80s Joshi on Wednesday: Nagayo! Lioness!

Volume 4  

6. Mimi Hagiwara Sings "Sexy in The Night" - 1/4/83

K: It’s January 4th, and you know what that means! Well, if you don’t, it means it’s the first show of the New Year. AJW would run Korakuen Hall every year (usually the 4th, sometimes 3rd or 5th) with some big matches to start the year strong.

There’s an interesting section in the intro where Announcer Shiono advertises wrestler try-outs. There’s a graphic on screen detailing where to send your resume to, noting that applicants must be aged 15-18 and be at least 165cm tall. It might not seem that odd now, but in 1983 wrestling was still a mostly closed business. Most people got in because they already knew someone in the business. It’s pretty rare that random fans just turned up saying ‘hey I wanna be a wrestler’ and got trained if they passed an audition, but that was the norm in AJW.

MD: They’re playing this up as a “singing duel” between Mimi and Devil, as Devil has a new song too, and I wonder if this aspect isn’t a little lost even in the set. I do get the idol culture and we’ve seen elements of this throughout but I wish I could get into a fan’s head and figure out how all this all synced together. Was it like watching an episode of JEM and the Holograms from the 80s but with fight scenes? Were they wrestlers who happened to sing or singers who happened to wrestle? Did they have a rich, full life in the minds of the fans where they were just competing at everything? Were they having craft fairs and baking contests and boat races and prank competitions on the side and people only happened to see the wrestling and the singing? How did all of this make sense to people? As an aside, this show also had Nancy Kumi’s retirement match so another stalwart is gone. 

7. Chigusa Nagayo vs. Lioness Asuka (AJW Title) - 1/4/83

K: If you watch this in vacuum it might not feel particularly noteworthy, but this is a famous match that apparently changed wrestling history. It’s the first match featuring the future Crush Gals to be featured in the semi-fictionalised ‘Queen of Villains’ Netflix show, which obviously used the real match as a template. 

The non-kayfabe story going into this is Chigusa felt her wrestling career was going nowhere and had told other wrestlers backstage that she was going to quit after this match. Her performance displayed all the reckless abandon of someone not concerned about damaging her body too much to perform adequately the next day. Maybe a bit of her frustration can be felt in the force she puts behind her spinning kicks. The way she wrestled that day backfired on her ‘retirement’ plans however, as when she went to Kunimatsu Matsumoto’s office to tell him she was quitting, before she got round to that he showered her with praise for her performance and told her she should try and wrestle like that permanently. Somewhere in that conversation Chigusa changed her mind and didn’t mention that she wanted to quit. Turns out her wrestling career was going somewhere after all.

It’s hard for me to review this without seeing everything through those lens. Still, I think without knowing all that, I’d still think this was the best singles match in either woman’s career to date. Right after the announcer lists all the matches Chigusa recently lost, she shows her new angry jealous heel attitude by trying to storm Asuka before the belt and snatch the belt off her. That she fails to get it actually works, because she’s just not good enough to beat Asuka at anything, it’s that feeling of failure which is driving her emotions.

The opening strike exchange salvo is really good. Asuka throws harder and appears to be winning already after a couple of hands get thrown. Rather than no-sell/try to look tough, or just backing down, instead Chigusa covers up and tries to go for some kind of takedown. It looks both like she can’t handle Asuka’s strikes but also that she’s going for a counter.

After a hot start, they never really relent. There’s slower sections of course, we get the customary legwork section, but there’s such energy and aggression behind it from both women that it doesn’t feel like a cooldown at all. They just keep on fighting, that Asuka looks like she’s going to win for almost the whole match doesn’t stop them from behaving like things are neck and neck. Their pin attempts are very tight and we get a AJW-special kickout before even a count of 1. Get those shoulders off the mat! Now! Don’t wait till 2…

They’re relatively limited in moveset here but that doesn’t stop them from pulling off a memorable finish. Asuka gets Chigusa up for a backdrop, but this time drops her right on her head. She follows up with a Samoan Drop like move to get the win and retain the belt.

***1/2

MD: Bit of a weird one. Kadaveri explained to me that Chigusa had gotten frustrated at a losing streak and went heel, but this was not in the least a showcase for her, except for maybe her selling (more on that in a second). Asuka came in with the belt and the intensity early for the pre-Crush Gals pre-exploding was great. They just really swung at each other to start, a chaotic feel. I did get the sense that Asuka was the aggressor. It made sense that Asuka got the early advantage and she had a lot of “stuff” here, including a nice torture rack drop and this great over the shoulder arm submission where she spun around with it. 

Chigusa took over with an absolutely brutal bridging toehold, and truly that was just about her only real offense in the match, that and the subsequent beating on the leg. Asuka came back with a figure-four. That revealed Chigusa’s super power. She was the one-eyed woman in the land of the blind when it came to extended selling. It wasn’t even THAT extended but she sold the leg as she came back just a little (having dodged a move). It wasn’t much but it was appreciated in a sea of everyone just dropping lengthy limbwork to move on to the next thing.

Finish had Asuka hit another torture rack slam and a giant swing en route to pressing the arms despite Chigusa’s best efforts. I didn’t have any real sense that the fans wanted to boo her here, but this was spirited at time. I just thought Chigusa should have taken a lot more of it.

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The Possibilities of the Now: Liiza Hall vs Hazuki

PRODUCE: PRODUIT 7/26/26

Liiza Hall vs Hazuki

MD: Pro wrestling is interactive and no pro wrestling is more interactive than indie wrestling. 

That's not just true for people watching in tightly packed, close-up rooms either. It's true for us as viewers at home. You don't just consume pro wrestling. You engage with it. That's doubly true for indie wrestling. 

It's not just closer to the fans there live. It's closer to all of us. There's less polish, less distance, less over-production. It's more natural, more organic, less about glitz, glamour, and artificial spectacle and more about passion, showmanship, and human spectacle created entirely by the wrestlers plying their trade. It's more a conversation.

WWE isn't going to challenge your priors. It tries to drown them out in slop and noise, rewriting history and presenting a twisted insubstantial alternative to reality that it needs you to buy into without doubt or hesitation. Without thought. AEW's better along these lines, but it still goes out of its way to reinforce your priors, giving you what you want, even if it's often not what you need.

Indie wrestling is out there trying to figure it all out with you. Sometimes it works out for the best. Sometimes it doesn't. But that risk, that effort, that triumph and frustration is half the joy, half of what reminds you that you're alive while you're watching it.

I had priors coming into this, not a ton, but some. I think Hall did too. I think the PRODUCE as a whole did. Hall had been presented a certain way leading up to this show. PRODUCE may not flood your senses and try to shut off your brain like WWE does, but it certainly works to establish the wrestlers and the fights ahead of time, encourages them tell their own stories in their own way. In my eyes, Hall came out to the ring with a certain expectation clearly expressed through her reaction to the crowd and subsequent bemusement when the crowd didn't want to love her back. 

She's Canadian. She works hard. She fights hard. This was Canada. Except for it wasn't. It was Quebec, and she doesn't have a big history with the province. Hazuki was more the attraction, someone that this crowd might have felt like they'd never get a chance to see live. 

Either way, whether this was the plan all along or whether Hall shifted in the moment, it's a testament to her that she landed where she did and a testament to indie wrestling that it has that sort of flexibility to be agile, to turn on a dime, to live in the moment, to face the human reality before it and adapt to take advantage of all the possibilities of the now. 

I came in thinking that Hall would have a chip on her shoulder after her loss to Billie Starkz, sure, that she would meet the opportunity for what it was, that this would be spirited and technical and hard hitting, and that eventually it would boil over into something mean. 

But I didn't think it would start that way, that the chip would split into a fissure before the bell and any sportsmanship or good will that Hall might came in with would fizzle away in the face of a crowd that had a very clear preference for Hazuki. 

I didn't think Hall would be trying to distract the ref so she could pry at fingers just a few minutes into the match or that Hazuki would have to channel her fire to fight from underneath from the get go because Hall had every intention of using her superior size and reach to bully her around. Maybe it all cost Hall in the end. She took that yellow card with panache but she simply couldn't keep Hazuki down. Maybe she was thrown by the crowd. Maybe the strength that resentment fueled in her wasn't pure and potent enough to get the job done. Maybe she couldn't get out of her own way. 

But that's why we watch, isn't it? That's what makes pro wrestling, and indie wrestling especially, interesting as an art form. It's not enough to just see a bunch of spots and yell This is Awesome. That's just being fed candy. It's fun once or twice but eventually, you get sick to your stomach. Sometimes you want something that's real, that hits at odd angles, that comes together a little off center, not polished and perfect, but with just enough dirt and grit. Sometimes it doesn't even come together at all, but the parts that hit still hit you in ways you didn't expect, ways that have value, that make you engage and strain and grow instead of just being another picture perfect spotfest for you to consume.

So maybe, just maybe, this crowd and this match gave Hall something she wasn't expecting, and because of that, they gave me something I wasn't expecting too. If you go and watch this now, you might have a completely different reaction. Maybe it'll even be my fault for priming you a certain way. But that's fine, that's good. Wrestling is art and art is subjective and the journey matters a hell of a lot more than the destination.  

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 7/20 - 7/26

AEW Dynamite 7/22/26

Darby Allin vs Kevin Knight

MD: So who then is Kevin Knight?

For the first couple of minutes of this match, it actually doesn't matter, because this one begins as Darby Allin's story.

What do we know coming in? Kevin Knight inadvertently injured Darby Allin in the Continental Classic and took him out of the running. Darby successfully defended the World Title against Knight, who subsequently won the TNT Title, a title associated with Darby. After Darby lost the World Title back to MJF, Knight came out and turned on him. Knight then joined the Don Callis Family and has broken the record for most TNT defenses (not a particularly impressive record because the title tends to get hot potatoed; it's fine as that's its purpose, but it feels a bit like a false claim, in this case helping matters). Darby's recently came back for revenge. And finally, Knight claimed to want to beat Allin in a wrestling match, no interference, just to prove he's better.

You'd have to look back at their previous encounters, but given the hierarchy at play, I imagine Darby's entered second for most of them. Here Knight, the champion, entered second. He made his way down to the ring, posing, preening, full of confidence (more on that in a minute). That made him a target for a Darby Allin seeking revenge. Darby's the sort of wrestler that'll go to the top of Everest and envision jumping off it onto your head if you've done him wrong. 

That's basically what he did here, using his body as a battering ram multiple times. At one point, he pulled the protective top cover off the corner of the ring to flatten out the space so he could jump off of it onto a Knight draped over the guardrail. 

So, yes, it didn't really matter who Knight was or what he wanted at the start of the match. He was a target, completely without agency. 

But of course, Darby's fury has a cost. One too many crashes. One too many landings. He started limping. That let Knight get some distance. It let him go to the eyes. One might argue that what Darby had done here wasn't proper for a "good, honest wrestling match" but that doesn't hold up in 2026. Is it really a sneak attack when you see Darby coming? 

Going to the eyes though? Shoving Darby off the ramp so that he lands groin first on the guardrail? 

Well, maybe it was tit for tat. Maybe. Regardless, it was certainly Knight exacting his agency. And it means that it's at least half his story once again. 

So that brings us back to the start.

Who is Kevin Knight?

He's a heel. But he's a complex heel. He's a multi-dimensional heel. He's an effective heel. 

Most of all, he's a vulnerable heel.

He claims to have attacked Darby because he couldn't get the job done. Out of frustration. It wasn't about Darby, though. It wasn't about Max being champion. It wasn't even about Knight himself losing to both Max and Darby in title matches. 

It was about the ticking clock, the Sword of Damocles over his head. 

Kevin Knight is 29. His former partner, Speedball Mike Bailey, is 36. Bailey lost years trapped behind the Canadian border due to visa issues. Were it not for that, Bailey might have been the world champion years ago. Darby himself is 33. He was in AEW from the start and only now won the World Title. Years and years of working his way up. MJF is 30 now but he won his first world title three and a half years ago. 

Knight is athletic, dynamic, but he crashes and burns every match, much like Darby, even without some of the reckless intent. He watched Darby hold the title for one lone month before MJF won it back.

So why did Kevin Knight attack Darby Allin?

For the same reason the greatest, most human heels do anything. 

He was afraid.

He was afraid of it all slipping away, of time getting away from him, of losing his opportunity, of not seizing on the moment now so that when he did have his time, it'd be far too late. Like Darby. Or maybe it'd never come at all. Like Speedball. 

He didn't know what to do, but he knew he had to do something. So he did something desperate. Once he acted, there was no going back. Speedball offered forgiveness, but what would forgiveness get him? Forgiveness would be admitting he was wrong, admitting he was afraid, admitting he was lost. He'd be back where he started, worse off for the effort.

Once you stray from the path, it gets easier and easier to stray again. One bad choice leads to another and another and another. It's sunk cost fallacy. It's guilt. If there's a good man somewhere inside Kevin Knight, that man is refusing to look in the mirror, refusing to admit the truth. All he can do instead is keep digging deeper, keep hiding behind false confidence and swagger. And so long as he keeps winning, he'll get away with it too.

So yes, Knight went to the eyes, crotched Darby, and catapulted him into the ringsteps, opening him up. It's not crochet. It's pro wrestling. Darby came back, hitting a code red off the top followed by another one, slamming Knight's head into the steps, grinding his hand in the exposed corner cavity. They crashed into one another and then, after an attempt at a Scorpion Death Drop, the ref went down. 

Knight had claimed to want a fair, honest fight. He claims a lot of things. He believes a lot of things, right up until the point he is challenged by life. That's the problem with a foundation of lies, lies to yourself, to the world. They don't stand up under pressure.

Knight's resolve broke. He went for the belt to wield it as a weapon. Darby dodged it, and then, with Knight's legs flailing in fear, Darby dropped him with the Death Drop. For a moment, Darby looked to use the belt himself, but that might have brought him victory, reclaimed him his title, but it wouldn't have brought him satisfaction. Darby understood that because he was at peace with himself, a peace that Knight is nowhere near anymore. Darby mounted the ropes for the Coffin Drop. Knight recovered quickly enough to nail him with the belt. 

And he hit the same spectacular coast-to-coast dropkick that injured Darby during the C2 and stole the win. That belt shot may have appeared to have gained him everything in the moment, but it only dug his hole deeper. 

Months ago, with a heart full of fear, Kevin Knight made his choice. Once made, the only path forward was to go deeper. Into the Don Callis Family. To become the most successful TNT champion ever. And yes, all the way to his first PPV main event. 

The path can lead nowhere good. The path can lean to nothing but the same sort of inevitable destruction that Knight had been running from in the first place. 

But in the hands of a talent who's willing to be vulnerable, who's willing to commit, it sure does make for a hell of a story, doesn't it?

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Found Footage Friday: 1990 FMW~!

FMW 3/10/90

Kumiko Matsuda vs. Crusher Maedomari 

MD: Crusher isn't Crusher yet. This was pre-show and you could tell they were working things out, but they had good aggression, Matsuda with strikes and Maedomari with throws and holds. Lots of shoot pin escapes. Matsuda could be pretty relentless with the kicks and knees. At one point, they had a funny bit where she missed on a spin kick in the corner and got the ref. Maedomari wanted in on the fun and turned to nail the ref too. It was funny but added to the sense of wild aggression from these two. Matsuda finally got a series of dropkick in the corner which let her hit a double underhook suplex and follow with a jackknife pin for the win. This was rough around the edges but had good energy for what FMW was trying to be at this point, which was definitely a little bit of everything.

ER: Strong Opener, great energy. Matsuda does her leveraged throws and kicks with intent and can believably back Maedomari up with palm strikes. I loved the bit with her spin kicks in the corner swinging wide into the referee's ribs. Her dropkicks down the finishing stretch could use some steam but I also like the raggedness of someone 10 matches into her career guiding someone through their first ever match. Actually that feels like the exact situation where you'd expect someone to be murdered by dropkicks. 

Miwa Sato vs. Drake Morimatsu 

MD: DVDVR stalwart Gordi had been at a party recently with Morimatsu, so I was hoping to get this match back out there after seeing the listing, but it's a non match. Thanks to BAHU's history of FMW, I know this was the debut of Kudo with two fellow non-active AJW Class of 86 alums (Reibun Amada and Noriyo Toyoda) as the The Outbreakers. They come out of nowhere and destroy Miwa (including with a spike kneeling pile driver), setting up a tag and then singles match later in the month (we have the 3/30 singles and Kudo dominates). There is a clear sense of chaos to all of this though and it helps the overall feel compared to what else is happening in Japan at the time. Like any other unexpected surprise, this had a big buzz from the crowd.

ER: This angle made me so excited for tag matches we're never going to see. Miwa Sato takes a great beating at the hands of the AJW veterans. The kneeling stuff piledriver was disgusting, just a full head drop. Sato comes off like an underdog babyface star and it sucks to hear a Kudo singles match was one sided. 1997 Kudo would have had the most memorable match on the card with her. 

MD: After this, they played Final Countdown and had everyone come down to the ring. I've seen enough AJPW and NJPW house shows to think they didn't do that for those in this era, but they did for UWF in a big ceremony. This sort of aped that but you have such a misfit bunch of people out here that it has a completely different effect. 

Yukihide Ueno vs. Shooter #1 

MD: Shooter 1 is sort of credible, I guess. He had debuted earlier in the year as a "discipline of Tiger Mask" and had been over enough for it. This is all over the place at times, but Shooter has just enough presence to press an advantage and he has solid strikes and can bully Ueno around on size alone. He's constantly fixing his mask which is not something that usually bugs me, so that gives you a sense of how often he does it. He hits big stuff but can't always follow up because it's all a bit too disjointed. Ueno has the crowd (who are primarily happy to be there I think). He gets one big comeback with a gutshot, a German, and a kick out of the ring (and does get one big dive) but Shooter takes back over with a great press slam where he takes him off the top but slams him out of the ring instead of into it. Beautiful visual. It meanders a bit to the finish and there are a few times where the thing probably had an offramp to end and they should have taken it, but I'd say the trainwreck feel adds more than diminishes given the setting.

ER: Ueno would go on to be Choden Senshi Battle Ranger, one of those sick undercard FMW guys who didn't get as much acclaim as the more violent guys he shared rosters with. He became a gifted flier with great glue, and seeing him work a Different Style match like this you can see where all his stickiest glue came from. He debuted earlier in 1990 and is quickly tasked with working a long shootstyle fight against a guy who seems less familiar with the concept. Ueno is much smaller but had great purpose on offense, in a way I could have seen him controlling the whole match. His rolling kick that knocked Shooter to the floor was awesome, the follow up plancha a beautiful one within the crowed pool of wild 90s Japanese indie planchas. 

Ueno looks like he going to dominate with kicks and armbar takedowns, when he gets gorilla press slammed to the floor and spends a long back stretch fighting to get back to his feet. Shooter kind of sprang to life as a worker after this, turning into a kick combo machine while trying pro wrestling clotheslines and rope running for the first time. He wasn't great at peaking his knockdown kicks, mostly throwing left-right body combos and trying weighty kneelifts. He needed a big finish instead of a long wear down. Ueno fighting through the knockdowns was impressive, but he's someone who got so good at chaining big runs of cool offense that I wanted to see more of what he could do when he was a rookie menace.  

Masanobu Kurisu vs. Shooter #2 

MD: Shooter #2 is not nearly as credible. He tries for an ambush but obviously that's a terrible idea. There are no good ideas against Kurisu, except for maybe to run. Kurisu headbutts him out of the corner and doesn't really look back. He headbutts him again, stomps and kicks him, hits him with a chair on the outside, and it's all top 5% ever pro wrestling brutality. Just another day in the office for Kurisu. Shooter gets a miracle clothesline and tries to get a hold out of it. Kurisu reverses the hold and kicks and headbutts and slams and clotheslines and chicken wings this poor jerk. Shooter doesn't quit (he should). Instead he gets a miracle belly to belly but Kurisu just rolls him over and gets the double wristlock for the win. Almost a mercy.

ER: A 5 minute classic, something for every fan of wrestling violence and all Kurisu heads. The full Korakuen crowd is in LOVE with Kurisu and actually laughs with glee as he stomped the skull plates apart of the future Ryo Miyake. Miyake by the mid 90s was a WAR/Yume Guy I Liked, here he is a game sacrificial lamb who takes the worst of Kurisu's head kicks and bone breaking submissions. He gets to kick Kurisu in the head a couple times and bounce him with a pretty nasty suplex, but mostly he was in there to test a 1990 theory about how many unprotected kicks a rookie could take to the cranium. 

We think of Masa Fuchi as evil, sometimes. It's because of his eyes. He is a businessman who double crosses you on a deal, but will also step on a guy's face. But Fuchi was never evil, he was a dickhead. Masanobu Kurisu is Evil Fuchi. Kurisu unleashed on the 90s All Japan Old Men division would have been Hell on earth. He would have been the reason everyone traded for All Japan tapes. He throws a short fast overhead chair shot that lands with such impact it's like seeing someone get hit with a chair for the first time. His submissions always look like we're getting a glimpse into dojo torture, a live bone density test on a Saturday. Miyake making the ropes more than once felt like huge moments, as they felt like they actually pissed Kurisu off. Bad news for Miyake, but he came out of this looking likWhen e a guy. 

Tarzan Goto vs. Satoshi Imaizumi

MD: Not sure why Goto had back to back gimmick matches but here we go. This was more of a judo gi mixed styles deal (Goto did have a gi too). FMW was still transitioning towards death matches as more the norm and there was still so much of the early martial arts feel here. I think it worked better in the main event than it did here though. At least the people around the camera were into all the judo throws. Goto would try some more pro wrestling, things like kicks and clotheslines. Imaizumi got his knees up on a Vader Bomb attempt and almost won it with a cross arm breaker but Goto came back for a choke. Not a ton here but it's fun to see him go from one gimmick to the other in subsequent matches. 

ER: I saw Imaizumi standing around during the extended Europe introduction ceremony and I wanted to see him more than anyone. He looks like Kurisu's large son with the exact same hairline but a young  branching out from his tough father mustache. Goto looks trim in his gi and ponytail. This started like a kind of dry judo throw exhibition and slowly grew into an aggressive sparring dojo war. Imaizumi started going for broke and using his strongest throws on Goto, working hard for a head and arm submission like he was really trying to end this fight while he had a gas tank. When he pulled an armbar after getting his knees up on a Goto Vader bomb I thought he had it. There's this weird FMW guy trend of shoehorning a dropkick into their Different Style fight. None of them have had dropkicks good enough to work in a shootstyle/Different Style setting, Goto included. Goto's headbutts were welcome but Imaizumi came across as the more intriguing figure. Goto is such a good pro wrestler that I thought he would have been more of a dynamic tough guy fit in a Different Style division. 

Tarzan Goto vs. Beast the Barbarian

MD: This was far more interesting than the judo jacket match. I always joke that Beast could be a time traveling Mad Dog Connelly, by looks and gimmick but he didn't have the intensity or presence. He was set up to succeed with this match gimmick though and this was a perfectly acceptable dog collar match. He's able to use the chain as a weapon and clubber Goto down and he laid it in. Goto would come back hitting just as hard. There were a few transitions with one or the other getting a little tangled up with the rope and the chain and I do wonder if this wouldn't have been better with a slightly shorter chain which kept them a little closer together without some of those apron bits. Goto bled. Beast asserted himself pretty well overall especially relative to his Onita match a couple of months before. And cleverly enough, after each man meted out a sufficient amount of punishment, Goto won with a backslide of all things. Beast didn't think his shoulders were down which led to a post-match fit.

ER: If Matt is saying he has a regular routine about Beast the Barbarian, I can confidently say that I have never seen nor written about a Beast the Barbarian match in my life. I don't know a thing about this guy but on sight he's like Damien Demento working a balding shorter Bruiser Brody gimmick. 

Atsushi Onita & Sambo Asako vs. Kim Sung Ho & Lee Gak Soo

MD: The story of this one was that Asako or Onita would get one of the taekwondo guys down and in a hold and again and again and again, the other would come in to break it up. That lasted until Onita finally got fed up and hit his deadly over the shoulder power bomb. Even that wasn't good enough but then Asako got the message and cut off the ring for so he could hit a second one. That was the basic story but the devil's in the details and Lee Gak Soo is one of the most dynamic pro wrestling kickers I've ever seen. 

He somehow manages to throw kicks from every angle, sometimes flying around with them, and obviously Asako is a great canvas, but Onita would get knocked out of the ring like it was nothing too and the fans loved it. Kim had some fun charging ones too. Basically Onita would run at people with lariats or trips, cutting the distance however he could, and Asako had all these cool throws if people got close enough to him, but then the subsequent holds would get broken up and Kim and Lee would just take right over with the meanest stomps and kicks imaginable. 

Right until Asako (also fed up) dragged Lee over to the corner and the power bombs happened. Crazy, enjoyable stuff.

Battle Royal

MD: This was all about the taekwondo guys just throwing flying kicks everywhere in the middle of a battle royal. Even more fun than that sounds. What you need to know is that Onita and Kurisu were working together but Onita accidentally chopped Kurisu which went about as well as you'd expect. Onita eliminated him but Lee and Asako immediately eliminated Onita afterwards. I imagine he and Kurisu are still fighting to the back today. This is one of those battle royals were people get pinned by everyone in the ring piling on them. I think that was Imaizumi's fate. It ended up Asako, Shooter, and Lee and then was an entertaining mess of guys kicking and then immediately falling over. Asako shoved Lee into the ropes and he came right off on him for the pin. Then he followed up with a kick off the top on Shooter. Stupid amounts of fun. 

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80s Joshi on Wednesday: Jaguar! Jumbo! Masami! Tarantula!

Volume 4  

5. Devil Masami & Tarantula vs. Jaguar Yokota & Jumbo Hori - 11/4/82

K: Tag champs Devil Masami & Tarantula in a non-title match here. It's still 2/3 falls because AJW TV just did that regularly for main event tags whether it was for the titles or not. 

They flip the script a bit here by having the heels jump the babyfaces right at the start, rather than later into the match as a reaction to the momentum swings against them. The announcers are very alarmed that Jaguar & Jumbo were still in their entrance gowns while being accosted. 

The 1st fall feels more like a heel showcase with the occasional comeback spots. Tarantula inherits Yumi Ikeshita's plant opponent onto sticking up toes move, but follows this up by savagely biting Jaguar's neck like she's a vampire or something. Later Tarantula has Jaguar in a headlock, but with the other hand she's pulling her hair just out of sight of the referee. It's delightfully villainous how the ref can see she's doing something untoward, and Tarantula isn't really trying to pretend she isn't doing something illegal, but is just about managing to stop the referee from directly seeing it, like that's what really matters. I thought the finish to this fall was a bit odd. Jaguar Irish Whips Devil into Jumbo Hori, presumably to set up some double team move, but Devil just spins around her, hits Jumbo with a side suplex as Tarantula prevents Jaguar from breaking it up. It made sense in conception, other than the move to actually pin Jumbo didn't look that strong.

But that slight complaint about the 1st fall goes out the window with the finish of the 2nd fall! Jumbo hits a slam, and then Jaguar does a missile dropkick from the top rope to take out Devil, but lands into a pinning position on top of Tarantula and gets the win! Surely someone else has done a finish like that before but I don't remember it. I've only mentioned the finish, but more generally the 2nd fall had a nice pickup in pace and Tarantula in particular was showing out.

The 3rd fall is almost an inversion of the 1st in that its the babyfaces who almost ambush the heels at the start, there's a big double figure four spot that they like to do. But before long the heels take control and methodically grind them down without many big spots to specifically point out, but it's all good stuff. Devil & Tarantula are very good at coming across like they really are just an excellent tag team (whether they fight dirty or not) and it’s just really difficult for anyone to sustain any momentum against them. I liked when Devil was using the big hanging choke on the turnbuckle while Tarantula got her chops in. Devil goes wild with her cane while the referee gets distracted and this sets up Devil getting a rare pinfall win with her leaping senton (usually used for a nearfall). I like how although wrestlers have signature moves, nobody really has a finisher here, so what will win a match is far less predictable.

Jumbo punishes the referee for his poor eyesight by throwing him into the crowd. A strong AJW babyface tradition.

***1/2

MD: Masami and Tarantula had become a pretty effective team by this point. They ambushed to start. Tarantula would sneak in a choke or just bite you in the face. Masami was relentless. There was a real sense that if you got breathing room by going one way, they’d be the other ready to get you. Still, the big difference I’ve noted in 82 relative to 79 or 80 was just how much the babyfaces could fight back. The Devil Army made them really, really work for it though. One second of lapse and Tarantula’s hand would be right in your face. Hori came back only for Devil to stop short on a whip and nail her in the back. Yokota fought back only for Masami to get a foot up from a prone position. When they did mount a comeback at the end of the first fall with a series of press up seated sentons by Jaguar, all it took was one duck by Devil and she hit a belly to back on Hori for the fall.

Second fall had Jaguar winning a test of strength against Jumbo which seems a bit silly and then laying in headbutts. Tarantula hit her roll-into-a-dropkick which is one of the few good rolls in wrestling history, then a missile front dropkick. Again, they made Jaguar work for it as she hit her forward vault to start her comeback but Devil caught her on the apron and she had to side step. I won’t use the word “evolutionary” but I do think that they were building on things so fans did not grow accustomed to the same match over and over. Jumbo came in with a massive power bomb, leading to a sort of bridging exploder and a great finish where Jaguar hit a missile dropkick on a charging Devil and then landed with a top rope splash on Tarantula. Great end to the fall.

In the third fall, Devil tried to hit some of her big offense (like the press slam) but Jaguar kept escaping. She and Tarantula had more luck choking with an outside bit of rope/wire. She also did a dangling choke from the top while Tarantula hit some chops which is not something you see every day. When she was firmly in control she hit all that offense she wanted before like the press slam, which felt perfectly petty in the best way. She followed that up by being even more petty and vindictive with the stick and won it with a flip senton, which is not something I think I’ve seen her do chronologically up until now. This was a good distilled version of the style at the time. We’ve seen a few tags like this now and you can tell where they were developing different aspects over time. I’m curious if that survives into the next generation’s tag matches. Post match, Jumbo goes after the ref again. We know that’s not going to do them much good over time.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death 7/13 - 7/19

ROH TV 7/16/26

Eddie Kingston/Ortiz/Adam Priest/Tommy Billington vs Shane Taylor Promotions (Shane Taylor/Lee Moriarty/Shawn Dean/Carlie Bravo)

MD: I can hear it in your head.

Ospreay VS Brooks Was 8 Minutes Long With Will Working From Underneath When He's The Title Contender? What's The Ticket Sales For All In? How About Summerslam? Did The Dynamite Rating Hold Up? What Did Collision Do Against SNME? Danhausen Brought Out Karl-Anthony Towns? WWE Is Booking New York? Does That Mean There'll Be A Grand Slam To Counter SaudiMania? Someone Posted A Hogan VS Michaels Clip. Got To Post A Take On That. Dave Didn't Post The Mercedes/Maya Star Rating Yet? But He's In Arena Mexico. What's Going On With Sammy? What's Aminata's Contract Status? What About Bayley? Alvarez Says We Should Criticize AEW. Some Fans Say We Just  Should Focus On The Positives. Why Am I Typing This Like Ric Flair Tweets? What Did Styles Say This time? It's G1 Season. Big TJPW Show To Catch Up On. The TNT Champion Is Challenging at the PPV Again? Liv Morgan Supports Conversion Therapy? Tony Khan Is Playing 5 Star Booker? The Triangle of Madness Have Stardom Titles Now? 

Stop

Just stop.

Breathe. Take a breath.

None of that is going anywhere. 

Or it is, but you don't need to go with it for a few minutes.

It'll be there when you get back. Or the next thing will. Or the next. Or the next.

And you won't miss much of anything. It's fine. It'll be fine. There's something better for you out there.

A match.

A professional wrestling match.

It's full of story but not part of any storylines. 

It didn't go viral. Haven't seen a single clip from it. 

But it has eight practitioners of their craft, artists. Guys who have been around the block, guys who are on the rise, different sizes, shapes, styles. 

Twelve and a half minutes of freedom from everything above. It's on Honor Club. You have to want it to watch it. You're going to be surrounded by people who want it. It's in front of a studio audience there to see hours of wrestling. Small, intimate crowd. People who care. People who love it. People who are passionate enough to love it that much for what it is and not for all the noise around it. 

Where's Eddie Kingston been? 

Here. He's been here. Teaming with Ortiz. Wrestling with the younger guys. Wrestling the younger guys. Staring off against Shane Taylor. And yeah, you've missed him, but you don't need to miss him. He's right here waiting for you. 

Just get off the never-ending train to nowhere. Take a breath. Relax. Watch some pro wrestling that exists for the sake of pro wrestling. To entertain a crowd. To make Honor Club worth the price. To get guys reps. To create something out of nothing.

What does it look like when Eddie and Ortiz team with Priest and Billington? What does it look like when Shane Taylor Promotions come out at full strength? What does the clash of the two look like?

Aren't you curious? Even though it's not going to score you any points in any online argument. Even though it probably won't even get a look from the Observer. Even though this episode of ROH only has ONE vote on Cagematch. 

Doesn't that still sound interesting? Doesn't it sound more interesting than a lot of things that you feel far more obliged to watch and follow and post about?

Trust me when I tell you that it's better for your soul.

It was sure better for mine.

And yes, there were stories galore here, because characters drive stories and look at these characters. Ortiz and Bravo to start. Does Bravo respect the Code of Honor? No. He's tells the crowd to shut up and has a single finger on each hand for Ortiz instead. Mood set.

They trade rolling leg picks. Bravo goes under and around the leg. Ortiz gets behind him with a hammerlock. They burst into rope running. Ortiz drops down, gets a leap frog, hits an armdrag. Great way to start a match.

More stories. Eddie comes in and hits a Japanese arm drag on Dean. Dean yelps that it's an illegal move in the United States. Small crowd theatrics, maybe the best kind? Billington tagged in intending to chop down Taylor. Fearless bulldog mentality but up against a tank. Contrast makes things interesting. Styles make fights. It took Billington, Priest, and Ortiz working together to take him down. Things (like Taylor's size) mean something, have significance. 

Sometimes you want to see like vs like too. Adam Priest is any style. Lee Moriarty is the pure champ. They face off and Moriarty goes for a rolling leg pick of his own, but Priest had seen it twice so far in the match and jams it with a nasty back elbow to the jaw.

But then, Priest gets swept under. Transitions are structural, as important as any part of the match. Moriarty distracts the ref as Priest hits the ropes. Dean trips him and hits a stunner onto the apron, Bravo hits a knee drop off the apron, Taylor hits a legdrop on it. It takes mere seconds and changes everything.

Adam Priest, maybe the best heel of the 2020s, is out there playing face-in-peril, constantly reaching for his corner, constantly dragging himself across the mat, looking for any sign of hope and trying to create his own when there's none to be found. But STP stretch and do their thing. They toss him to the floor and swarm him. Bravo works small, little flourishes full of confidence. Dean has that same confidence, but he works bigger and more over the top with it. Moriarty is precise, contorting body parts, hitting suplexes, holding bridges (just as confident). Taylor is a wrecking ball. Priest tries to fire back on him. It doesn't go well for poor Adam. 

Nevertheless, Priest doesn't quit. He doesn't give up. He keeps on running, keeps on fighting, and manages to double down with Bravo after simultaneous clotheslines. He gets the hot tag. Eddie comes in like the (beloved) maniac he is. The Kobashi chops in the corner. He directs traffic. His team unloads and then toss Bravo in for an exploder. STP comes back and do the same to Eddie, tossing him in to a Taylor uranage. Things have broken down but even in chaos, there's a beautiful undercurrent of symmetry and order.

It's an 8-man tag. Plenty of people to break up pins. Plenty of offense to feature as well. Things waterfall. One guy rushes in to hit a bit of signature offense, then the next, but it all happens so quickly, and here in the finishing stretch after the meat of the match has already been consumed, that you can relax and enjoy it. The subsequent dives cleared the ring and the finish had Priest's half crab, a missile dropkick out of nowhere by Billington and dueling roll ups leading to the pin.

The progression was just right. Opening exchanges. Shine. Heat. Comeback. Chaos. Completion. All underpinned by contrast and character.

Sometimes a match can "just" be a match. That's not an insult. It can be wonderful. That doesn't mean it lacks story. It doesn't mean it doesn't draw you in. In some ways, it helps you let go and can draw you in all the more. It cuts out the distractions and lets you focus on the passion and the craft.

That doesn't mean there aren't things coming out of this I'd want to see too. We got a taste of Priest vs Moriarty. What does a Pure Title match between the two look like. We've seen Infantry vs Ortiz/Kingston once, but there's way more left on the bone. And yeah, Billington wanted to challenge himself against Shane Taylor. If he wants it that badly, I'd want to see him have the chance.

In a world without house shows, where the analytics of every quarter hour of TV is carefully examined, where fans are pushed by the algorithm to care most about lore, divisive arguments, and what's trending, a match like this can be a breath of fresh air.

I got the train for twelve minutes and just enjoyed myself. You can too. You'll be better off for it. A match like this is a gift, an increasingly rare gift. Log off for a bit and go open the present. 

You can be present. It's okay. The noise will be waiting for you whether you want it to be or not.

Enjoy the gift while you can. We don't get enough of them anymore.

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What Worth a Title? Mad Dog Connelly vs Mance Warner

PRODUCE Volume 2: TAIGASTYLE 7/16/26 

Mad Dog Connelly vs Mance Warner 

What is a title worth? 

What value does a title have?

What can any of this possibly mean to Mad Dog Connelly? 

As I watched this match, I kept struggling with that thought.

A title, a belt, a championship is an artificial thing. The only value it has is the value we, as a society, place upon it. The title does not make the wrestler. The wrestler makes the title. Over time, wrestler after wrestler, through defenses, through blood, sweat, and tears, give it worth. 

But still, what does any of that matter to Mad Dog Connelly? 

A title is a responsibility. It is a mantle. It is something to be defended, an obligation.

It is a chain.

And there is only one chain in this world that should matter to Mad Dog Connelly.

Yet here he was. He, who had broken all ties to society, who had gone from an “Austin” to something else entirely, who emanates red-eyed rage and fury in every action he takes, was there, at Produce fighting for not just one title but multiple titles. 

It was a bit like putting a beast in a tuxedo and setting him down to dinner.

Something just felt off. It felt off when he went after Nick Gage with Beastman (What did Mad Dog Connelly care about authority such as this?). It felt off as the match started, in the way that they used plastic chairs, in how they subsequently sat down to throw almost polite (though surely vicious) shots at one another, even in the way he set up a simple machine of a ladder hanging off of chairs. Something just didn't seem right. Something was holding him back. This was violent. This was brutal. But it was almost too civil, almost too grounded. It bordered on conventional.

The blood all over the ring did not belong to Mad Dog Connelly. It did not belong to his opponent. It had been there when they got there. 

What did Mad Dog want?

What did any of this mean to him?

The answer could be found in the form of his opponent.

Mance Warner. 

Mad Dog Connelly is a man who lives apart from society, who constantly gives in to the urge to tear it down for all of its failings. But, for all that he channels a bestial nature, for all that he embodies rage, for all that he evokes the spirit of violence and comeuppance and consequence, he is still a man. 

Mance Warner, however? He is not just any man, but the sort of man who can live on the outskirts of society. He's a man who can embrace the sort of violence that Connelly embodies, but instead of instilling a sense of horror in all those around him, people welcome him. People embrace him.

He can go on TV. He can learn pure rules (once upon a time, Connelly was welcome in UWFI styled circles, a practitioner but not anymore). He can team up with his wife and fight enemies back to back. He can win titles. 

He can go in front of a crowd and not be a monster, but instead be a folk hero. Like Dickie Murdoch and Jimmy Valiant and JYD. He can finish a strike exchange by rolling his arms, flipping, flopping, flying like Dusty Rhodes.

They'll sing songs about old Mancer. Connelly? If someone tells a tale of him, it's to frighten children into compliance. Don't go off the edge of the map: here there be monsters.

Were you to ask Connelly if he wanted that sort of existence, he would deny it. He might even destroy you for daring to ask. I write it only from a very safe distance myself. 

But there was something in this match, something about Connelly forcing himself into a strange shape, contorting himself to almost pantomime villainy, running about the back and causing trouble, playing legos with chairs and ladders, sitting across from an opponent instead of just tearing at his throat, that made me think through this match, through those titles, he saw a path long cut off to him.

Mance Warner's path. 

And it created dueling impulses within Connelly. He wanted it, but even more than he wanted it, I think he wanted to take it away from Warner. But he wanted it nonetheless. In order to get it, he had to put one foot back into a world of respectability, a human world that we all walk through, a world of more conventional hardcore matches, a world where Warner was more at home, perhaps even Mance’s place of power. Warner can do it, can thread that needle, but Connelly was a wild thing and for him to leave his world and come into ours, it came at a cost.

So despite temporarily eliminating the authority figure, despite this being anything goes, despite the weapons (chairs, a wire, the ladder), Connelly found himself trudging through mud, living tropes that belonged more to Warner than to himself. 

I think that it was only at some point after Warner stapled a red card on him to a hero’s pop, after he returned the favor stapling the yellow card on Warner’s tongue, that he realized he would never again have what Warner did, that he realized it was all hopeless, that instead of fighting for it, he had to fight to tear it all down. But by then, it was too late.

Up until that point, he was fighting for a title. He was fighting for a hope he dare not admit. He was fighting for a path back to the light. But he couldn't commit. He couldn't ever admit that to himself. And by the time he shifted direction, it was too late. He brought in the chain but Warner countered it with the screwdriver. He went back for it, but he was off balance (emotionally and literally, having a screwdriver mangle your foot would do the latter), and Warner was able to fight him off and hit a lifting headbutt and a DDT for the win.

If Connelly had been of one mind from the start, he would have triumphed. If he had merely wanted to destroy everything Warner had fought so hard for, he had a good chance of doing it. If he wanted to find his own redemption, to restore all that he had lost, represented in gold and platinum, well, I wouldn't bet against a fully committed Mad Dog Connelly. 

But he was at war with himself, and no man at war with himself is ever going to win a battle with Mance Warner.

I’ve been watching Mad Dog Connelly for a while now, though, and I was left with this thought. Now that he realizes that he can’t possibly have what Warner has, now that he hates himself all the more for ever showing weakness and wanting it in the first place, there’s only one possibility left for him. If he can’t have it (and he’ll never have it, can never have it), then he’ll fight to his dying breath to make sure no one else can have it either.

Mance Warner may have won the battle, but some wars never end.

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Found Footage Friday: BREMEN '81~!

10/16/81 Bremen

Colin Joynson vs. Pat Roach

MD: Pretty good stuff with a big physical mismatch. Roach was big and tall. Joynson had a low center of gravity and was plump. But he used that center to really bedevil Roach at times. He'd be able to get under him and cause trouble (including toppling him to the floor) and would bound off the ropes with a forearm or hold his own on shoulder blocks. Roach would take over again and again with a big boot or a body slam but then he'd hold the advantage with illegal tactics, pressing down after a move when he wasn't supposed to and just staying on Joynson when the ref was calling for a break. You had a sense on how this one was going to end. Some fun stuff along the way, including Roach's standing backbreakers and lifting his own foot up to whack Joynson in the chin with it. He also took a great stooge bump onto the top turnbuckle, dangling stomach down before he got booted out of the ring. Joynson had a lot of pokey offense, punches and knees. Eventually Roach had enough and put him in a tree of woe drawing the very inevitable DQ. I wouldn't mind seeing Joynson vs the usual suspects on these tours. 

ER: Roach is a really big guy but he makes Joynson look like Otis. I love the ways this little wrecking ball would leap into his attacks on the much larger Roach, while Roach has such dismissive, ugly attacks. His uppercuts are blunt and have thud, he throws kicks and strikes without true form, working more like a forest giant lifting his foot to jam it in the face of a little round Gummi Bear on a quest. When it's time for him to bump, he does with sudden beautiful runaway train style, flying onto the turnbuckles and down to the floor, getting height with a back body drop, even getting backdropped (slowly) to the floor. Joynson had big energy and Roach had a good way of hitting the ropes in response to that energy. This is the first time we've ever written about Joynson, by the way. I love how we're still ticking off boxes of names to cover, big and small. 

Axel Dieter vs. Mile Zrno

MD: Speaking of the usual suspects, here were two of the best, with us not getting quite as much Zrno as I'd like on these cards. And this was very, very good. Every exchange had the possibility of something interesting. It's almost impossible to write about these two. You end up just listing off all the cool things you saw. That could be Dieter headstanding out of a move, punching Zrno in the headstand and then headscissoring him over. It could be Zrno twisting and contorting around to keep a hold or his crazy bridge work. It could just be how he snapped his body while taking a headscissors. It could be how they built to firing off uppercuts or escalating to quick sunset flips and snap headscissors takeovers. It could be Dieter using a leg assisted full nelson, the ultimate of imaginative schoolyard moves of possibilities or the way Zrno just found his way out. It could be how fun it was whenever they were able to string together a few moves and what they choose to do. I could go on and on. Technique meeting imagination meeting flair and showmanship. There was nothing like it beforehand and there's been nothing like it since. It ended in a draw and you're fine with that because anything else might have somehow lessened it.

ER: Matt and I written about a lot of this '81 Germany without anyone else really watching it, and while we enjoy it I also get why big men like Le Gran Vladimir or John Quinn, or German-specific babyfaces Bob Della Serra or Sal Bellomo, might not be as sexy to watch as the other thousands of wrestling options out there. Zrno vs. Dieter, on the other hand, feels like 81 Germany that would crossover and delight anyone into modern flash and World of Sport chaining, even though it's not as flashy and not tricked out like WoS. The matwork is firm and the strikes they build to always feel like a payoff. Zrno's selling doesn't always feel like it fits the story of the match, and sometimes he's too quick to get back into moving spots forward, is forced to match hold snugness with Dieter, who was raised on snug headscissors and high lift hammerlocks. 

I didn't love how quickly Zrno got up from a nasty reverse suplex, getting up on impact while Dieter sold on the mat just executing the move. It was used as a way to break a hold and smashed Zrno's knees into the mat, felt like a crazy spot to use to just go back into control with a side headlock. Dieter's suplexes look better and he bumps a bit generously for Zrno, who comes off more like babyface Paul Roma. It allows the crowd to get fully behind Dieter, their guy, like they can see that he's the stronger worker and shouldn't be working so even. This had the feeling it was going to a draw, which feels right because a lot of Zrno's work felt aimless with no end goal, work to fill time rather than defeat. That's another way I think this would cross over compared to all the Sal Bellomo we've praised: Zrno has that same time traveled time filling skill as Dean Malenko, a durability in style I couldn't have predicted. 

Moose Morowski vs. Sal Bellomo

MD: I feel like we've seen these two up against each other a few times now, but then maybe it was Morowski against Dieter or UFO or someone else. It does start to blur a bit. Still, this was a natural pairing with the crowd behind Sal and Morowski a real rogue and villain and bully. I'm sure there are people who really wonder how Sal Bellomo was somehow a super babyface in Germany, but this match is a great example. The first few minutes have him doing everything right. Morowski started by pressing him into the corner and trying to take liberties. Sal turned it around, launched a bunch of gut shots, climbed up for a ten punch and the ref had to pull him off. He continued to keep fighting and fighting no matter what Morowski tried, getting him out of the ring, cartwheeling, and counting with the crowd.

Eventually, Morowski did have enough of this and started leaning hard on him, pushing the rules as far as he could. It's a good look at him too, because all of his stuff looked mean and credible. Bellomo would try to come back now and again before he actually got it, dropkicking Morowski out of the ring. Morowski came back in with a massive punch and then hit the shoulder breaker for the win. But Sal stayed after the match to get his flowers from the crowd.

ER: It's wild how every 6'5" North American heel who worked early 80s Germany had their own version of the Sgt. Slaughter bump. For Morowski, that's just one of a half dozen big bumps he does to get over Bremen Superstar Sal Bellomo, pinballing off turnbuckles, pressed off the top, all because The People are in love with this unmuscular man in a straps-joined-in-the-back singlet. Bellomo has a real knack for knowing how to connect with these crowds. I'm not sure I've seen anyone else in this footage do an enthusiastic count-along when Moose is lying on the floor, but people are literally screaming along with Sal leading the count out. Nobody punches like Morowski anymore. I mean, most wrestlers don't punch at all anymore and that's part of a much bigger problem, but Morowski's style of short badgering close-to-the-body uppercuts weren't even really a regular punch of anyone while punches were the strike currency of wrestling. Super Macho Man threw a short set up punch like it in Super Punch Out!! but I'm not going to pretend that anyone at Nintendo was aware of the existence of Moose Morowski. Had Billy Graham thrown punches like that, I'd believe. Bellomo hits two heart punches on Morowski, which is a brilliant strategy against a Polish man whose arteries are no doubt clogged by fatty meats.  

UFO vs. Caswell Martin

MD: Honestly, there are four pillars right here with Martin, Wright, Zrno, and Dieter. Crazy that these four guys were generally in the same place and time. What a scene. Martin took almost all of this, just having an answer for everything UFO tried. UFO would try to hip toss him and he'd cartwheel. He'd go for a leglock and he'd just stand up out of hit to hit a dropkick. He'd throw uppercuts and Martin would cut him off with one headbutt. When it was time to be on offense, he had all sorts of stuff, his body press onto crossed legs, a cool falling back move with his feet around the head (instead of a twist), some brutal arm work with headbutts, a series where he kipped up after dropkicks again and again. Just a menace. But UFO took it all since he knew he was going to win with a body press out of nowhere. Still, it's always fun to see Martin do his thing.

ER: I think it's interesting how Caswell Martin and Norman Smiley have two of the most unique bodyslams and there isn't really anyone else who slams like them. Norman has his extra turn, Martin has his extra lift and throws for distance. I'm not sure what this means. All other bodyslams I like because they are thrown by real bastards, think Finlay and Hansen sending lightning bolts down extremities. But our two black British wrestlers who each have their own quirky style also wound up with two of the strongest/most stylized bodyslams. I wonder how much Martin was an inspiration on Smiley, or if it's all a coincidence. 

UFO was really no match for some of Martin's escapes, and I love how Martin would set up an escape with a stiff strike, creating an opening with a diversion. His headbutt is so good that I wish we could have seen him in Headbutters Paradise era NOAH, but he always pulls tricks that anyone could steal (if anyone other than Matt and I ever watch this footage). Standing with his legs locked on either side of UFO's head before falling to his back is something I've never seen before. It's more common for someone to lock in like that and do a little worked twist, but falling to his back put the theoretical pressure on different parts of the neck, like a teeter totter turned inside out. While I wish Martin was put away with something more than a body press, it worked because the finish was more about Martin beating himself than the crossbody beating Martin. Martin clearly tried to catch the crossbody and turn it into a slam, hanging in too long on that strategy before his fall, which was just enough for UFO to scrape one out. A flashy wrestler hoisted on their own cocky petard, as it should be.  

Kengo Kimura/Goro (Tsurumi) Tanaka vs. Mighty John Quinn/Grand Vladimir

MD: It's such a shock going from Tsurumi battling Kurisu fifteen years later to this, but here we are. Goro does all the big bits for the crowd with Kimura doing a lot of little ones. He does get to really fire up a few times though, and that's not something you see a lot out of Kengo as the decade goes on so it's nice to see. Vlad is a great stooge and Quinn is an ok one. Quinn is excellent at little inside shots to help his bullying though. Very nice moment of comeback where Kimura reverses a Quinn whip so he goes crashing into Vlad's knee. his arms go pumping and he fires off with dropkicks and karate strikes and pulling Vlad's beard. Heels take this in two straight falls though due to sneaky bits of interference that did work. I liked in the finish that Vlad had to go back for a second elbow drop because the ref was distracted with Kimura. One of those quick on his toes bits that helped avoid suspension of disbelief issues. This probably could have used one more big comeback.

10/25/81

MD: Usually given the length of these videos and the sparsity of talking, it's tough to get automated translation to work quite like I'd like but here, at the start of 10/25/81 I was able to get some sense of what they're talking about (look, I don't know German; you can't bullshit German and that's all I'm good for). This was the last night of the tournament, day 53, and there was a ceremony to start with all the wrestlers and the producer gave all of his thanks on his own after and you do have to appreciate the pomp and circumstance here. We've gotten so much of this content piecemeal over the last two years and, in truth, we'll only have two matches here, at the start of this card on this tape, but this was real thing with real people. It mattered not just, for instance, in Kengo Kimura's development or for the other wrestlers, but also for everyone who witnessed it. Old footage isn't just the moves and the craftsmanship, but it is a window into the past, of something real and vibrant in life that no longer exists. It's history.

Steve Wright vs. Caswell Martin

MD: This crowd already seemed a few mugs in and they were happy to see these two very similar wrestlers menace one another. There were moments where it got a little too silly when the ref got involved or they were doing the quick (and comedic) pin exchanges, and I would have maybe liked just a little more working holds and having to get out of things, but really this was more than the sum of the parts and the fans were delighted. These two were generally best against contrast, really bedeviling some poor fool, getting punished for their (babyface) transgressions and hubris, and then battling back to bedevil some more. But here they got what they deserved against one another. Those ref bits were very funny and the crowd was laughing the whole way through. Wright rolling himself into a ball and Martin not buying into it, the pin exchanges that were twenty years before their time, the rope running, the little bit of hanging onto holds we did get. It was all wonderful pro wrestling in a small dose. There would likely be bigger and more epic things to come on this card, the last night of the tournament, and this set things off with a unique and wonderful celebratory feel before Wright caught Martin in a backslide to end it. These two were such talents. 

UFO vs. Grand Vladimir

MD: Just a round and a half here before things cut out. Unfortunately it cuts out during a cravat sequence where UFO was holding on too. Ah well. The round we got was good with them battling over a top wristlock in interesting and struggle-laden ways. Plus UFO getting frustrated because the ref wasn't letting him press advantages on Vlad in the ropes when we all know Vlad deserves it. I imagine this would have turned out to be pretty good in full.

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80s Joshi on Wednesday: Masami! Tarantula! Jumbo! Mimi!

Volume 4  

4. Devil Masami & Tarantula vs. Jumbo Hori & Mimi Hagiwara (WWWA Tag Team Titles) - 10/5/82

K: Mimi Hagiwara is gunning to win back the tag titles. She's not very loyal though and has dumped Yukari Omori to tag with Jumbo Hori instead. 

Devil vs. Mimi is definitely the central feud in the promotion now. Their bouts for the tag titles are main-eventing the bigger shows above whatever Jaguar is doing, and have more of a narrative thread to them than the Singles Title scene does. We know what kind of a match this is going to be from the previous encounters, and this time it feels like they just get straight to it. The babyfaces get worn down and isolated with Devil especially showing a cool variety of heel offense. Mimi is there to get beaten down, or at least she does a better job of selling it than Jumbo does. I liked when Devil had Mimi by the hair and was dragging her around the ring, then she passes her hair over to Tarantula so she can have a turn.

Jumbo's role here is a bit unclear. She could be seen as the lesser star to Mimi, or she could be seen as the giant enforcer. But she doesn't come across as either. Mostly she just wrestles like everyone else, but it looks a bit strange sometimes because she's so much bigger.

They're brawling on the outside earlier than usual, and this time it felt like the Devil Army made sure to do most of it in front of the announcer's table, or ever on it.

Devil has this very sinister grin on her face to start up the 2nd fall. She also does a highly impressive military press drop where she actually launches Mimi up a fair distance for her to fall on her face. I know Mimi must be the lightest wrestler on the roster but it's still quite the feat of strength. They escalate on the fighting on the announcer table from last time by this time choking Mimi with a chain right in front of announcer Shiono, who tries to intervene a bit but is shoved away.

Devil totally loses it in the chaos that she gets herself disqualified for using her cane. It all just gets really intense between the 2nd and 3rd fall. Mimi is absolutely furious at the antics Devil Army were able to get away with before they got DQ'd and shouts abuse at the officials. Jumbo beats up the referee and we have an entertaining standoff where it's announced that the match will not be restarted until Devil Masami surrenders her weapon, which she eventually does with a massive strop. They channel all that intensity and anger into the 3rd fall and make it feel a bit more on edge than the previous two. When Tarantula gets a dirty pin to win you feel the room almost explode immediately when Mimi runs in to protest vehemently. Another injustice! Devil Army can't keep getting away with this.

****

MD: I tend to see these matches in a bubble of sorts. I know we’ll start to get more storytelling over time in 84 or pieces we can tie together better at least. I have no idea where this is going but one thing I’ve noticed over time is Mimi getting more and more frustrated at Devil’s antics and what she and her cronies are just able to get away with. Some of the wrestlers will simply take the fight to them, and she will too, but she also goes to the announce table and yells at the commissioner and anyone else even while, sometimes, her partner is getting mangled by a weapon or mob tactics. It’s a little reminiscent of Nancy Kumi getting fed up with the American heel referee in 1979. This is, of course, the big frustration with the style, even more so than limbwork not going anywhere, the idea that the heels can just do whatever. It’s not a rudo/tecnico split where it’s stylistic and the tecnicos are held to a high standard. There’s much more of a sense that the authority figures/referees are afraid of the heels (and I imagine that only gets more defined with Dump’s reign of terror to come). 

Long story short, Mimi gets so frustrated at Masami using a chair/the kendo sword, that she really has it out towards the end of the second fall with the commissioner, and it makes enough of a difference that they call for the DQ for that fall for Devil and Tarantula. At the same time, Hori tosses the ref around. It gave the third fall a completely different feel where it seemed like the babyfaces, given that the heels didn’t dare cheat as much as usual, might actually win it and take back the belts. But then Tarantula hits a couple of rolls into moves (first a dropkick and then a sunset flip) and despite Hori’s legs clearly being on the ropes, the ref counts three. Mimi is beside herself post match and has to be dragged out before she causes a riot. I have no idea where this is going but it was a nice bit of heatseeking to make it seem like the babyfaces would triumph and then finding another way to pull it out from under them. If a company was being carefully booked, you’d lead to a special ref or other sort of stipulation match here to draw the next big house, but I have no idea how they were doing things at this point. 

The match itself was very good. Mimi had an immediate advantage by charging in, but Devil and Tarantula could turn things around at a moment’s notice. Devil might take over just by stopping in the ropes on a Hori whip for instance. They took things outside and from there, Hori and Mimi would have to work from underneath. Pretty cruel stuff with Devil stepping on Mimi’s hand as she reached for the ropes or standing on Jumbo’s hair from the outside. Plenty of choking (including with her shin) on Jumbo. Mimi finally took back over and Hori pressed with her size, but tragically, Mimi missed a cross body off the ropes (Devil ducked) and with a scream went skidding to the floor. She then got slammed onto her pelvis on a table by Devil (it looked brutal). She came back one last time but Devil dropped back with her on a victory roll attempt to end the first fall.

Second fall was brutal with endless headbutts from Tarantula and Devil, a Devil press slam, a killer Tarantula front dropkick. Jumbo caught her off the ropes and then put her on the top to toss her off but Devil came in with the kendo stick and then a chair and that is when Mimi finally had enough to force the commissioner and ref to call for a DQ. That opened things up for the third fall, and it was subsequently exciting, with some really good nearfalls for Jumbo and Mimi. Devil was able to sidestep Jumbo though and floor her with a headbutt. That let Tarantula hit a missile dropkick, roll through into a dropkick, and roll through into a sunset flip for the win. Of course, Jumbo was tied up in the ropes which led to Mimi losing it again. You certainly were feeling the emotion she was putting forward here. Between her offense, her presence, her emoting, and her selling, she comes off as really exceptional in 1982.

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AEW Five Fingers of Death (and Friends) 7/6 - 7/12

AEW Dynamite 7/8/26

Konosuke Takeshita vs Kyle Fletcher

If you want a good example that literally any match can be criticized, for years people had one major complaint about Savage vs Steamboat. If you come into it blind, not knowing about the angle that drove it, it's hard to find fault. If you have the context of Savage destroying Steamboat with the ring bell, however, it raises questions. Why did they wrestle it so athletically, so much like a title match? Shouldn't it have been a blood feud? Shouldn't Steamboat have been out for revenge? Shouldn't that have meant something more than just taking the title from Savage?

There is an answer to that but it was one that actually required quite a bit more context, context that was sourced over the years that followed as we obtained and organized more and more footage from the televised house shows leading up to WrestleMania III. They had already worked those heated bloody matches around the horn leading up to the big show. They had gotten it out of their system. Crowds throughout America had seen it. Steamboat (and the fans') bloodlust had been abated and now it was time to hit him where it hurt the most by taking the title in a wrestling match.

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Takeshita had coexisted with Okada for half a year, more. He had lived through transgressions: Okada cheating (the use of a deadly weapon, not just pulling the tights) to defeat him in the C2 semi-finals, disparaging his skills and honor and brotherhood with the rest of the Don Callis family including getting between him and Fletcher, contriving to overshadow him at the Tokyo Dome even though he was the IWGP champion, dissension in a tag team match at a PPV.

Finally Takeshita had earned his match, finally he had him one-on-one for the International Title. And given that honest, earnest chance, Takeshita triumphed. He upset the balance of the Don Callis Family. It seemed like it was going to lead to something more than dissension, to betrayal. He was ready for that though, ready to fight them all off it need be. Then, Kyle Fletcher's music hit. He made his triumphant return, stood side by side with his brother, Takeshita. And then he struck him down. A brother may have been enough for Takeshita, but Fletcher needed the comfort of a broader family. 

AEW is a company full of stories but that has less angles than one might think. This was a clear angle however, and despite AEW's tendency to move right on to the next thing, it was one that could lead to even greater matches. 

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Kyle Fletcher is one of the best heels going. He's shown instincts to inhabit the space of a match, both the feeling out process at the start and the down period of a commercial break, that almost none of his generation (or that prior even) possess. He's excellent at working to a crowd, at reacting in the moment, at creating inciting incidents and then rolling with the results of them. 

His warm up match against ELP was full of this, even despite later knowledge that he was having a bit of a panic attack during the match. ELP began the proceedings by doing his best Bret Hart impression and giving a girl at ringside his tricked out glasses. Later on in the match, when Fletcher had scored a kick out of nowhere and reversed a whip on the floor, he went right over and menaced the girl, getting in her face and drawing heat. Maybe I'm wrong, but it feels almost impossible this was something that was worked out in the back. He saw an opportunity, understood the purpose behind it in ensuring the crowd was turned against it, and he took it, damn the plan, damn the risks. 

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Konosuke Takeshita is a generational talent in specific areas. At his best, he evokes presence like almost no one in wrestling today. He radiates intensity and energy. He combines size and speed and power and ease of movement in a way that is reminiscent of Barry Windham or maybe even Jumbo Tsuruta. I tend to find his instincts far more suspect than Fletcher's, his matches becoming bloated and wasteful, not nearly as efficient as his physical movements across the ring, but I also can't (and wouldn't begin to want to) deny what he excels at and what makes him stand out.

He's one of the greatest raw talents of this decade certainly. Lately, he's been firing up by punching himself in the head repeatedly. He did it during his tag match with Hechicero in Mexico not long ago, and he would do it here as well, and I can hardly think of anyone else that could do that with so much earnestness and verve. Against the right opponent and in the right setting, he's phenomenal. And very much to his credit, even in the wrong setting, doing the wrong things, he's still undeniable in certain ways. 

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So here they were, bolstered by a hot angle, two incredible talents, both off strong recent performances, ready to achieve in the middle of a big card, a supercard so far as weekly television went, title on the line.

And they wrestled. They locked up and chain wrestled for a bit. 

Ah, but then after a few exchanges, Fletcher got a hand up in Takeshita's face and things threatened to boil over, like they should, into a forearm exchange.

And instead of letting really reach a fever pitch, they went right into stilted moves and counter attempts, a tease for bombs that would come later in the match. 

Things spilled out to the floor. Takeshita got distracted by Callis. Both men drank water. Takeshita missed a shot and hit the ringpost. Fletcher worked the arm for a minute. Takeshita came back and hit a big dive and smacked his face, fired up. They went to commercial.

The match would go on with them starting to hit those bigger bombs, including a huge one on the apron. Takeshita would get an advantage. Don Callis would grab his foot. He'd hit his finisher anyway. Fletcher would get a foot on the rope and then, more or less cleanly (despite those two arguable blemishes that did not lead to the finish) would win the match as the commentators noted how good a match these two had wrestled.

Where was the Kyle Fletcher of the ELP match? Why didn't Takeshita's intensity lead to bloodlust? How did any of this stem from the betrayal? What were they even doing here? 

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On my first watch, I was so thrown by all of this that I was going to come in hot, come down hard. 

I've subsequently watched again and I have softened on the match. 

Occasionally you see people say that matches shouldn't be criticized on the basis of "what you want" and I don't think I agree.

You want what you want for a reason. You have expectations coming into a match for a reason. You have a baseline in your head and a best possible scenario. You have those things for a reason, based on your understanding of other matches, of the story at play, at all the possibilities inherent in the artform. These are all completely valid things to judge a match against. That said, I think it's worth trying to understand the match that they did wrestle. If you're going to judge it against the vision in your head, at least go out of your way to wrap your head around what they gave you.

There were a number of factors at play here. This match was premature. It was premature because Takeshita's about to go off and do the G1 for a month. It was maybe premature because they wanted to ensure the International Title was taken off of him for that period, maybe so he didn't eat a bunch of tournament losses while he had it, maybe because it would be more valuable to AEW on AEW TV during this time. Fletcher had never been supposed to lose the TNT title. That was due to injury. If this wasn't going to be the blowoff, having Fletcher win could potentially just heat things up more for later, get more heat on him in general. This match was a supporting player to the main event title change that was Omega vs MJF and it followed another grudge match with a bit more plunder and chaos (and that probably needed it more to be good) in Jericho vs Ciampa. 

Plus it was hot. It was so damn hot out there in the admittedly cool outdoors setting. You could tell. I've seen thousands of matches and you only see guys actually drink water (presumably for cramping reasons) once in a blue moon. You always saw them spit it back out in World of Sport for a reason.

----------------

Those would all be excuses, but none of them would be drivers. 

There are absolutely wrestlers who go out to wrestle the best match possible on paper, that try to check as many boxes as possible, to try to make things as conventionally exciting as they can, story be damned, character be damned, moment be damned.

While it's tempting to think that's what happened here, I don't think it actually is.

You can make the argument that this fit their characters perfectly. Takeshita only ever wants to prove himself against others. Fletcher, on the other hand, has a constant chip on his shoulder, and a need to prove himself. He did against Ospreay. He did in the Continental Classic. He does here. They wrestled this match like brothers, not trying to hurt each other, necessarily, not trying to maximize harm, but instead trying to outdo the other. Outwrestle. Outstrike. Outbomb. 

Here, the heat helped matters. It gave everything an imposing, sweltering tone. It pushed down upon them, pressed them into a corner. It gave everything more weight. Maybe it forced them to focus directly at the task at hand, at the title on the line, and it melted animosity and turned it into a blind sense of competition instead. 

It made for a good match, a very good title match. It distilled their youth and passion and a certain desperation to be seen and recognized into twenty minutes of combat over the International Title. 

I was going to lean hard into the idea that while this was a great match, it wasn't good, because it didn't live up to the build and the potential. I was going to use the timing of it as an excuse.

On a second watch, I don't think that's fair. I think it was both great AND good, that it was plausible and believable given who these two are, where they are in their career, their overall relationship with one another.

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But I don't think it was RIGHT.

I don't think it was the right match for the moment. I think it was shoehorned in due to externalities, due to necessities. 

The betrayal was too recent, too raw, too deep. They hadn't gotten it out of their system yet. 

This is a match that is built to, just like Savage vs Steamboat from Mania III was a match that was built to. Maybe the outcome would have been different, but this the sort of match that should have followed the grudge match and the chain match and the lumberjack match and the cage match. 

I don't think Takeshita should have the bloodlust out of his system yet. I don't think Fletcher should be past the self-delusion and the spite. This match had competitiveness and even moments of brutality but it lacked cruelty. 

They can bring Takeshita back later, have his music hit, have him ruin one of Fletcher's moments, have him make some sort of save, have him get a pop. They can do another angle to get heat back on this.

But they can never have this specific first match again. They can't go back to the start. Fletcher betrayal was answered by Takeshita here by having the best darn wrestling match he could. And yes, it was valid, great, and good. He tried to show his brother up, show that he was better. 

But even that didn't come close to matching the moment. 

They left the blood on the table, chose to honor sweat instead. This was one of those times that blood would have been everything. 

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Found Footage Friday: '86 CROCKETT HANDHELD~! GARVIN~! FLAIR~! NIKITA~! ARN~! MAGNUM~! DUSTY~! RAGING BULL~! WAHOO~!

JCP Handheld Cincinnati 4/27/86

Wahoo McDaniel vs. Jimmy Garvin

MD: We just get five minutes clipped here. It's a real morality play though. Clear, clear lines. Garvin earns nothing. Whenever Wahoo gets the chants, he's smacking him around the ring. Garvin begs off and gets a cheapshot low. He uses Precious pulling the hair from the outside to distract so he can take over. He uses an eye rake. When he's in charge he's laying in stomps or tossing Wahoo into the rail. Wahoo has big definitive shots. Garvin is underhanded and peppers things in. Night and day. Wahoo comes back, does the war dance, hits the chops, but Garvin kicks out at one and runs away to the draw a count out and fight for another day. 

ER: I don't think I ever thought Cincinnati was a place Crockett even toured but I'm also old enough now that a lot of information sounds like new information. I know they ran Cleveland frequently but maybe I didn't ever think about Cincinnati as Crockett Country because we didn't have footage until some guy who loves awful chili that tastes like pumpkin pie brought a camera to document it. I'm glad he did. He wanted the match bad enough to record it as fully as he could while editing on the fly to save battery for the bigger matches. This man, who smelled of raw onion, knew Flair and Garvin had worked broadways in the Carolinas. He couldn't risk it. So we got this clipped, but it's house show perfection. The crowd is so entertained by professional house show Wahoo, not murdering Garvin but doing all his same painful strikes and Native Stooges chops. Wahoo hits Garvin hard and forces Garvin to work up to him. Garvin had excellent worked stomps and the way Wahoo sold being punched in the corner could teach every wrestler today. Watch Wahoo flinch away from a shot under the ribs, reflexively rear back for a punch, before taking another. The best punches and strikers are almost always the best at selling punches. 

Baron von Raschke/Ivan Koloff vs. Manny Fernandez/Hector Guerrero

MD: This was probably a rough 20 minute draw that turned into a good 13 minute clipped draw. Though there was nothing we saw in those 13 minutes to really make me think the full 20 would have been that much of a slog. They went with a double heat structure with a long shine that consisted of Raschke being a pole in the center of the ring that Hector got to roll around and Ivan's arm getting worked over as he bumped, stooged, and fed more. First heat was on Manny and had some good assisted holds that drew in Hector and got heat. Then Hector got to make a big house of fire entrance with rapid punches until he got swept under. The idea was that once he got the hot tag (again rolling all over the place) there just wasn't enough time for Manny to get the win, though he came real close. I don't remember too many draws being worked quite this and it's a solid structure on paper. 

Most fascinating thing to me is just watching the Baron. He lost the offense once by goose stepping and setting up the claw. He had a way of both hitting offense (even stomps) and bumping that he'd move his waist but not his abdomen. He's like an old action figure without enough points of articulation. You can make him sit up in the middle, but then you can't bend his knees or waist. And he still takes bumps and hits offense, but it's amazingly stilted. I've seen plenty of Baron matches but maybe it was just worse by 86? Anyway, maybe this was helped by the clipping, maybe not, but it worked for me.

ER: We love guys who move weird and nobody moves around a ring weirder than 1986 Baron, who is my exact age but he moves like someone re-animated a 75 year old monster from memory. His bumps are terrible, taken only one way, rolling back to his seat waving his arms like he's Accredited Giant Gonzalez. I like how Manny works like Chavo when he teams with Hector. I wonder how he worked when he teamed with Chavo. Probably like an asskicker. Manny hits like a rock and pulls off a flying headscissors, Hector brings energy and the crowd loves his evasive tumbling. Koloff works like the best Haruka Eigen. He did an All Japan tour in 1990 when he was in his late 50s and I need to see every match we have from that tour. I loved how he bumped for Hector's late match hot tag, Korakuen would have gone wild for the ways he ran into the turnbuckles and bounced his way halfway back across the ring. While I'm curious how Baron worked his bearhug, I respect the camera's choice to edit. 

Dusty Rhodes vs. Arn Anderson + Magnum TA vs. Nikita Koloff [Cage]

MD: This is still a bit clipped but you get the sense of what's going on and I loved the Dusty vs Arn portion until the finish. This being a house show, there was such freedom for Dusty to absolutely demolish Arn. Arn sold the cage at first, not the danger of it but the fact he couldn't get away. Then he managed to run himself knee first into the cage. Dusty took over on it with such one-of-a-kind timing on seizing the foot, taking him down, holding it, looking to the crowd, stomping, stomping again. If a conductor of an orchestra is primarily worried about controlling the time and volume, Dusty was the best conductor of a crowd I've ever seen. Just a virtuoso. 

After smashing and rubbing Arn's head against the cage a bit, Arn actually came back with these beautiful low kicks from the ground, just sweeping his leg against Dusty's as if he was dance fighting. He honed in and then, once he had a real advantage, the Russains came out with the chain. I would have probably liked it more if Dusty mounted a comeback and then they came in? But there was also the sense that this was the plan all along if Arn got even the smallest bit of advantage. 

I suppose it worked either way as Magnum rushed in to break it up and start his match with Nikita. This had a totally different feel. Magnum did control early including a goofy atomic drop that sent Nikita in (and justified the blading) and using the cage to help himself bound up to the top turnbuckle for a double axe handle.Nikita lawn darted himself head first into Magnum's gut to take over and Magnum worked well from underneath. At one point he ate a backbreaker and crawled on his knees across the ring and it really worked for me.

Great transition, maybe even an all time one honestly, as Nikita went for the sickle, Magnum moved, and he went arm first into the cage. Things opened up from there with Magnum throwing all sorts of punches and a great sweeping dropkick. I loved the finish too, as Magnum went to toss Nikita head first into the cage, but Nikita grabbed Magnum's head at the last second and they both went in at equal speed. Just a real symbolic sense of them being equals/rivals/fated. That led to a ten count where it seemed like Nikita might beat it but he collapsed and Magnum shot up at the last second to a huge pop. Lots to love here.

ER: I appreciate that we got a little handheld ambiance before the match, our documentarian filming the people at the Cincinnati Gardens, reminding us that Miller Lite tastes great and is less filling, giving us a too brief glimpse of the ringside guardrails getting moved around before the cage goes up. As Dusty goes after Arn's ankle, I appreciate that everything you hear yelled by the crowd sounds like create-a-crowd ADR. "Do it again, Dusty!" "Give it to him!" "Stomp that ankle, Dusty!" It's clipped up, but I'm glad we get Arn's killer missed knee strike into the cage, Dusty seated on the middle rope but dodging, Arn's knee going into the cage, Arn throwing the knee to actually connect with Dusty and thus hitting the cage just as his knee would have connected with Dusty's stomach. After getting his face ground into the cage, Arn misses a wild swing and takes perhaps the fastest faceplant I've seen from a miss, a reaction to a Dusty elbow that swings him into the mat faster than anything Dusty could have done to him. 

TA vs. Nikita portion is a real hot fight. Koloff was great at taking punches and Magnum was great at throwing them. Koloff took an axe handle better than most I've seen, really selling the impact in how he let it drive him spinning to the mat. Koloff is great at taking Magnum's punches, none better than in the aftermath of him missing the sickle into the cage. Magnum lands a jab to Koloff's nose and Nikita winces up like he's prematurely stopping a gush of blood. Wahoo hit this great swinging axe handle to Garvin's chest in the opener, and I thought that was the coolest strike of the night, until Magnum threw the same swinging axe handle at Nikita's face. It's funny that the "first man to his feet, Wins" finish came after both ran each other into the cage, which was treated much more seriously than Magnum straight up murdering Nikita with a piledriver moments before. I still loved the drama around both men getting to their feet. 

Ric Flair vs. Ron Garvin

MD: Opening few minutes of this were great. Flair would press Garvin into the corner, try to take a liberty, smack him, immediately get smacked back, sell it with shock. It was a lovely bit of vaudeville. I'm torn on parts of this one overall. Flair's narratives just don't come together how I'd like. What happens in minute 17 doesn't necessarily stem logically from what happens in minute 6 like with other greatest-of-all-time wrestlers. But that doesn't necessarily mean that what happens in minute 17 isn't good and that it doesn't fit the moment or the characters. But it leaves me wondering if something was left on the table sometimes. But maybe I'm wrong and this is better and more organic somehow. 

Here, when Flair did take over, it felt clear like he was fed up from all the shots he took from Garvin and that he just wanted to lay shots in, not worried about winning or any sort of strategy. It was raw and human and effective, and I think the issue isn't it necessarily, but when he went into the finish and started to target the leg. I preferred him punching Garvin in the face to being just as mean about the leg, but then when things had to slip into some sort of finishing sequence, it wasn't one that matched the rest of the contest. My favorite shot he did was when he had Garvin draped over the top rope like Sheamus (or like he was setting him up for Eigen's spit spot) and instead of just whacking him in the chest, he punched him in the cheek. 

Maybe I'm wrong though. Maybe the narrative is that Flair was angry and he was mean and cruel but in the face of Garvin constantly firing back, maybe he was a coward and maybe he blinked first, and he went to the knee out of desperation and then tried to cover it with bluster like it was his plan all along. Maybe it's my fault for just not having enough faith in Flair. Maybe I'm not fair to Flair. Regardless, the finish did hit, with Garvin, leg torn up, eating a second shinbreaker anyway to punch Flair in the face. Both guys went sprawling to the floor and got counted out. You can't say the fans didn't get their money here at least.

ER: Love the guy in the crowd who, as Tommy Young is holding up Flair's title, keeps saying, "Garvin's leaving with it! Garvin's leaving with it!" Super physical match, which I greatly respect, and if we had it in full I'd say it's one of my favorite Flair matches of the era. We don't know how long the actual match may have gone, but we have 21+ minutes of it here and it's easy to think they went past 30, and they were fighting the whole time. Garvin unsurprisingly throws the hardest punches of the night while Flair takes the hardest bumps, but it's so much more than that. Unless edited out entirely, they don't hit the mat at all. No long builds out of headscissors, no wear down holds, just pure physicality in every exchange. Even though it had several staples of Every Town Paid to See My Shit Flair, this feels paced differently from a lot of Flair touring champ matches. The schtick blended into the fight a lot better than I've seen it in many highly acclaimed Flair matches, and his cumulative selling felt like a guy who really had been battered and beaten for 30 minutes. There were no moments where he was taking bigger bumps for Tommy Young or running ropes after selling fatigue, this was always fought like two men getting progressively worn down and hurt from their fight. 

When Flair goes into his own personal Showstopper mode, many things can feel disconnected from everything else in the match. This never felt that way, every blur of fighting felt like a part of their larger war, and every exchange had such physical power that by the time we were 30 in and both men were limping around the ring after each other, artistry out the window, scrambling and crawling over each other for any advantage, it felt like a righteous culmination to their war. Some of my favorite moments include Garvin popping Flair right in the forehead for a nearfall and shaking out his fist while still lying across Flair's body, fanning his fingers while still pressing Flair to the mat. It's no secret that Garvin has amazing punches, but you could randomly step into any minute of this match and see a perfect example of some all timers. Garvin's punches all look sped up, like the punch is sped up at the point of impact to make them look harder than they are, but Garvin is just that good. When he throws three perfect punches before rolling smoothly into a jackknife pin, I thought it was an honest to god real finish. 

Flair getting pressed off the top actually served the match, wasn't just an excuse for Flair to take one of his bumps. It leads immediately to Garvin dropping an elbow for 2, and the punches he rains down on Flair after the kickout are incredible, standing over him punching down at Flair, Flair groggily trying to sit up but just getting punched over and over, like he's being punished for kicking out. Garvin also does this beautiful thing where he takes a knee breaker and fucking decks Flair upon landing, before falling in a heap himself. Wrestling needs more guys who lash out instinctively upon feeling pain, before the pain consumes them and they are forced to sell. Garvin definitely sold the damage of that knee breaker, but he reacted like someone who stubs their toe and foolishly lashes out and attacks the bed frame he stubbed it on. It makes much more sense to have that reaction to a man trying to hurt you, and once you see Garvin deck Flair you wonder why it's something we don't see more. This is the most boiled down raw version of Misawa popping up to hit an elbow and it's beautiful. Great match, great war. 

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