How long did Slater actually spend in the WWF for this run? For such a notable territory-era wrestler I don't think I've read a single word about him in the WWF, and until a few years ago I had no clue myself that he showed up there in 1986. Actually, hang on, the cagematch check would tell me he spent...a whole fuckin year there?! From about June of '86 to June of '87. I don't think he was on a single big show and mostly seemed to be in lower card matches against Jimmy Jack Funk, Hercules and the likes, but still. It's a year I have no memory of at all. It's wild to me that he was running around New York draped in a confederate flag calling himself The Rebel while being presented as a babyface. He felt like one of the most out of place wrestlers you could find on a WWF card, a man displaced from his natural habitat, dropped into a universe in which he didn't belong. But hey, Dick Slater v Bret Hart is a cool anomaly of a thing, an interesting match up that couldn't have happened more than once or twice. If you were wondering who might have the advantage in quickness here, Heenan opines that the Hart Foundation "have more speed than a corporal in a pair of army boots...and some hick." This had a kind of weird structure, one that wasn't very WWF of the time. WWF tags get dinged for being too heel in peril but this had very little of that at all, with almost no babyface shine to speak of. Instead they ran two shorter FIP segments, one on each of the babyfaces, though before that we did get an amusing sequence where Slater chased Bret all around ringside that ended with Bret getting accidentally punched into the barricade by his own partner and Anvil taking an atomic drop on the floor. Kirschner is not good and doesn't really have a middle gear of selling. He went from being on offence to selling death after a punch or two, then every move the Hart Foundation hit him with after that was sold with the same degree of death. Bret looked like the best guy in the match by a significant margin but wasn't enough to really drag this to something more than decent. A nice enough bit of randomness, not a whole lot more.
The Great Sasuke v Takeshi Ono (Battlarts, 5/10/01)
If you were to ask me, in a perfect world, how a match between Takeshi Ono and the Great Sasuke might go, I'd say something like, "Ono tries to give Sasuke another dose of brain damage while Sasuke has to take Great Sasuke risks to fight off the shooter." And well, that was more or less what we got. Could it have done with more Ono kicking the crap out of him? Sure. Could Sasuke have upped the ridiculousness of one or two of his highspots? Attempted something that may have dislocated a pelvis or separated several vertebrae? Of course. BUT...it was pretty close to that perfect world version of Takeshi Ono versus the Great Sasuke. You knew this would be fun from the way Ono was fidgeting and tutting during the little pre-title match photo ops, rolling his eyes like a skinny disinterested Takada, ready to be done with the pleasantries. He offers up a handshake at the start and Sasuke creeps forward like someone trying to trap a tarantula in a mug, clearly hesitant. Sasuke reluctantly accepts, Ono immediately tries to roundhouse him like we all knew he would, but Sasuke had it scouted all along and strikes first! And that was about all the advantage he ever had. There were a bunch of cool moments that told the story of the match. Ono dominated the stand-up and striking as you would expect, throwing punches to the ear and neck and face, kicking Sasuke in the knee and liver and head. Ono dominated the grappling as you would also expect, basically trying to keep things as close to Battlarts as possible. So Sasuke had to take those risks to level the field. Ono reversing an in-ring springboard by punching him in the back of the head was sublime, then later Sasuke went for the Asai moonsault and did his little kick from the apron to knock Ono back, but Ono grabbed the foot and turned it into a kneebar on the apron. Sasuke's first big inroad was late in the match when he hit a fucking corckscrew headbutt thing off the top rope while Ono was flat on the apron. My favourite part of the match was something subtle, though. Sasuke again tries a springboard and this time Ono yanks him into a rear naked choke, securing Sasuke in place with a bodyscissors. Sasuke manages to grab one of Ono's feet and just starts twisting it in some approximation of a heel hook, anything that might force a break. It actually works and Ono lets go of the choke, but rather than pressing his own advantage Sasuke releases Ono's foot and immediately grabs the ropes instead. He wanted zero part of being on the mat with Ono and would rather seek the shelter of the ropes than gamble on the efficacy of his own hold. Maybe he wasn't quite as brain damaged as we all thought this whole time. What a fun wee match.
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