanly in the end.

Things have got really heated now. I hear the commentary talking about that piledriver for a while afterwards. There’s another segment where Chigusa is out of the ring then gets back in, and she goes for a kick again, but Jaguar sees it coming this time and dodges it and then unloads with a few kicks of her own before tying Chigusa up in holds. Very commanding performance here. It’s entertaining to watch her so clearly being the better wrestler keeping this feisty little punk down.

Jaguar gets a flash pin, and when she wins she immediately pulls Chigusa up, raises her hand and congratulates her on putting up a good fight. It felt a bit too quick maybe in how they were at each others throats barely a minute before, perhaps she could have waited for Chigusa to show a bit of frustration on the floor before pulling her up, minor complaint though. This was a really good no-stakes/obvious who was winning TV match.

***1/2

MD: In between this match and the previous one was the September match between Jaguar and Devil that we covered here on Found Footage Friday when it showed up, grail-like : https://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2025/04/found-footage-friday-pirata-ms-1-jaguar.html

I feel like the point of comparison here has to be the Jackie vs Jaguar matches, but those were more contrast, big and strong vs fast and slick. Yes Jaguar is strong, is a force, is an athletic dynamo, but there was more like and like here maybe. It was just a case that Jaguar was MORE. The meat of the match, the heart of it was Chigusa getting a hold and then having Jaguar reverse it and get three. First it was a chinlock, which Jaguar turned into a hammerlock before tying Chigusa into knots. Then it was a Scorpion, which Jaguar answered with this great leg trap version of her own. So Chigusa was competitive and this was an escalation, Jaguar catching a star on the rise, but I don’t think the end result was much at risk.The one point where maybe it seemed that way was when Chigusa was able to power Jaguar up into a struggle-laden tombstone. That felt like a huge moment for her, but it wasn’t enough.

The opening and the closing stand out to me too. They used this great overhead shot at the bell, one I haven’t seen them use earlier than this, and it captured the wild action as the two of them flew around the ring at each other and with each other, screaming. Down the stretch after a game-changing Jaguar cartwheel and some bombs, Jaguar was able to turn a belly to back attempt into a roll up and get the win. What struck me as amazing was how Jaguar quickly, immediately even, rushed right to Chigusa and grabbed her hand, lifting her up to celebrate her with the crowd. It was a real babyface vs babyface moment but also felt like Jaguar was giving a massive stamp of approval to Chigusa, maybe even naming her as her heir apparent. 

I think Chigusa got just enough here. She did command a few times, did control the action even though Jaguar got the better of her from underneath. Yes, there was a sense that Jaguar could just snatch her leg, pull her out, and toss her into the chairs at any moment, but wrestling Jaguar wasn’t fair for anyone (except for maybe Devil or someone like Ripper), and Chigusa more than held her own.

Read more!

Tuesdays with Daddy: Week 5: w/McMichael vs. Emperor/Cooper

Week 5

Big Daddy/Mick McMichael vs. Masked Emperor/”Cyanide” Sid Cooper 5/4/85

MD: Best as I can tell, this was another one from 85. Again, there are some trends here. His opponents are often a small guy and a big guy. The big guy here was the mysterious Masked Emperor who was billed at 6’7” but was tall and not wide, sort of a Tinieblas body type? One interesting wrinkle here is that they were building to a future televised tag match against “The Rockers” who were at ringside and jawed with Daddy at one point. So Daddy could walk and chew bubblegum, perhaps not that large a feat but you don’t actually see it all that much on UK TV.

You’re probably looking for a few things in here by this point. How well does Daddy’s partner do? McMichael does pretty good to start, knocking Cooper all over with headbutts. He survives getting too close to the heel corner and Emperor whacking him only to get sidestepped throat first into the top rope. He also wins the last fall with a nice falling powerslam after Emperor gets run off (more on that in a minute). 

You’re looking for the overall sense of peril. In this case it was because Emperor made McMichael submit quickly with a sleeper (headlock strangle) and afterwards, McMichael sold the throat for the rest of the match. They did leave that on the bone for future matches; what if he could get it on Daddy? Daddy was quick to check on Mick and give him some of the water; I’d never actually seen anyone swallow instead of spitting before but McMichael did.

Then he made for the sort of hot tag you’d want in the second fall. McMichael crawled to him, no real need to twist things up and invert them, just straight forward stiff upper lip valiant crawling through a nervehold. Daddy came in a house afire. You’re looking for the variation, the different stuff and the familiar, and he had that great whip from one corner to the next bit that would be more difficult if the ring was bigger. This time though, as Emperor went in face first and started to back up, he nailed him with a lariat of sorts. Big meaty shot. I hadn’t seen him do that in the footage yet and it set up the splash. 

The familiar was there, people bouncing off of him (though he leans in like always), even just how he took his hat off and got the fans going or started the match by controlling the center of the ring and stomping. The engagement is always there and he always seems quite alive, never really phoning in that connection with the crowd. When they cut to a kid with a Big Daddy scarf, you believe how excited he was, because Daddy was speaking right to him and caring in the same way he did; he was just a much bigger presence doing it. 

The match ended with him doling out justice, tossing Emperor into the corner and Cooper and then pulling the mask right off. The Emperor rushed out without revealing his face leaving Cooper to his fate. Five matches in, I’m seeing little tweaks and differences, just enough variation in the mix, both in what Daddy does and in his partners and opponents. Yes, I’m not getting a sense of week to week from this, but we’re many years into the run at this point and those kids were still excited. I’m arguing that they were excited for a reason and that reason was tied directly to what Daddy was bringing to the table in these matches. 

One other thought at this point is in the strength of brevity. These aren’t twenty+ minute technical matches. There can be exchanges but it’s all pretty quick moving. It reminds me of the variance we see in some of, let’s say, the Junkyard Dog vs Nick Bockwinkel matches, which compared to almost all of Bock’s other matches, tend to go relatively short. Dog got in and out and gave the fans what they wanted. I see some parallels there. Maybe it’s a bit of a cheat since he’s able to be such a contrast to the longer matches, but there’s always been all sorts of different acts in the circus, and these are incredibly accessible. 

ER: I dig how Daddy doesn't bullshit around about Emperor not wanting to start the match with him. I was excited to see the two big men start things off, but Emperor wants no part. Daddy tries coaxing him (EASY! EASY!) and when it doesn't work Daddy just shrugs and tells McMichael, "Alright, you get in." I like the implication that he was game to start the match, but only against the tougher opponent, so send in McMichael rather than steamroll Cyanide Sid. That said, while we knew McMichael would likely be starting the match, I was surprised to hear him announced in ring after Big Daddy. Maybe I'm so used to the hierarchical order of announcements in All Japan/NOAH, where they would build to announcing the biggest stars last, but the crowd erupting for Daddy and then being hit with "also this guy!" is like a band getting stuck with the closer-opener slot after Danzig. It doesn't really matter, as McMichael gets thrown groin first into the turnbuckle and tags Daddy right in, without Emperor seeing it. We got to the same point we would have, but adding in a couple twists before arrival makes it mean something. When McMichael gets choked out for the 1st fall, I liked how Daddy flat out asked him before the 2nd if he was alright, imploring him to just tag out. 

My big takeaway from Daddy in this one - aside from him winning the 2nd fall with the worst standing splash we've ever seen - is that his pulling power is on full screen display here. I think his use of reverse whips in this tag is the best out of the matches we've talked about so far. It feels weird to say that Daddy is one of the best reverse Irish whip artists we have, but the case is sound. This match was much more about Daddy utilizing Irish whips than wielding his belly. His Irish whip reversals are excellent. The way he waits until the peak of his momentum - like that big Viking ship at the county fair reaching its apex before swinging back the opposite way - to plant and throw his reverse, always getting full extension on the whip, always looking like his opponent is running due to the strength of the whip and not because the spot simply demands it. Big Daddy looks like he has Andre level pulling power, and I can't think of many better comps than Andre when it comes to pulling strength. It's his go to physicality that shows he might have been better on the offense than playing brick wall.  

Now let's talk about Sid, because Cyanide Sid Cooper looks and wrestles like a Guy I Like. He looks like a British Bushwhacker and has a punch and bump style that works nicely with his black one strap singlet. As the smaller man in the tag, you expect him to pinball for Daddy's belly. Daddy flung that belly at his face and sent him bouncing back to his corner multiple times, and he flies through the ropes to the floor like Finlay for a McMichael uppercut (with The Rockers on the floor helping with his landing, love their jackets btw). But I liked his scrappy dirty offense even more than his bumping. Like when Emperor distracted McMichael from the apron and Sid blasts McMichael in the back of the neck with an elbow, pitching McMichael forward into the ropes, or how he sidesteps McMichael while running ropes and shoves him neck first into the top rope. Sidestepping someone and sending them running neck first into a rope shouldn't look like a finish, but they made it look that way. 

I also loved how Cooper, this dangerous looking scumbag, takes and uses his Public Warnings, almost completely wasting them but using them to get people engaged. With Daddy's team down a fall, that's the precise time to use up your PW's, make the crowd think the impossible may happen, that you might be able to cut McMichael off and make Daddy a non-factor. It doesn't quite work out that way, and the best part of Cooper using them is how quickly he regrets using them, when McMichael starts crawling towards Daddy and all Cooper can do is scream frantically from the apron, before getting wiped out when Daddy tags in and whips Emperor into him. And, since Daddy and Emperor have to start the 3rd together, Daddy starts the round by whipping Emperor into Cooper one more time.  

Read more!