A day for Los Bucaneros

Pirata Morgan, Jerry Estrada & Hombre Bala v Rayo De Jalisco Jr, Atlantis & Alfonso Dantes (EMLL, February 1987)

The original Bucaneros! I almost forgot about Jerry Estrada running around wearing an eye patch. I've watched a couple amazing Pirata Morgan/Jerry Estrada rudo shows in the last week and this was another one, with Hombre Bala matching them every step, especially in the tercera. They mugged the tecnicos in the primera and Morgan was directing the whole thing, a lunatic Tarantino with a fetish for blading his own eye socket rather than putting other people's feet in his mouth. In the second caida we got a taste of how ridiculous the rudos were going to be in the tercera - some comedy, some clowning, the tecnico comeback with Rayo running circles around everyone. Alfonso Dantes looks old even by lucha standards here but still has amazing whip on his arm wringer takedowns, and of course Atlantis hitting his running moonsault out the corner looks amazing by any standard. And then there's the tercera, which was basically one extended reel of rudo horse shit and miscommunication spots. Sequences where one, two, sometimes all three of them are made to look foolish, some where they end up running face-first into each other, some where one will dropkick the other into the third man who will then be accidentally be speared by the first. There was one sequence that ended with Estrada taking a Fuerza bump to the floor and dropkicking both of his partners in the face, and I wish I could do the whole thing justice but it would be impossible with mere words. There's an unfortunate jump in the tape, or maybe a commercial break, but we miss what seemed to be the start of Los Bucaneros making their comeback. When they wrestle back control they hit stereo running dropkicks to a kneeling Atlantis, and right at the very second the move connects two people in the crowd fire off a fucking cap gun! Pirata Morgan is top 30 ever. Jerry Estrada might be top 3.

Murdoch and Adonis! Hogan and Snuka!

Dick Murdoch & Adrian Adonis v Jack & Gerry Brisco (WWF, 1/12/85)

I should re-watch the North-South/Briscos match from late '84 that everyone loved for a minute then decided it wasn't actually that good after all. I last watched it 15 years ago and loved it and if this is anything to go by I'll probably still like it today. When the crowd are sort of lukewarm towards participants in a match at the outset, only to be fully invested in them by the end, you know everyone involved did something right. You never had to worry about Murdoch and Adonis; they'd been in the WWF for about a year already and they were getting heat everywhere - Boston, the Meadowlands, St. Louis, the Garden, here in Philly, pretty much wherever they worked. Jack Brisco was a former NWA World Champ so he's hardly a no-name scrub rocking into town, but I'm not sure how often he'd have wrestled in Philly before coming to the WWF a few months earlier. The Spectrum was a WWF venue throughout the 70s and 80s. Honestly I don't know shit about Gerry's career and I can't be bothered checking, but either way the Briscos weren't big WWF names in the grand scheme of things. The crowd weren't cold on them as such, but they weren't behind them the same way they'd be behind a team of, say, Ivan Putski and Tony Garea, folk they'd seen countless times over the years. By the end everyone was molten for them winning the belts though, chucking garbage into the ring after Murdoch pulls a fast one and sneaks a chair shot on Jack while the ref' is distracted. As Tracy Smothers would say: "That's called WORKIN', motherfucker!" Murdoch and Adonis were of course a pair of awesome bumping stooge idiots. Murdoch got smacked in the mouth and did one of his all-time greatest punch drunk walks where he's swinging wildly at thin air. Adonis started the match by taking four armdrags and two scoop slams one after another. Then when they took over they were choking the life out of Gerry, yanking his head back by the hair so they could measure point-of-the-elbow shots right to the nose, cutting the ring off while building the heat. They really feel like one of the best teams ever when you consider how effective they are at both taking a beating and dishing one out, flipping that switch and going from stooges to killers in an instant. Yeah, I should re-watch the '84 match. 

Hulk Hogan & Jimmy Snuka v Bob Orton Jr. & Don Muraco (WWF, 5/18/85)

Totally out of nowhere awesome match. I'd never seen this talked up before, then last week our good man Elliott on the GME discord said it was great and wouldn't you know it but he was not wrong. Hogan was a whirlwind here and it might be one of my favourite performances of his. He was off the charts charismatic, off the charts energetic, brought simple offence that was sold like it mattered and then sold the effects of a beatdown like that mattered even more. The early segment was Hogan on a heater, going after Orton's cast arm and firing back when it looked like the heels had him cornered. The problem is that the hot streak always comes to an end and this time he got cornered once too often. There was no big transition spot as such, no single move or double team or even any overt cheating - Orton and Muraco just swarmed him, got him in the corner and put as many boots to him as they could before the ref' counted to five. After the hot tag to Snuka, Hogan doesn't just step out onto the apron and wait in the corner. He sells the beating by lying on the floor, trying to climb back up to the apron only for Orton or Muraco to kick him down again. This is also happening after the heels have taken over on Snuka, so the heat is double nuclear. The actual transition to Snuka in peril is one of the best of the decade. Snuka comes flying off the top with a cross body on Muraco, who catches him and staggers back. He's about to go down, but Fuji has the referee distracted and just as Muraco topples backwards Orton comes in from the blind side and cracks Snuka in the head with the cast. Snuka is lifeless for like a minute and comes up GUSHING blood, and before long Orton's white cast is about 50% red with blood. With every shot Hogan takes trying to climb onto the apron the more desperate he gets, and I think Hogan as an apron worker is something he probably deserves more credit for. He's great at it. His timing in general has always been wonderful, but the way he milks the heat for everything it's worth, still selling from when he was being worked over before, you kind of wonder why more people don't do it because the crowd are rabid for him to finally get back into things. And then when he does the roof comes off, Orton and Muraco backing away like they knew they'd fucked up. The finish is maybe a bit of a letdown, but the post-match is wild as they brawl around ringside and chuck each other over barricades and police are running around trying to keep the crowd in check. 

Hart Foundation v British Bulldogs (part 1?)

A few years back, during the first lockdown in 2020, I went through a ton of WWF Golden Age tags. You know, that rough period of 1985-1989 with the fun tag division. Most of what I watched was Rockers and Islanders and a bit of Demolition, but all of them against a decent variety of other teams. One match up I did not re-visit was the Hart Foundation v British Bulldogs. I watched all of THOSE some time back in the 2000s and it was never my favourite pairing anyway, and the Bulldogs are kind of whatever and I'd rather watch a dozen Hart Foundation v Islanders matches if I'm going to watch a dozen Hart Foundation matches. But I got the itch to watch at least one Harts v Bulldogs match for the first time in forever, and perhaps that one will turn into two or three or maybe even more but probably not more than three. We'll see how it goes.  

Hart Foundation v British Bulldogs (WWF, 9/23/85)

Gorilla notes at the outset that "this match literally REEKS of connotations." Certainly one of his better lines. He's talking about title shot connotations and really what he means is ramifications rather than connotations, as the winners here might get themselves a shot at Valentine and Beefcake in the near future. At least I assume that's what he's meaning. You can never really tell with Gorilla and that is why we love him dearly. I guess absence in wrestling makes the heart grow fonder because I thought this was pretty great and really didn't have any of the issues I usually think of with the Bulldogs. It had a nice early shine segment, a short Davey in peril segment followed by a longer spell with Dynamite in peril, and then in the last couple minutes I thought they were building towards a time limit draw before they came through with a clean finish. Not everything came off perfectly, but the majority of it did, structurally it landed great, and they nailed the big notes as well as the more minute things that really make a match pop. It was pretty fun seeing Dynamite and Bret have a top this contest at a few points, maybe something they started in Stampede and kept it running all the way down the road. First it was the spot where Dynamite grabs a seated Bret by the hair and yanks him into the air, which Bret paid him back for later. Then Dynamite took the sternum bump in the corner like a maniac, flipping backwards damn near into the middle of the ring, and later Bret took one of his own that was every bit as nasty. Bret is maybe still a bit vanilla at this stage, maybe isn't comfortable projecting his character yet, but he's definitely a great mechanic and solid in all of the ways you'd expect. He was also fun complaining about nothing hair pulls early on, really screaming at the referee to have a word with Dynamite. Dynamite is absolutely yoked to the moon and back, all intensity all the time. He even backs Bret into the ropes with enough force that he nearly flips Bret over them. His heat segment was excellent and I guess it's easy to forget how good Dynamite could be when he wasn't doing stupid shit or dominating 90% of matches against folks he probably shouldn't be dominating. He took a slam on the concrete that looked disgusting and eventually Davey couldn't take any more, ran in and chased Bret all the way around the ring twice, Jimmy Hart scrambling for safety with the megaphone waving like a white flag. Neidhart was mostly about the front facelocks and choking, but his timing was decent enough and he at least has fun bully charisma. With a less useless ref' some of the distraction spots might've been better, although to be fair it doesn't look like the Hart Foundation REALLY know how to maximise those moments with interesting stuff yet. A couple times they basically just did a blind tag, which is fine and all but there was a little more scope to be creative if they had it in the holster. The last couple minutes sort of meander and there was one ropey bit of selling where Bret just went back on offence after getting hit with a huge gorilla press slam (and this was post-hot tag, so Davey was the fresh man), but the finish itself was great. Very good start for what is a somewhat maligned pairing in 2023. 

More Dandy v Azteca (featuring Chavo Classic)!

El Dandy, El Texano & Chavo Guerrero v Angel Azteca, Javier Cruz & Americo Rocca (CMLL, 3/9/90)

The Dandy/Azteca feud rolls on. That was the centrepiece here and it ruled, not just in what they actually did together but how it progressed over the course of the match. Azteca comes in with a chip on his shoulder after being SLIGHTED by Dandy and Texano the previous week. At the end of that match Azteca and Dandy were at each other's throat and YOU knew that AZTECA knew Dandy didn't see him as being on his level. Azteca took umbrage and wanted to show Dandy and everyone else how wrong he was. He had the whole primera to do it, the entire fall one extended Dandy/Azteca exchange, but maybe the moment was too big for him because in the end he was soundly dispatched. You'll sometimes hear sprint coaches talking about athletes getting out their own head, focusing on staying loose and maintaining stride rhythm, rather than thinking about running as fast as humanly possible. You don't want to try SO hard that you tense up and movement patterns stiffen and the run suffers. That's what the primera looked like for Azteca. He had a point to prove and in his head that was all that mattered, but it crippled his rhythm and he couldn't focus on the moment and you can't get away with that against Roberto Gutierrez El Dandy. The matwork had a real intensity to it and it always felt like it could break down, then Azteca grabbed a hammerlock and Dandy, with one arm, slammed him on his neck. It was brutal and immediately after that he submitted Azteca with headscissors. As soon as the fall ended everyone else jumped in the ring, conscious of the fact the match was on a knife edge and that tensions could spill over, each guy prepared to let it fly should it come to that. Then as the match went on Azteca started to loosen up, started to find his rhythm and settle into a groove. That wasn't always against Dandy and it took Chavo Guerrero cracking his jaw with an uppercut along the way, but regardless of how he got there he'd peaked by the tercera. The match finished with them going at it and every roll-up felt like it could be the finish, which is the kind of thing that can sound hyperbolic but I really mean it. The crowd felt the same and bit on every count. Everyone else brought the goods in their supporting roles and each exchange kept pace with Dandy/Azteca, the struggle always present and that intensity was there for everything. Chavo hitting his amazing northern lights suplex on Americo Rocca was a thing of beauty and Rocca sold it by locking his leg out and quivering like he was going into shock. Cruz and Rocca also obliterated Dandy with a doomsday device dropkick even the Road Warriors would wince at. I am ready for every instalment of Dandy v Azteca. 

1990 CMLL Project

Complete & Accurate Guerrero Brothers

Revisiting 00s US Indies #41

CM Punk & Ace Steel v BJ Whitmer & Dan Maff (Chicago Street Fight) (ROH Death Before Dishonour II - Night 2, 7/24/04)

Choosing to watch the blow off to a blood feud - any blood feud - after having watched three Buzz Sawyer v Hacksaw Duggan matches the previous week might've been a poor decision on my part. I live around the corner from an exceptional Italian restaurant and I would never eat there on a Friday and then go to Pizza Hut on the Tuesday (or one could argue any day). To be fair this was always going to be more about the big spots and crazy looking shit. It's 2004 and that was the done thing then and is largely still the done thing now. When they brought the barbed wire board out though, it felt like the point of it was to maim rather than pop the crowd, so they captured the sense of hatred well enough. Even the goofier moments like the duelling chair shots were at least carried out with plenty of violence. The chair shot bit also led to everyone in the crowd hucking chairs into the ring while the referee covered up in the corner, then all four guys proceeded to wrestle on a canvas fulla folding chairs for the next few minutes. Punk and Whitmer doing a fighting spirit exploder sequence on the chairs was dumb as hell but still sort of amusing, I guess? All four guys tasted the blade and Whitmer leaned fully into his Dusty Rhodes side by blading his head and arm. Unfortunately his Dusty Rhodes side lies almost entirely in the shadow of his other side which isn't nearly as interesting. He and Maff are the heels and they stall early, flipping off fans and cussing people out rather than getting in the ring and giving this Chicago crowd the mutilation they want. Whitmer just always feels like a guy playing pro wrestler and not even an interesting one, zero conviction behind anything, hollow personality, no presence. He tries like a bastard and of course he'll bump wildly, but it's all in service of putting on the wrestling match that was mapped out beforehand. Nothing is immersive beyond the crazy shit he might do but three seconds later I'm back to not caring anyway. I could not have bought anything less than I bought Whitmer giving someone the finger and telling them to fuck off. Dan Maff isn't someone I've ever really cared about either but he was pretty fun as a stocky Bob Orton Jr. Some of his bumping was right out the Dick Murdoch playbook and once or twice it maybe never matched the tone of what they were aiming for, but I'd be completely full of shit if I sat here and said I wouldn't have loved it if the actual Dick Murdoch had done the exact same thing. The commentary was very bad. Holy moly Sapolsky is the most terrible and his partner on the night wasn't much better. If I can't buy anything Whitmer is doing in the ring then I'm buying even less of what Gabe is selling on commentary. Not for a second does it feel like HE buys what he's selling and everything just sounds like a shill. He's a car salesman who really does like that Skoda Octavia, but he's not convincing anyone that it's everything you'd get from an Audi Q8. You can tell me that this is one of the most savage things you've ever seen, but when you're using the sort of lingo you'd see on a wrestling message board to do it I can't possibly shake the sense that you're trying desperately to convince me. Then you get over the top nonsense like when Punk and Steel set up some mad shit they're about to unleash on Whitmer and Gabe says "oh god, they're gonna try and take his life!" And the actual spot was insane, as they prop Whitmer in the corner with a table jammed into his throat before Punk skites a ladder across it into Whitmer's face, but I couldn't appreciate it because I was too busy laughing. And then Steel tombstones Whitmer off the middle rope through a table and Gabe shouts "DANGEROUSSSSS" and whoever told him it was a good idea to ever do that should be shot point blank in the face. 

On the Road Again, off of Highway 10. In a Cabin on a Rural Route, Piper's Gonna Figure out the Hard Way how Fast He Can Wear His Welcome Out

Roddy Piper, Paul Orndorff & David Schultz v Rocky Johnson, Tony Atlas & Ivan Putski (WWF, 4/24/84) - GREAT

We get a pre-match interview segment with Okerlund and the heel team and as soon as Schultz said "Tony Atlas, where I'm from..." I knew it was going to be followed with something racist, if not overtly then at least covertly. Sure enough he says they're going to tie Atlas up and whip him, then they'll tie up Johnson and whip him too, and they'll make Putski watch. Overt rather than covert, then. Once they got in the ring they gave us an electric six minutes. I thought Piper was incredible here and it's one of his most fun WWF performances, certainly as a heel. At the intros Atlas tries to peek under his kilt to see if Piper is a TRUE Scotsman. I've never personally worn a kilt in America but I know the look of a man - even a Canadian one - who's endured his share of kilt-related japery, and I would guess Piper already had to spend half the day listening to Schultz making skirt jokes so he was about ready for a fight. He whips off the kilt and goes right at Atlas, no hesitancy at all, no stalling, no fear. The first couple minutes are a pure Roddy showcase. Atlas clonks him with a jumping headbutt and Piper is so dazed he asks the referee for a tag, then takes an atomic drop and flies into the babyface corner, realises where he is and frantically begs off before Johnson decks him. Putski comes in and does the machine gun punches while Piper is headlocked and Piper's jelly-legged sell is indescribable. Even Patterson on commentary was chuckling. Johnson comes in and does his own rapid fire punches, Piper stares dead-eyed into space, Johnson clocks him with a couple more shots and Piper does the greatest slow-motion face-first timber bump you've ever seen. When Piper gets the chance he rakes Johnson's eyes and immediately drags him to the heel corner to tag Orndorff, but in an awesome touch Piper falls to his knees right after the tag, still selling the effects of the beating he took. Another cool touch is him grabbing Johnson's leg so Orndorff can lay into him, Piper just lying on the canvas. As the ref' is distracted by Atlas running in Schultz starts beating on Johnson as well, but rather than joining in with this beating Piper keeps selling by lying on the apron grabbing hold of Johnson's trunks instead. A play-by-play rundown doesn't really do it justice, but it was a great showcase for some of the things Piper does well. Orndorff has some vicious stomps, a nice top rope forearm and a killer looking back suplex that about folded Johnson like an acordian. Piper hits a great falling fist drop and an AMAZING punch flurry, which he follows up by looking out at the crowd in open disgust, remembering the face of every jeering New Yorker. Even when Johnson tries to make his comeback Piper grabs him right away and drags him straight back to the heel corner to cut him off. I thought the desperation of that really put over the idea that Johnson could mount some serious offence and that the heels needed to swarm him. Great finish as well with Putski coming in hot, a melee breaking out, Piper pulling a foreign object from his tights in the commotion, and reversing a back suplex by hitting Putski with three quick shots to the head. This looked better than the usual single foreign object shot - it felt desperate and came across as really nasty, just a rapid flurry from a guy with nothing but bad intentions. His scurry out the ring on all fours after the pin was the cherry on top, that little extra to wring out every bit of hatred the crowd had to offer. Absurdly fun match and a stone cold epic Roddy Piper performance. 

Roddy Piper v Randy Savage (WWF, 1/22/90) - GOOD

Six years later and people are still prodding Piper about this fucking kilt. Savage just sits on the top turnbuckle while Sherri does his bidding, lifting the kilt up, giggling like Piper's the "entertainment" at a hen party. Piper slaps her on the arse and I guess slapping someone on the arse was all still very whimsical in 1990, but the Macho King took about as kindly to his Queen being sullied as Piper took to having his kilt lifted. As a match this wasn't as great as that house show one from '86 that someone recorded from 30 rows away, but it was still very fun. Sherri might be my favourite ringside menace ever and she was amazing here, landing a couple cheapshots including a whole fucking enziguri to Piper's neck! Piper does what is very possibly the greatest airplane spin ever and naturally sells some dizziness upon dropping Savage, then Savage responds with his own and goes STUPID fast and actually it's this one that's possibly the greatest airplane spin ever. I'm honestly shocked Savage managed to stay upright the whole time. He was dead centre in the ring doing this, making at least a dozen rotations, and not once did his balance waver. I would love to have seen what sort of proprioception training he was doing around this time. Of course he drops Piper and immediately falls on his butt for the comedy pop, then he tries climbing the turnbuckles and we all expect him to fall off and then he does! Sometimes the simplest payoffs are the best. 

Complete & Accurate Hot Rod

The Pirate versus the Farm Boy (ft. Jerry Estrada and Satanico)

Pirata Morgan, Jerry Estrada & Emilio Charles Jr. v El Satanico, Super Astro & Solomon Grundy (CMLL, 3/9/90)

What a rudo show. All three brought a little of everything here, some comedy, some nastiness, some technical proficiency, charisma levels through the roof. This was really all about their assault on Solomon Grundy. At times they went about it in a goofy way, which led to amusing moments like Pirata and Emilio trying to slam him only to get squashed beneath the ampleness of Grundy's frame. At other times they were downright vicious though, like when all three cornered the big fella and put the boots to him. They were a group of bullies wailing on a fat kid in dungarees. Grundy is basically Jerry Blackwell if Blackwell ate Hillbilly Jim. When he can defend himself he's fine and his partners have his back, one of his partners being Satanico and there's no one you'd rather have at your back than Satanico (although Grundy accidentally squashes Satanico in the corner and I half expected him to turn on Grundy right there). Lots of amusing stuff built around Grundy's size and the rudos not wanting to go at him one on one, like when Pirata Morgan was in there with Super Astro, the latter then tagged Grundy and Morgan nope'd the fuck out of there immediately. This was also a tremendous Jerry Estrada performance. He was determined to look like a fool and all of his horse shit had the perfect timing. It can be hard to do comedy right in wrestling, but this worked as well as it did because Estrada was so good at making himself look effortlessly stupid. He'd add a bunch of great little touches to accentuate the main stuff happening at the time, walking across the apron obliviously as Grundy is running the ropes and getting bounced into the second row, trying to grab someone's foot from the floor only to miss and fall over. It's the sort of peripheral stuff that kept people engaged even in the quieter moments, without trying to make things all about him. There's a great bit where Emilio grabs Super Astro so Estrada can smack him, but before it Jerry turns around and shit-talks Satanico and walks right into a pump kick to the face. Later the rudos get triple squashed in the corner off a running splash and Estrada crumples in a heap claiming he was kicked in the nuts. His timing, positioning, stooging, reactions, just a ridiculously fun Jerry Estrada highlight reel. 

1990 CMLL Project

Dandy and Azteca EXPLODE (slightly)!

El Dandy, El Texano & Angel Azteca v Jerry Estrada, Fuerza Guerrera & Pierroth Jr. (CMLL, 3/2/90)

I pretty much loved the primera here, or at least everything in the primera leading up to the the moment where Pierroth just about cripples himself. It was a sporting contest with no sportsmanship. Everyone worked clean, but they brought the personality and you knew who were the rudos and who were the tecnicos. It was tetchy and it gave the matwork a nice edge. Each of the first three exchanges ended with the rudo doing something untoward. Pierroth threw a strop when Azteca got the better of him, Estrada spat on Dandy, and after Texano and Fuerza took turns slapping each other in the face Estrada threw a cheapshot from the floor, which incensed both Texano and Dandy. Texano then matched up with Estrada on the next go, had Jerry chasing his tail before hitting him with a spectacular left hook, and Estrada took one of his greatest Estrada bumps to the floor, slithering away face down in shame. It was really fun stuff and then Pierroth hit the ropes and nearly broke his neck. It was a regular whip across the ring, nothing they wouldn't have done every day of their professional lives, but this time the top rope snapped and Pierroth tumbled backwards, whacking the back of his head and neck off the ring apron. I feel like there's no way this could've been planned. It was a ludicrous "bump" and not the sort of thing you could really control in any way. So I'm going to say the audible the other five guys called after it is one of the best ever, as the next two falls basically set up the Dandy/Azteca feud that would run for the next few months. Were they going to set that up in the first place and circumstances forced them to change how they did it? Maybe. Were they going to set it up like THIS? If they were then that's fucking bonkers and Pierroth is a mad man. Either way, the rudos aren't willing to continue playing unless someone on the other team takes a walk. Dandy and Texano are cousins and regular tag partners so they decide that Angel Azteca is getting the rest of the night off. Azteca must be on one of those pay as you play contracts and isn't interested in sitting out and I can relate to that as someone who's been self-employed at various stages of his adult life. I felt a little sorry for Azteca here as he reminded me of my little brother when my friends and I wouldn't let him play football with us so he'd just hang around making a nuisance of himself. The best part was that Azteca might've been halfway vindicated when the match continued and it was Dandy who let his side down. The bickering between those three did kind of lower the ceiling on what the match could ultimately be, though. For storyline purposes I guess it needed to happen, but it was a strange sort of dynamic with the tecnicos wrestling 3 v 2 against the rudos, even if you'd be hard pressed to feel sympathy for Fuerza Guerrera and Jerry Estrada. Fuerza was a gem and wanted nothing to do with the ropes for the rest of the match. Estrada probably didn't know what was going on anyway and he also about spiked himself on his head falling over them, although I think this was an intentional bump. Overall it wasn't a great match, but I haven't watched the Dandy/Azteca title match in probably 14 years and it was a nice way to get me hyped for that again. 

1990 CMLL Project

Hacksaw and the Mad Dog!

Buzz Sawyer v Hacksaw Duggan (Coal Miner's Glove Match) (Houston Wrestling, 12/13/85)

I think this was a new piece of footage we got from the NWA Houston drop. Or maybe we always had it and it just never made the Mid-South 80s set. Either way I'd never seen it before and shockingly enough it was another fun entry in the Duggan/Sawyer feud. We get a nice start with Sawyer playing chikenshit, begging off right as Duggan leaves his feet for a big double punch. Sawyer's begging off and pleading for mercy is always something to be wary of because you know he could turn around and bite you in the leg if you hesitate for more than a second. Sure enough Duggan tries to climb for the glove early and Sawyer bites him in the leg. They brawl to the floor and Sawyer rams Duggan into the barricade, then whacks him a few times with a chair. To be honest the chair shots didn't look great, but the IDEA is right, Duggan sells them like they mattered, and I guess not erasing someone's brain cells with reckless chair shots is something to be commended, not scoffed at? Probably? These matches in Mid-South and Houston where something was hanging up a pole were always a fucking ordeal because the wrestlers had to climb the thing military style and any item attached was UP there, which became more difficult to reach the sweatier they got. They definitely captured the sense of desperation and how much that glove could swing the tide though, especially Sawyer who was just about pulling Duggan's trunks off every time Duggan climbed the thing. There was one point where Duggan almost reached it and Sawyer grabbed a leg, Duggan wound up spun around facing inside the ring while still scaling the pole, then when he tried to kick Sawyer away Sawyer yanked Duggan's leg into the pole for a crotch shot. I mean it was pretty innovative as far as crotch shots go. Sawyer biting Duggan's head to create his own climbing opening was such an awesome Buzz Sawyer thing to do. More people need to incorporate biting into their offence today. I loved the finish. Duggan finally manages to climb up and retrieve the glove, but Dick Slater has come down and chucks Sawyer his dog collar chain. Sawyer tries to whip Duggan with it while Duggan struggles to actually get the glove on properly, then finally he does, catches the chain as Sawyer swings it at him, and yanks Sawyer into a big gloved punch. The post-match with Sawyer and Slater wrapping the chain around Duggan's throat was like a Pacho Herrera-orchestrated cartel hit. I bet I still think the dog collar match is amazing. 

Buzzards They Circle Old Crosses on Hills, The Heart of Mid-South Pounds Under My Heels

Jake Roberts v Lord Humongous (Cage Match) (11/29/85) 

I thought this was a really cool Jake performance. Part of it reminded me a little of babyface Dustin Rhodes, where he's a tall guy working smaller than he is to project a sense of underdog. To begin with he worked bigger, even for a tall guy, which maybe he needed to do when going against Humongous, who's bigger still, more imposing, and possibly indestructible. Making a shift like that mid-match could've come across as jarring or maybe not all that credible, but I thought he nailed it. All of the stuff around Jake wearing his own hockey mask was great. Humongous may not be Jushin Liger when it comes to masked wrestlers communicating through body language, but I did like the way he sold bemusement at how nothing was getting through Jake's mask. Humongous would headbutt Jake and rather than it splitting his head like a coconut, Jake would fire back immediately, unfazed, his mask doing what it was supposed to do. They brawled onto the floor between apron and cage, Jake rammed Humongous' head into the cage and it did nothing, then when Humongous paid him in kind Roberts was similarly unaffected. Jake really worked that opening stretch with the swagger of a man who knew he had his opponent rattled. Of course he was never lasting the whole match like that and as soon as Humongous rips the mask off him Jake was up against it. The transition was great, with Jake going for the big kneelift and taking his high-angled bump in the corner. Humongous threw him head-first into the cage right after that and about 30 seconds later Jake is bleeding profusely. Humongous has some pretty cumbersome strikes, some awkward stomps to a nearly upright Roberts and generally looks a bit clunky, but his scoop slam looks decent and he has a nice legdrop. He's also about as jacked up as the original Mad Max character he's based on and Boesch opines that a body like Humongous' wasn't attained through mere weightlifting. In order to get built like that he must've done it "away from the world of scheduled athletics," so I guess Boesch is implying that Humongous is on the gear? Or that he is in fact a serial killer and got yoked like that from burying bodies in the wilderness or maybe just from lugging furniture around perhaps. It's impossible to truly understand the mind of Paul Boesch. The big Humongous kick out of the DDT is met with an almost stunned silence from the crowd and it might actually have been the first time anyone had kicked out of Jake's DDT. Then Jake gets tangled in the ropes and Humongous goes to smash him with a chair, but Roberts manages to kick free and hit another DDT on the chair. Even the hockey mask isn't saving the big fella from that.

Mid-South Project

He's a Bad One Him, Always Breaking the Law. If You See Tenryu, Better Give Me a Call

Genichiro Tenryu & The Great Kabuki v Michael Hayes & Steve Olsonoski (All Japan, 1/18/84) - SKIPPABLE

I feel like this would've been better in Texas. Heel Michael Hayes in Japan is still by and large the heel Michael Hayes we'd get if this was the Sportatorium, but the crowd obviously aren't as rabid and so his shtick doesn't land the same. He never really tried to rip anyone's eyes out either so that was a shame. Kabuki had been appearing in World Class for a minute by now, and even if he'd been heel the entire time you can guarantee putting him up against a Freebird would've babyface'd him quick enough. Tenryu was still a year away from being *Tenryu* so there were no instances of him looking at Steve O like he's a cockroach and kicking him in the throat. 

Genichiro Tenryu & Stan Hansen v Toshiaki Kawada & Ricky Fuyuki (All Japan, 7/16/89) - GOOD

It's always a wee bit strange watching Fuyuki and especially Kawada work as plucky underdog juniors stepping to the big dogs. Fuyuki would slowly morph into a disgusting pot-bellied shrieking goblin as the influence of WAR got its claws in him, while Kawada was only a few years away from being one of the surliest wrestlers in Japan. At this point all they could do is swarm Tenryu or Hansen and hope the numbers advantage would pay off. It really didn't, but they were gamers and they at least laid a few gloves on their opponents. There was one sequence early where Footloose were hitting enziguris, one after the other, each shot sending Tenryu into the next, Tenryu taking a swing and missing just to get hit with another enziguri. When Tenryu shut them down you half expected him to slaughter his little buddies, but he didn't and merely threw a couple chops to the throat, just enough to keep them in line. They were his men after all, part of his revolution, and I guess Tenryu realised that with leadership comes responsibility. The responsibility to not kill too many of your men, because then who are you going to lead? Hansen didn't care about any of that shit and really thumped the hell out of them. It was a nice contrast and Hansen punting people in the spine will always rule. Cool finish too. 

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