Found Footage Friday: RACE~! RUDE ~! SHOCKER~! SANTO~! TWICE THE STEAMBOAT~!

Ricky Steamboat vs. Harley Race WWF 10/26/86

MD: We've got a couple of matches from Richard Land's patreon. Go give him a look. This was extremely house show-y, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes it can be a really great thing. I'd call it broader than usual though, which is saying something for these two in specific. They worked towards a curfew draw and there's some clipping but we get a solid 20 minutes so certainly the brunt of the match. That I can't quite make it narratively come together for me was less about the clipping and more about how back and forth it was and just the way they seemed to be working it.

There were definitely some themes throughout: groin shots, Race's head, Steamboat hitting multiple knee drops or elbow drops in quick succession, both men trying suplexes or slams but having the other land on them, Race having a lot of cheapshot cut offs or reversals. They went back to these repeatedly. I'm not sure I could necessarily pull a narrative together out of it. Race was beaten down in his WWF run, but I think I might prefer him this way. I noticed it in 90 Puerto Rico too, how much I appreciated his savvy and timing and framing of things and how so much of what frustrates me about 70s or early 80s Race (especially in Japan) is just less present. It doesn't mean he didn't bump: he took a face first bump off the apron to the floor, but there's maybe less of a drive to big action too often and too early and instead a focus elsewhere. As for Steamboat, when he hit those repeated knee drops, the fans went absolutely nuts even past the point the ref pulled him off. He had a sequence whhere he climb the actual ropes to hit a fist drop and then went up for a splash off the top and despite them continuing to mention the curfew time, they had me for a minute that his momentum was unstoppable and that was going to be the finish (Race got his knees up). So yeah, maybe it didn't come together and maybe, given what they were going for and the setting, and just how good these two were at this point of their career, maybe it didn't have to.

ER: Remember when we didn't have a single Harley Race match on our DVDVR 80s WWF set? We didn't have any Terry Funk or Moondogs or hardly any Andre matches either so it says more about the process than any Race exclusion. It was the first set and the match selection process got air tight by the Other Japan Men. But it is a microcosm of many things that point to how little Race's WWF run is typically discussed when discussing his career. What is the highest regarded Race WWF singles match? That never got discussed as much during any assessment of his work. It's no surprise to anyone reading this that I love the final years of great wrestlers. Harley Race is a guy who always seemed old and his WWF run started when he actually was getting old. An old used up sack of shit 43 year old. Harley Race is my peer. I feel spiritually connected now to 1986 Harley Race's incredible bumping, leveled on the spiritual plane. Equals. Sore joints, delicate back, waking up with a surprise sciatic jolt down your leg, fucking 43 years old. 

My body has seen less abuse than former NWA World Champion Harley Race's body. He's a man you couldn't fathom in modern wrestling. This kind of man doesn't exist in the world today, and certainly doesn't exist in current professional wrestling. I like the Butcher as much as anyone but that's a guy who goes in on a brewery with his boys; Harley Race is the guy who would Tasmanian devil his way through that brewery. None of us have ever been involved in violent road incidents as pastime. Harley Race is an anachronism. A man sitting shotgun in a Seville pulling his 5th Bud off the ring one night is the same 43 year old scary uncle who was taking pratfalls like a barroom Buster Keaton a couple hours earlier. I cannot honestly fucking imagine living life as Harley Race. I can imagine being Cody Rhodes or Jey Uso pretty easily. But I can't picture what being Harley Race in the 70s was like. 

I think Harley Race is a beautiful wrestler. Let me know if this makes sense, but I think I love the way Harley Race bumps so much because he bumps the way Andre would have bumped if he was half the size. Harley Race hides this athleticism in plain sight the same way Andre would, by moving stiffly and falling differently than anyone else's physics. Don't let anyone ever tell you that Harley Race was old and washed during his WWF run. This was a house show main event. A large house in Maple Leaf Gardens in a main event going to a draw. Maybe people subconsciously don't view Race's WWF run because they were viewing him as a relic from the midwest making towns era and not a guy who worked in the TV era. I don't know. Harley Race was a relic by the late 80s, but his appeal as a relic was his entire appeal. He was never not a throwback to people because he was too real to be fake. This is a house show main event that contains no less than eight violent or unique Race falls, putting on a show for people who will never have any way to visually revisit the ballet again. 

Now we revisit, and we get to see Race in 86 was as good as Race in 74. I couldn't believe the way he moved. He's a large man making Ricky Steamboat's offense and pull look authentic, falling hard and getting up quick, falling onto his ass, being flipped onto his ass, beating up those knees in ways that make me now squint in pain at my spiritual peer. I don't know how much money I would have to be paid to face plant off the apron to the floor the way Race dementedly does here, but it's probably more than what Race made that night. What the hell were you doing man? Race could have very easily not done that and still sent fans home knowing they had seen Harley Race put on a show. Can you imagine seeing your dad fall this way? God. The energy this 43 year old peer has is something I don't think he was ever given proper credit for. Race as a go go go forebear of Kurt Angle is overblown. He looks like a guy who shouldn't be able to do the things he does, and that's a cool trait. If you somehow saw a man in your day to day business that looked like Harley Race, you'd know he was a tough son of a bitch. But you'd never in a million years think he'd be able to work for 25 complicatedly athletic minutes and build a rousing full match reaction for a draw. I was blown away at how he got up for everything and how hard he landed for even simple bumps. This is a man who only knew how to fucking go out there and perform in main events. Harley Race couldn't exist today. 

Ricky Steamboat vs. Rick Rude WCW 6/25/92

MD: This was far more conventional than the Race match despite being billed as no disqualification (mainly to cover Madusa shenanigans in the finish). It was almost comfortably so. Steamboat took over early with a perfectly timed and place punch to Rude's gut (well, abs) as he left it open. Theatrically perfect. He lost the offense by going for the climb up headlock takeover one too many times and ending up in a belly to back. Rude then worked over his back with various holds, Steamboat fought out, sold the back just enough to allow Rude to take back over with a cheapshot and then they repeated it.

It's formulaic but the formula balances when you have wrestlers who can make it work. It's time-tested and proven true and it worked great with this crowd. Steamboat's selling (not just in the moment but as he fought just to move despite the pain he was in) put it over the top. Rude finally went for a sleeper instead of something afflicting the back and Steamboat was able to come back more thoroughly. He nailed a teeter totter-ed tombstone but Madusa distracted the ref. He had her up for a press slam but Rude hit him with a chop block. Rude tried to hit the Rude Awakening but Steamboat reversed it and hit one of his own only for Madusa to put Rude's foot on the rope. When Rude finally got to hit it, Madusa pushed Steamboat's foot OFF the rope in a nice parallel moment for the finish. Again, none of this probably came as a surprise to anyone reading, but it all a great bit of business. Straight down the middle, smart, engaging, and well executed but not post-modern in the least. The Race/Steamboat match felt like abstract art compared to this.

ER: This was fantastic. I know WCW shows drew like shit in this era but fuck man the people watching the picture perfect way Rick Rude moved around Ricky Steamboat's pose holding karate timing. This was super athletic and hard worked, paced out great, and didn't waste a single action. There's so much waste in modern wrestling. You can tell when guys don't care about a kick to the stomach or gloss over a set up to get to the big conclusion. It's obvious, but you get mired in it when most guys do it. It's the style of the times. But seeing the boys do it, seeing Rude at the peak of his Pro Wrestling Being, and treating each Steamboat chop and punch in a way that moves his body theatrically yet appropriately. Every headlock and cravat and abdominal stretch and boxed ears and shoulderblock was treated like an important detail, and it's that reverence for every detail that made these Missouri Meatheads stay loud the entire time. I love how Rude's body gets shoved sideways by Steamboat's chops, how he lurches in place taking his punches. Nobody moves like Rude even though some have badly tried. Do you know how much godawful Dolph Ziggler/Kofi Kingston matches I watched that were all the worst versions of Rude/Steamboat? It doesn't matter how much they ape the match, it was weightless. Weightless, and nothing uniquely goofy like Rude flopping his arm while getting his head bounced off the top buckle, a man wrestling a big match for a small but intensely invested crowd. And the HEAT Madusa got and how ANGRY they sounded when her distraction meant Rude kicking out of the excellently battled over tombstone? Her hair looked perfect and her Barbie Party Dazzle dress couldn't have looked better. When she shoves Steamboat's foot off the bottom rope without the ref noticing? Bobby Heenan couldn't have done it better. 

El Hijo del Santo vs. Shocker Monterrey 10/21/01

MD: Turn of the 00s Shocker is a guy who I get but that I don't necessarily get the praise at the time for. He won a DVDVR 500 in 2002. Good punches. Lots of swagger. He's good, but that good? Everyone gets into lucha at different times. I push up against the conventional wisdom of the 90s and early 00s a lot because I got into it around 2012. That absolutely frames the way I look at Casas and it probably does Shocker as well. I first saw him during the RUSH feud and I might like that gnarled bastard more than this guy to a degree. It also means I jump at chances to see new matches from this period though. And this one gave me a lot to look at.

And you're not going to much better than a 30 minute Monterrey find against Santo. This was actually a kind of weird visual experience because there was confetti in the ring. Usually not an issue, but combined with the VQ, every far shot ended up looking overly pixelated because of it. Not a huge deal overall. This had time to breathe which meant they treated it almost like a title match, spending most of the primera on the mat. This was not smooth entries and exits and reversals though. It was gritty and uncooperative, snatching at limbs and rolling around. Even the stuff that should have been slick, like both men, legs locked, moving into a headstand to trade blows, didn't quite work. Not working was fine though because it just meant Santo landed on top of him and punched away.

After eating a big back body drop to the floor, a tope, and then Santo's finishing run off the top and with the clutch, Shocker took over in the segunda. He hit all the marks with gusto like you'd expect, a low blow, lifting Santo up at a two count, tossing him into the stands, doing a handspring into a pose. Santo was always trying to fight back, like the hero he was, but Shocker kept on top of him accordingly.

Everything came together in the tercera just how you'd want. Shocker tossed Santo back into the crowd, but he turned a whip into the post around, opening Shocker up. From there, he zoned in on the face (something the commentary said the women had previously begged Santo not to do). Shocker cut him off and they went back and forth til the end. That included a great battle over another Caballo Santo's corner tope, before we got an imaginative ref bump while Santo was in the tree of woe with Shocker misaiming the dropkick, another foul while the ref was down, a face-saving pin for Shocker and ultimately the DQ win for Santo. Everything was working exactly as it should have down the stretch with what came before it providing all of it gravitas. This actually helped bridge some of the gap with Shocker for me. Yes, he was in there against Santo but he did everything right, had lots of imagination, and covered it all with that patina of swagger and style. I'm not sure that makes him the best in the world, but I can see how certain people with certain preferences might have thought that around that time.