Abdullah the Butcher v The Destroyer (All Japan, 4/27/74)
It's weird seeing a spry Abdullah the Butcher. Basically all of the Abby I've watched over the last, I don't know, ten years has been Puerto Rico Abby, or if not Puerto Rico Abby then at least 80s Abby. By that point he was very morbidly obese and I guess very broken down considering he debuted in fucking 1958. There was a legitimate point in time where Abdullah the Butcher was going by the name Pussycat Pickens! Actually, more than weird, spry Abby is kind of disconcerting. Disturbing, even. Old and lumbering fork-wielding Abby was a horror of a man, but he was slow and his waddle wouldn't get him very far in a hurry. If that Abdullah was hunting you down then by turning and running the other way you'd probably be okay. You could say that Abdullah was sloth-like. But have you seen a sloth actually move? Terrifying creatures. The big long limbs and the claws and that gangly crawl, they're pure nightmare fuel. Imagine a sloth moving with some actual haste. Well that's a bit like younger Abdullah. He was damn near NIPPY getting through the ropes and everything he did was on fast forward compared to what he'd become ten years later. I'd love to see some 60s Abdullah because I bet he was a terror. This was pretty much a battle of the bastards with both of them trying to out-shithouse the other, but the crowd were all the way behind Destroyer and popped like crazy for him dishing out receipts. There was stabbing, choking, nasty rabbit punches and short headbutts to the cheek and temple. Abby does this amusing shriek when Destroyer catches him with a surprise shot and at one point Destroyer did the old shin across the throat while arguing with the ref' bit, and I'm choosing to believe he did it just to shut Abdullah up. Both of them bleed, Destroyer creating a nice bit of grizzly imagery with the blood seeping through the crisp white mask, Abby wearing white pants (but no pointy boots yet) to accentuate his own blood-loss. One million pounds sterling to whoever guesses the finish.
How in the christ had I never seen this before? Why am I only now finally deciding to actually watch it? This is not the Mexican Death Match I was expecting as it is in fact pretty much a sombrero on a pole match and that initially kind of bummed me out, but then Abby went and IMMEDIATELY stabbed Manny in the face and Manny was IMMEDIATELY bleeding buckets so maybe I'll shut the fuck up? Abby was positively elephantine in this, a churlish brute, a clodhopping psychopath, a vulgar reprobate. He stabbed Manny several times and when he wasn't doing that he was getting clobbered with a cowboy boot and convulsing. He also took some bigger bumps than I figured he'd be taking anywhere outside of Puerto Rico at this point. Manny hits a fucking monkey flip (!), then Abby takes an amazing weeble-wobble flat back bump off the middle turnbuckle! Also bleeds like a disgusting maniac and this is the Abdullah I remember seeing in magazines as a kid and being grossed out at such a monstrous thing. In fact I think he was bleeding before even getting to the ring as someone in the crowd grabbed his head dress thing (and Abby went for him) and maybe ripped off a wee band aid along with it. Manny hitting an honest to goodness vertical suplex on Abdullah the bastard Butcher was insanity and there are very few wrestlers ever who get fired up like the Ragin' Bull. He had no boots on, was covered in blood and stood in the ring roaring like he was trying to go Super Saiyan. Abdullah stabbing him in the willy to stop him from grabbing the sombrero is - I'm not joking - the single greatest cut-off spot I've ever seen. Even Abby's bump into the post at the end was done with more SPRING than I thought him capable of at this juncture. What an awesome bit of the pro wrestling.
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