Found Footage Friday: LA PARKA~! PIERROTH~! DOUGIE~! LAWLER~! RUFFY~! MOTO~!

Ruffy Silverstein vs. Mr Moto (Jiu Jitsu) NWA Chicago 1950s

MD: This was a judo jacket match where it was supposed to be no strikes, no pins, submission only, and with both wrestlers wearing judo jackets. Here they called it a Jiu Jitsu match and to make things more confusing, called Moto's illegal chops that drove a lot of the narrative of the match "judo". There were a number of gi assisted takedowns and submissions that were sort of interesting, but the match was really about things boiling over again and again as Moto took liberties, Silverstein fired back, and they built towards the end, to Silverstein hitting a couple of body slams. In that regard, the gimmick was more a means to an end, an environment to create contrast for them to do some more conventional things. There were a couple of interesting moments with the gis, but nothing more interesting than Silverstein going outside of them to lock in a cross-armbreaker. In general, not enough working joints or trying to get submissions as it always came back to the cheapshots and retaliation. Finish had Silverstein get a visual pin after the slams in a match where pins don't count and then Moto locking in a quasi-gi choke as the time limit wore off. Overall unsatisfying. My favorite bit at the end was when Davis called out a fan for just reading his newspaper during the match. 

Pierroth Jr. vs. La Parka Monterrey 7/16/00

MD: Park can be hit or miss in the 2000s for me, primarily because you get so much bullshit in his indy matches. Heel ref. Interference. Hamming about. When it hits though, it really hits, and here, I think it hit because the crowd wasn't as desensitized to it as they would be years later. That was combined with what makes it work as much as it does in the first place, Park's physical charisma, and, in this case, a very easy to understand and very clear and distinct injustice that was layered on top of the usual heel ref bullshit, a matter of seconds. La Bruja was supposed to be Pierroth's second. Parka was going to have another female to counter. She didn't show. In the pre-match when Parka was screwing around with La Bruja's gear to taunt her, and Wagner, Jr. came in with a weapon to whack Parka in the back, with the claim that he was Pierroth's second second. So they went right into a very uneven beatdown, with immediate mask ripping, subsequent blood, and Pierroth winning the first fall entirely one-sided with a power bomb.

It was the perfect alchemy of unfairness, blood, attitude, selling, animosity towards Pierroth and affection towards Parka and the fans were pissed. Early into the segunda, as the beatdown continued, the bottles started to fly. They went into a comeback (which stopped the bottles) where Parka had to work against basically four people, including the ref, only to get cut off by La Bruja crotching him on the top. He'd steal the fall by turning another powerbomb attempt into a 'rana but this second beatdown would continue, though maybe with a few less things thrown in thanks to the evening out of the falls. The tercera built to a ref bump and more overt interference until Parka's second finally ran out to turn the tide. That distracted the recovered ref, however, and led to Wagner coming in to set up a big foul kick while Pierroth held Parka. You can guess what happened next, though I'm not sure I've ever seen it executed with such gusto. Parka jumped straight up to dodge the kick. Pierroth got nailed instead and an elated crowd got to see a tecnico win and a title change. It was chaotic and messy and wild in the right ways, playing on heartstrings and building to big moments. 

ER: Remember when Monterey tapes started getting more widely circulated in the early 2000s, and we all realized all these great sounding on paper matches were all taking a back seat to some referee the entire match. I've watch so many La Parka matches over the last decade that even baseline shit entertains me in a big warm way. But seeing how incredibly a year 2000 baseline Big La Parka match played in Arena Coliseo Monterey made me nostalgic for buying $5 lucha tapes at Frank's and Sons. When all the bottles and trash starts flying in during the segunda? Forget it man, nothing beats that shit. I don't care how bad the ref's timing was or that he just flat out refused to take a La Parka headscissors, or maybe how long it took to get to certain places, once garbage starts hitting a ring it crosses over into Great Pro Wrestling. I wanted more stiffness from Park's eventual comeback but this crowd and this atmosphere meant that didn't matter. La Parka hitting a tope into Dr. Wagner, his second finally coming out and punching El Bruja around, and tons of fans rushing ringside to throw more water bottles when La Parka wins is some incredibly comfortable lucha to spend time in. All I need is thrown garbage, Pierroth's 60s western villain eyes and slacks, and a quarter of La Parka's face peeking out from behind his torn mask

Jerry Lawler vs. Doug Gilbert PWE Strawberry Slam 2018

MD: As minimalist as can be. You watch this and you see the breadth of what is possible with pro wrestling, or at least one far pole of it. It's vaudeville, Abbot and Costello, a constant build to the (very literal) punchline, again and again. It shouldn't work in the confines of wrestling, because you have to suspend disbelief and everything is so thoroughly telegraphed here but it does because of the wrestlers, their emotional connection to the crowd, and the expertise of their performance. The match starts with Gilbert pressing Lawler into the corner and punching him. It happens three times, with three corners, with gaps in between to let it resonate, with three great punches. After the third, he gloats and Lawler walks up, taps his shoulder and nails him with a punch of his own. It doesn't work without those punches looking as good as they do. It doesn't work without Gilbert being such a jerk about it. It doesn't work without Lawler being so matter-of-fact in retaliating, in letting the emotion build up until he unloads. It's not about what but instead about when and how. 

Eventually, Gilbert plays hide the object, with the audience getting to interject and be part of the show by calling it out and delaying its use and delaying its use until it has a certain payoff of its own, letting him take over. Things build into a Lawler comeback, a ref bump, a chain getting tossed in, and the eventual finish, with a last second foot on the rope and a roll up out of nowhere. Other than punches and a side headlock to set up the ref bump and the schoolboy for the finish, the only other "move" in the match is Lawler slamming Gilbert's head into the turnbuckle one time as part of his comeback. But they filled sixteen minutes (and without late-era Lawler's usual house mic work) and accomplished what they set out to do.

ER: When you see a modern 70 year old Jerry Lawler match with a near 20 minute YouTube file, you assume it's 10 minutes of Lawler on the mic and not a file full of punching and wandering. Matt called it vaudeville and it's exactly what it is. It's notable for being evidence of Dougie passing Lawler as a worker. It took several decades, but 50 year old Doug Gilbert is now a better worker than a 70 year old Lawler. Lawler is a fun old man with a huge belly who works like Mama Harper in that episode of Mama's Family where Mama has to wrestle Mt. Fuji and Matilda the Hun. Doug Gilbert now might have the best worked punch in pro wrestling. Lawler was throwing Looney Tunes punches while little kids jumped up and down with each one, Doug was throwing one off bombshells in every corner, and there's a woman sitting in the bleachers opposite hard cam who you think has to just be wearing short shorts with a camisole top but the full length of the video reveals that it's just a very short dress and we wonder if the man/tripod operating the hard cam was building this story reveal into out main story. I didn't know there was a Portland, TN. It's basically Kentucky, but 45 minutes north of Nashville. I grew up in a town with a population under 10,000, which is around 11,000 now. I attended the one wrestling show that ever happened there (in 2000) and saw Mike Modest, Christopher Daniels, Bison Smith, Moondog Moretti, and others with my dad and friends. It was the day after I turned 19. Portland, TN is about the same size as the town I grew up in and where my parents still live, and I obviously would have gone to this show had I lived there, and I would have loved to watch two old men do nothing but throw fake punches at each other's face and bodies.