New Footage Friday: CHOCOBALL! ISHIKAWA! SANTO! PANTHER! FUERZA! RUDGE!

Terry Rudge vs. Pete Collins 7/27/90

MD: This takes a little bit to get going but it's once it gets moving, it's Rudge being Rudge, just an all time jerk. The ring announcer introduces him as having moved there but liking absolutely no one. The first chunk of the match is just an armbar where he uses gut shots and hairpulls to keep it. Collins will sell the arm fairly well for the rest of the match. The back half has Rudge being absolutely terrible to Collins, including a perfect king of the mountain where he amazingly kicked the rope upwards to choke him on the way in, multiple whips into the corner, sitting down in the other corner so he couldn't get whipped himself, and the usual clubbering and stomping (drawing public warnings) that you'd expect. The finish is smart as he draws a second public warning with the stomps to soften the arm up just enough to lock in a submission win, but then he gets himself disqualified by refusing to break it. Collins gets a few valiant moments and a win on paper while Rudge loses no heat at all and has the fans jeering him all the way.


El Hijo Del Santo/Shaka vs. Blue Panther/Fuerza Guerrera PWC 5/9/96

MD: Fairly odd presentation here with Japanese announcers who were cracking up left and right. I have no idea who Shaka was but we got too much of him in this match. Everyone else was great. Panther basing for Shaka made some of his stuff look pretty good especially in the early goings, and later on he was absolutely amazing and visceral in tearing the mask off with his teeth. He also hit a really great odd-angled elbow drop, but it's probably an afterthought relative to everything else in the match. Santo and Fuerza matched up perfectly. They did an exchange I loved where Santo went up huge for a Fuerza press-up pancake and then when Fuerza tried it again, snatched his head in midair for a tossing reversal. Things fell apart somewhat once Fuerza and Santo left the match though and the last couple of minutes felt rough to me. We'll take whatever we can get with three out of these four guys though.

PAS: Shaka definitely had the feel of a money mark who paid to fly in Santo and the rudos to work with him, kind of like a less talented Mike Quakenbush. He had a moment or two, but obviously we are here to see the legends. We didn't get much Santo vs. Panther, but the Santo vs. Fuerza stuff was great, with Fuerza being one of the all time legendary bases against one of the all time offensive luchadors. It was beautiful to watch. Loved all of the dives and exchanges, and I didn't even begrudge Shaka for getting the win. 

Yuki Ishikawa vs. Chocoball Mukai Fuyuki-Gun 12/5/03

PAS: Mukai is a pornstar who decided to become a pro wrestler, I didn't really remember him in the ring much, but it turns out at least for one match he was Daisuke Ikeda. Ishikawa is guy who will take a big beating to get a match over, but I didn't expect the comedy porn star to be unloading full force punches to his temples and mouth. Ishikawa ends up working really from the bottom here, but of course, is one of the great from the bottom wrestlers of all time, countering Mukai's german's with an armbar, looking for any opening to lock in a hold or throw a suplex. By the end of this match it really felt like a classic Battlarts or FUTEN style war, something I was totally not expecting when this popped up.

MD: Pretty valiant performance from Mukai here as he fought against the inevitability of Ishikawa. He got lucky early by catching a kick (after really scrambling his limbs to try to evade Ishikawa to start) and kept pressing whatever advantage he could. That included some pretty brutal shots. It looked like Ishikawa was going to take back over at various points but Mukai just hung on. His biggest problem was when he took the big swings he absolutely needed to in order to try to win, whether off the top or with a spinning backfist. Maybe most telling was when he hit three brutal Germans in a row but Ishikawa just grinded through it and locked in a hold. It was really just a matter of time in the end.