New Japan Handhelds (well, one handheld)

Andre the Giant v Dick Murdoch (New Japan, 6/13/84)

This is a match-up I'd never really given any thought to before, then I saw it on the match list and it instantly stood out as a must-watch. Andre's awesome, Murdoch's awesome, how could a match between them not be? Run it a few years earlier and it's pretty close to dream match territory. By '84 Andre was pretty broken down, so this was more of a fun seven minutes built around shtick, but if you can't get on board with Andre the Giant and Dick Murdoch working seven minutes of shtick then why are you even here? Andre was a hoot in this. The crowd are fully behind Murdoch to start so Andre covers his ears with his massive paws and wants the ref' to do something about the noise. He stalks Murdoch down, backs him into the corner and pounces, but Murdoch scoots under his arm to safety. When he eventually keeps him stuck there he goes for the big butt bump, Murdoch moves, but Andre stops short before hitting nothing but turnbuckle. Both point to their head because they're too smart to fall for the other's games. Andre would shout "break!" and let everyone know he was giving Murdoch the clean break, really sell the nose after Murdoch pops him, bellow like a big old bear as he's squeezed by a headlock; it was a performance where he didn't do much physically, but he didn't need to do much physically because of his personality and how much mileage he could get out of the smallest things. Finish was really cool as well. Murdoch goes up top for Cattle Branding, Andre keeps trying to break away but Murdoch drags him back by that big head of hair. Andre then backs into Murdoch instead and crotches him on the top rope. Murdoch still has hold of the hair and makes one last push, but Andre just turns around and slams him off the top, following up by squashing him like a grape. These guys were the greatest.