Ohtani v Murakami II

Shinjiro Ohtani v Kazunari Murakami (Zero-1, 6/14/01)

A feud like this is pretty much always going to have a shelf life, a point where returns on such rabid heat start to diminish, but it's hard all the same to imagine a world with about 32 Ohtani/Murakami matches not ruling. This was awesome for many of the same reasons as their first match while adding a couple new wrinkles to go with it. Ohtani came out swinging wildly again, throwing all sorts of ugly punches and flailing arms like a man who maybe KNOWS how to fight but was never TAUGHT how to fight. In the first match that got him nowhere and I think he knew this one would end there too, so he pretty quickly changed tack and dropkicked Murakami in the knee. For all of Ohtani's aggression in the first match he never really tried to turn it into a wrestling match, but this time he did and after the dropkick he immediately went to a half crab. Ohtani is a really fun shithouse, riling Murakami as he rolls to the floor scowling and clutching at his leg. When he throws his gumshield at Ohtani you know he's about to go off on one and sure enough he gets in the ring and totally fucking wastes Ohtani with a left hook. This was honest to god one of the wildest bastard punches you'll see and then it was Ohtani's turn to roll around on the floor. When Ohtani spots his opening - Murakami jostling with the referee about who knows what - he comes back in and dropkicks Murakami in the head, quickly going on the offensive with suplexes. He hit at least one suplex in their first match and it clearly wasn't enough, so he goes to the well a few more times here. Murakami takes a German suplex as ugly and awkwardly as anyone and then Ohtani grabs him for a dragon suplex and you're legitimately worried when you consider the idea that if Murakami never learned how to work a punch then he almost certainly wasn't arsed about learning how to land on his neck. And then Ohtani spikes him on his neck. Ohtani takes his time after this to let the moment sink in and you wonder if he STILL hasn't learned from all those hard lessons against Liger and Samurai and Ultimo Dragon in his impertinent youth. When you have the advantage, press it. But he didn't and he just gave Murakami his chance to recover. By that point Murakami must've decided he no longer cared about the winning and losing of a contest. When he ripped his own gloves off and stood up like a snarling menace you had a good idea where it was going, and yet even that didn't prepare you for the bare knuckle fist he threw at Ohtani's face. Murakami walks away unperturbed about being disqualified, while Ohtani comes to with all the confused irritability and desire to pick fights with anyone in sight of a man deeply concussed. This really is the perfect 10-minute pairing. 

Piper had a Vision Last Night, Night Diving in Monterrey, that Water on His Skin, it Washed His Shame Away

Roddy Piper v Paul Orndorff (WWF, 7/27/85) - EPIC

There aren't many better atmospheres than a Philly Spectrum crowd going mental. Piper tended to have that effect on them at the best of times so stick him in there with someone who wants to maul him as much as he wants to maul them and you've got something nuclear. This was like six minutes bell to bell and fucking ruled. Piper was amazing in here, just absolutely in his element as a wildman. He was a rabid animal whose fight or flight instinct was constantly in flux. When he was begging off it was laced with a sort of manic aggression, backing up on the mat pleading with Orndorff as the latter dropped a knee, then on the second attempt Piper just lunged at him. At several points he seemed to realise there would be no quarter given even if his natural tendency was to ask for some, so he just dropped the idea of even trying and started throwing punches. His stooging was incredible as always but even then, in those moments he stood dazed and wobbly, you wondered if he was going to fall over or spring at Orndorff's throat. When he got cut open it made him more dangerous still, like the sight of his own blood triggered something even deeper. There were parts where they'd just grab each other and roll around trying to bite each other's face and then they'd end up outside and Piper would swing a chair or a microphone and Orndorff would yeet him into the ring post. Piper threw a damn near Tenryu punt to the face and later Orndorff drilled him with one of the best kneelifts ever. In the end the referee tried to put out a fire with his bare hands and of course the silly idiot got burned, but the post-match pull-apart fucking ruled and just as it looked like Piper'd had enough he turned on his heels and ran back for another go. These two rule together. 

Complete & Accurate Hot Rod

Fujiwara v Super Tiger - The Third Instalment

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v Super Tiger (UWF, 1/16/85)

I'll tell you what, if our man Super Tiger was more aggressive in their second match than he was in their first, he only went and upped it another notch a month later. He was borderline savage at points here, or maybe not even borderline. There was even less hesitancy when it came to kicking Fujiwara up and down the place. It was almost reminiscent of Ishikawa/Ikeda, where Ikeda knew full well that Ishikawa would open himself up to be annihilated every time out and so Ikeda tried to volley his head into the fourteenth row with no remorse. "It's fine, he knows this isn't a monkey show." Tiger still doesn't want much to do with the mat and he'll demonstrate that with urgency. Urgent in that he'll try and kneedrop Fujiwara to death at every opportunity. I said it about the December match and it's even more true in this one -- these are some of the most brutal kneedrops ever, first to the head, the body, then to the legs when he started going after those. He'd mix in leg kicks with the kneedrops and a couple times he'd just fully jump with both kneecaps right into Fujiwara's thighs. Really brutal stuff and Fujiwara was having to cover up on the mat like he was near death, a staple of Super Tiger v Fujiwara at large. Obviously when it goes to the mat Fujiwara can control things and he was super aggressive at points as well. You can always draw comparisons with their first match to see how the rivalry has progressed, how with familiarity they'll approach certain openings differently even if their general methodology is the same. In their first match Fujiwara would be more patient and grind Tiger down. There was still some of that here, because he knew he had things in control so why rush, but once or twice he really snapped into something and forced Sayama to the ropes. A sign of GROWTH for our Tiger comes when he actually manages to wriggle free of a kimura attempt and get back to his feet, then when that happens he does what you'd fully expect him to do and try to kick Fujiwara's head off. Fujiwara again would back into the corner when Sayama started reeling off combos, doing what Fujiwara would always do against strikers, trying to draw them in before pouncing, maybe catching a leg when the opponent gets overzealous and then he'd turn it into a kneebar or whatever. It's a high risk, high reward strategy and sometimes you're going to get roundhouse kicked in the skull, but the moments where he managed to flip it were amazing, throwing awesome punch combos to the body and cracking Sayama with headbutts. The piledriver makes an appearance again as a huge weapon for Fujiwara, like it did in their first match. Towards the end I thought they were actually going to do a stoppage with Tiger kicking and kneedropping Fujiwara into a corpse-like state, basically a rerun of the December match, but this time Fujiwara comes back, manages to take Sayama to the mat, then patiently sets up his play before just about snapping his arm with a rapid kimura. 

A couple '85 Devil Masami matches

Devil Masami v Lioness Asuka (AJW, 3/15/85)

This was really good stuff and possibly the best I've seen Lioness Asuka look in a singles match. Or at least the closest she's come to nailing what I personally enjoy from her. They cut a hell of a pace, but it never felt rushed, it built well, had a great sense of escalation and even at 15 minutes I thought everything had just the right time to settle. At this point Devil is pretty easily my favourite 80s joshi wrestler and part of that is how she injects so much aggression and intensity into everything she does. I guess by now the talking point about her having some of the best facial expressions ever is a tired one, but it's true and the way she puts across specific things and communicates specific emotions is really cool. She got hit with one quick backdrop here, pretty out of the blue from Lioness who'd been on the defensive before, and Devil's expression upon impact told us she was not expecting to get hit by that and also that it very clearly hurt like a bastard. The early grappling portion had a real grittiness to it and they established early that Lioness wanted to hit the giant swing. She was determined to hit that thing. They also established that Devil had no interest in being swung in any fashion and would immediately hook Asuka's leg or fight like crazy to break free. When it became clear Lioness wasn't for swinging her she'd try and turn it into a crab or sasori-gatame and Devil would fight that with just as much urgency. As it progressed you could tell that Lioness was able to make inroads with her striking and I loved that sometimes Masami would just grab her by the throat and wrestle her to the mat in response. If it works it works, right? By the end Lioness' strategy was all about those kicks to set up the giant swing while Devil's was to compress Lioness' spine with piledriver variations. Some of Devil's selling for those roundhouse kicks really was sublime. I should watch Devil/Chigusa for the first time in about 15 years again soon.

Devil Masami v Noriyo Tateno (AJW, 4/25/85)

Really fun big dog on campus performance from Devil. She mostly bullied Tateno for the full 11 minutes here but she did it with a bunch of great looking stuff and worked super aggressively again. She was just ragdolling Tateno early, ripping her into holds and squeezing the life out of her with a bodyscissors, whipping her head around into nasty neck cranks, doing everything with a scowl. Tateno didn't get a lot and her openings were fleeting but she was SPUNKY when she needed to be. At points Devil would drag her out to the floor and throw her or slam her across tables. One of Tateno's squad either tried to interject eventually or she just stood close enough to the action that Devil could grab her, but either way grab her she did and the girl got whipped clean into Tateno. That same girl later had the audacity to jump into the ring and she and Tateno went about double-teaming Devil. Or they tried to. Devil took them both outside and chucked them into rows of seats and slammed them both across a table. In the end Tateno and her wee buddy managed to keep Devil out the ring long enough for the ref' to count them both out, which Devil was naturally incensed about but Tateno treated it as a victory of sorts. There was a cool dichotomy post-match between Devil and Dump and her gang of louts, as Devil accepted Tateno's handshake and acknowledged her as a worthy challenger, even raising her hand in a nice show of respect. She might've been all over Tateno from the start but it was just business. If that had been Dump and Tateno tried to shake her hand at the end Dump would've stabbed her with a pencil. Once upon a time Devil might've as well, but she was above such things at this stage of the game.

Murakami and Ohtani VIOLENCE!!

Shinjiro Ohtani v Kazunari Murakami (Zero-1, 3/2/01)

Murakami is pretty much a singular entity in the history of wrestling. I know you have people like Ogawa and I guess a smattering of MMA-turned-pro wrestling folk cut from the same cloth, but Murakami has a purely psychotic energy that nobody else quite matches. He's more unpredictable than Ogawa, maybe less imposing than Fujita but certainly more reckless. I've never bought Shibata as being fully deranged whereas Murakami is never anything but. He's menacing just walking from the locker room to the ring and any man with a full and unblemished hairline who chooses to shave his head completely bald is not to be trifled with so there's a sort of uneasy anticipation that spreads through the crowd when he takes his hood off. And then Ohtani storms out and just goes fully at him with zero hesitation. I mean, you kind of need to. The last thing you want to do with Murakami is give him an opening so why not try and shut that door right from the start? Ohtani's running dropkick while Murakami was curled up in the corner was truly brutal and I love how exasperated the ref' was the whole match. He had no chance of keeping a lid on this and if you had even the tiniest hope that he might it was shattered as soon as Murakami stood up sneering. From there it was wild punches and forearms and chaos. Ohtani had two borderline KO sells and both were warranted and actually may not have been selling at all because you know there'll be a point in every match where Murakami conveniently forgets how to work a strike. Ohtani's German suplex wasn't quite desperation but you felt like he needed to do something like that or else he might get steamrolled. Still, this is Murakami and Ohtani didn't take advantage. When Ohtani got knocked loopy that last time and Murakami pounced you kind of knew it was inevitable. If someone like Murakami had to step over you to win he'd tread on your throat just to be sure, or in this instance he'd wrap his arms around it and squeeze. Ohtani's crew jumps into the ring at the end, maybe contemplating whether or not they want that particular fight, while Murakami gives the ref' a kick and lingers a few seconds, completely alone, entirely unfazed, just to see if anybody bites. It turns out nobody wanted that particular fight after all. 

The very best Fujiwara v Super Tiger?

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v Super Tiger (UWF, 12/5/84)

I'm not going to once again beat the dead horse and talk about how this is a grappler versus striker affair. What I WILL do, however, is suggest that this might be the very best grappler versus striker affair there's ever been. There's really nothing complicated about this. It continues where their first match left off in September, with Fujiwara dominating on the mat and Tiger wanting to keep everything on the feet. The progression here is that at some point in the past three months Sayama decided he was going to try and kill Fujiwara and if he couldn't keep things standing then Fujiwara being on the ground was good enough. You can still kick a man to death while he lies in the foetal position after all and Sayama tried to do that many times. The match from September was tremendous but it was still the first match in the series and felt like it. Amazing table-setting, the sort of thing necessary to set up what they'd do in future, but you knew they had another gear in them and it made you eager to see it. The other gear was the violence and Sayama went from being somewhat hesitant to somewhat murderous. This was as much a precursor to Battlarts or FUTEN as anything. The kneedrops were truly disgusting, there were Wanderlei kicks to the back of Fujiwara's head and neck, kicks to the liver and just about anywhere else that was exposed. Obviously Fujiwara's selling was immaculate, both while lying on the ground at death's door but also while standing and absorbing blows. There'll often be moments in a Fujiwara match against a striker where he gets rocked and backs into the corner, partly for a reprieve, partly to draw the opponent in. He did that again here and ripped off a string of body shots, then later when he had Sayama reeling he brained him with a headbutt. There was one roundhouse kick from Tiger that nearly took Fujiwara's head off and the way Fujiwara sold it was perfect. They must've also had the ring mic'd up differently than normal here because at various points you could hear the struggle on the mat, usually from Sayama trying to fight off Fujiwara. The choking and spluttering as Fujiwara tried to sink in a choke was ghastly and for a minute or two after that Sayama tried to keep as much distance as possible. The look of relief at the end when the ref' finally called for the bell was telling. It wasn't so much a victory as opposed to a case of survival. 

Bury Tenryu Where the Wind don't Blow, Where the Dust Won't Cover Him, Where the Tall Grass Grows

Genichiro Tenryu & Billy Robinson v Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta (All Japan, 7/30/81) - GREAT

This was pretty damn top, maybe the first GREAT match of Tenryu's career, even if he was more of a cog in the machine rather than the driving force of it. He was lowest on the totem pole here but certainly played his part and a lot of quality moments came about through his involvement. A decade later he'd have come in and kicked someone in the eye, repeatedly at that. In '81 it was a forearm to the chest and he didn't go overboard with it, maybe only one or two occasions where he interjected himself, but it still lit some fires when they needed to be lit. I thought everyone did a really good job making things feel important. When big moves were hit there was often a concerted effort from the person who took it to try and reposition themselves closer to the ropes, obviously so they could break any pin attempt without having to exert the energy required to kick out. As the match went on they sold the toll of everything and by the end even repositioning themselves on the mat was a major struggle. There was one stretch where Robinson took a big string of offence and managed to survive by being close to those ropes, but even by the fourth move he took it was borderline luck that he'd found himself close enough to limply grab the bottom rope and save himself. The Tenryu/Baba pairing might've been my favourite, especially in the first fall. Baba wasn't for giving anything freely and made Tenryu work for it, a couple times shutting him down emphatically with a chop or a boot. Tenryu tried a back suplex at one point and Baba just went dead weight and Tenryu nearly found himself squashed in the corner. It made the finish to that first fall all the more satisfying when Tenryu came bursting out the corner with the sumo palm thrusts, pushing Baba all the way to the opposite corner, then hitting a big slam and middle rope elbow before tagging in Robinson to put the exclamation on things with the backbreaker. The second fall started with Tenryu and Robinson sticking with Baba's lower back, throwing headbutts and forearms and Tenryu's cool diving elbow, but they moved past that pretty quickly and Baba just kind of tagged out and we can't help but dock a match three stars as a result. Tenryu and Jumbo got a little tetchy towards the end, not to the point where they were knocking lumps out each other like they would a few years later, but enough where Jumbo still tried to crack Tenryu's face open with a dropkick. A fucking spectacular dropkick at that and I guess I forgot how pretty Jumbo's dropkick looked back when he was still a little thinner. Tenryu tried to fight back with the sumo palm flurry and Jumbo would shut him down, Tenryu would try it again and Jumbo would shut it down a little more forcefully, then Tenryu went at it a third time and Jumbo used his edge in experience to sling Tenryu over the ropes. You can forgive the subsequent count out finish as it led to a cool little mini brawl in which Baba paid Tenryu back for that scoop slam earlier by piledriving him on the concrete. 

Complete & Accurate Tenryu

Yoshida and Aja! Two pensioners in a junkyard!

Mariko Yoshida & Aja Kong v Ayako Hamada & AKINO (ARSION, 2/18/00)

How many teams have a better balance of grace and brutality than Yoshida and Aja? A team that can beat you in a dozen different ways, from ripping your arm off to caving your face in, choking you to the point of unconsciousness, suplexing you through the mat, even several combinations of those things. Hamada and AKINO had to bring all the fire and underdog fury they could and even then it might not be enough. They tried a few different strategies, each almost in response to whatever the situation presented them. They tried to take Aja's arm out briefly but it never stuck, although the double stomp off the top to Aja's extended arm was sick. They tried to isolate Yoshida but Aja was a menace and Yoshida isn't the easiest to keep a hold of anyway. What they had was heart and if they were going down then they weren't going down without a fight. Yoshida and AKINO had a stunning match a year earlier where Yoshida was as ferocious as she'd ever been and at times it felt like all AKINO could do was delay the inevitable. She's a year more experienced here, a year more assured, and she wasn't for giving any quarter in that opening exchange with the Spider Queen. Hamada was pretty spectacular by this point in her career, everything she did full of snap and she also had a couple stellar exchanges with Yoshida. The dynamic with Kong is great as well as Aja will just try and brutalise her while Hamada refuses to step back. Towards the end Hamada and AKINO create another strategic opening and try to submit Yoshida with the ankle lock, Yoshida doing what she did better than anyone and scrambling to the ropes right as you think she's about to tap. She sells that the ankle is never quite right in those closing minutes, sometimes with a subtle stumble to remind you. The Yoshida/AKINO pairing takes centre stage towards the end, with AKINO frantically going for that ankle lock again while Yoshida twists the poor lass into all sorts of hideous shapes. But before that was the moment of the match, when AKINO used a kneeling Hamada as a launch pad to hurl herself at Aja who was atop the turnbuckles, only for Aja to fucking destroy her with a slap in mid-air.

Black Terry v Mr Condor (Zona 23, 12/5/21)

You can never really be sure about such statements, but this at least FEELS like it has to be the best blood-soaked fist fight between two men in their 60s in a dusty junkyard you'll ever see. I don't have a clue about the backstory here and I haven't seen a Black Terry match in about eight years. I assume he and Condor hate each other to death because they're immediately punching each other in the face and the camera is almost uncomfortably close. You can see the blows land and you see both of them grimace and grit teeth with every blow. When my grandfather was in his 60s he worked nightshift driving busses. One night a couple of scumbags decided to rob the depot and beat the shit out of my grandfather in the process. He grew up in the same mining town I grew up in, only he actually worked those mines back when they still existed. He was a hardy old fool, though not really a fighter. As a kid it never even occurred to me that a man in his 60s would do anything in a fight with two 20-somethings with pipes and baseball bats OTHER than get the shit kicked out of himself. Most men half his age wouldn't win that fight. And yet I watch this and can't help but figure Black Terry would've dragged those two men kicking and screaming to a point of deep regret. Condor absolutely would've thrown one of them through a bus window. And here they were dishing that out on each other. Two pensioners probably don't need to be putting themselves through this but if you're a sicko it's hard to complain when someone catches it on film. Some of the shots were brutal, the sound almost shocking. Terry was bleeding profusely after a few minutes and Condor was walloping chairs off his head and ramming him face first into the hood of a car with 300,000 miles on the clock ready for demolition. Condor had cut Terry open in the first place by stabbing him in the head with a broken beer bottle and of course the cameraman was just about close enough for us to see the skin split. Right before it the camera panned out to a view of the crowd so we didn't see Condor actually smash the bottle, but we did hear it and the sound made me actively sit up. When he smashed another one later in response to being punched several times I half expected him to legitimately slash Terry. And then Terry picked up and smashed a bottle of his own, both of them at a standstill with broken bottle in hand, and I couldn't help but laugh at what I was watching. It was damn near maniacal, that laugh. When they both dropped the bottles and went back to the pugilistic art of cracking each other with fists you thought maybe a bridge of respect had been built, and that from there on out they'd go at it clean, yet every bit as messy as two guys punching each other in the eye would be. Then Condor picked up a fucking car windshield and smashed the thing over Terry's head and I guess making assumptions is a fool's game. 

Vader v Sid!

Vader v Sycho Sid (WWF In Your House 11: Buried Alive)

Fun big boy HOSS fight and definitely one of the best Sid matches we have (I guess your mileage will vary on the height of that particular bar). I know by late 1996 Sid would've been chopped many times by Flair and probably clobbered by a few Scott Steiner clotheslines, but I doubt he'd have experienced anything like Vader's soup bone punches. Vader really wellied him with those shots and Sid's own punches were not very good so I think Vader decided to hit him even harder. In disgust, perhaps. There was one clothesline that practically landed across the jaw and it sounds like a gunshot. Sid climbs the turnbuckles and leaps off with a crossbody and Vader catches him like Sid is a mere child. McMahon is a real fuddy duddy on commentary, constantly trying to course-correct every time Michaels and Lawler start shit-talking each other in between making comment about how BIG the guys in the ring are. They were having fun with it too but I guess Vince figured he needed to keep Michaels on a leash lest he says something outrageous. You know Lawler would've coaxed it out of him too. It's like when my mum used to take me to see my grandparents on my dad's side. They were very religious Irish Catholics and I was a terror of a child who was cursing like a sailor by about the age of four and every time we went there my ma left affronted. Sid slamming Vader with that much ease was a hell of a spot and for a second there they actually had me buying that he was going to powerbomb the big fella. 

The Hacksaw and the Headhunter (part 2)

Jim Duggan v Kamala (Houston, 6/28/85)

Some STUFF has happened since we left this feud the other day. Akbar threw a fireball in Duggan's face at an event in Oklahoma, so from that point forward Duggan has been on a mission for revenge. They brawled to a no contest at a show in Tulsa, where after the match Duggan grabbed the house mic and said, "From the bottom of my heart, the next time I'm in Tulsa, Oklahoma, I'm gonna GET that son of a bitch." The place fell dead silent as soon as Duggan started speaking and it erupted at the proclamation. And you believed him too. 100% you believed him. As a match this only lasted a few minutes, but as an overall package including the post-match pull-apart it was like 10 minutes of awesome Jim Duggan brawling. Duggan's eye is a mess from having a fireball thrown in it not long ago and of course Kamala goes after it the first change he gets, stabbing that eye with Akbar's whip and digging the handle of it right in there. The transition out of Duggan's early flurry ruled, with Akbar hucking powder in his eyes as he has Kamala in the mounted corner punches, coming out of nowhere to the extent that Boesch on commentary and at least one ringside security guy thought a fan had thrown something. Duggan's determination to rip Akbar's head off is his undoing at multiple points and by the end half the locker room can't restrain him or Kamala. Duggan leaping off the turnbuckles with an axe handle as a dozen shirtless guys in jeans get blown away like kids in a swimming pool hit by a cannonball was truly exceptional. 

The Hacksaw and the Headhunter (part 1)

I haven't watched a damn thing in months. It's been busy. And then I went back to Scotland in November and spent entirely too much time in the pub but now I'm back in Texas with a proper routine again and I want to watch everything we have from the Duggan/Kamala feud from '85. 

Jim Duggan & Butch Reed v Kamala & Hercules Hernandez (Mid-South, 2/10/85)

Kamala is rocking the SWANK green skirt/loincloth thing that I don’t remember seeing before. Reed and Duggan are definitely the two best pro wrestling Hacksaws ever prolly so this is quite the dream team. It’s been damn near two decades since the DVDVR Mid-South set came out so I think we’re mostly all hip to the fact that Jim Duggan was fucking awesome and one of the best brawlers ever, but I think we can also talk more about how good he is as an apron worker. That’s a quality we tend to talk more about these days in general, maybe because we’ve been watching wrestling for so long that we need new angles from which to approach our analysis of this nonsense hobby, and Duggan absolutely belongs in that conversation of great apron-workers. There’s an authenticity about him firing the crowd up, marching up and down the apron leading a “GO REED GO!” chant, reaching out for the tag that inevitably gets cut off, deflating along with everyone in the crowd in that moment, then finally coming in blazing hot to clean house. There's a Dustyish quality about Duggan, every bit as authentic and REAL as the Dream but rougher and grittier, the sort who'd stand by the wall with a beer and tap his feet to the music, more low key than Dusty who'd weave and flow with the music in the middle of the floor, the full focus of everyone. What did Duggan's old man do for a living? Hacksaw may not have been the son of a plumber but you could absolutely buy him as the son of a mechanic. You’d run through walls for him because you know he’d run through walls for you. I don't know if there's ever been a wrestler more perfect for their environment than Duggan in Mid-South. There was one sequence towards the end where he was laying into Kamala and Hercules with lefts and rights while the crowd went bonkers and it was incredible. Kamala also wasn’t fully clued in on the rules of a tag match yet and went for his own partner when Hercules tried to tag him in with a slap to the back. I forgot that Hercules was a pretty athletic guy at this stage too, with some real nice snap to his bumps and fun stooging. Only a couple years later he’d be juiced to the point where merely turning his head looked troublesome and then by 1992 he was practically cadaverous.

Butch Reed & Terry Taylor v Kamala & Ted DiBiase (Mid-South, 3/10/85)

This was supposed to be Reed and Duggan again but the heels must’ve laid out Duggan before the match, so Terry Taylor subs in. Kamala was a real hoot in this, leaning even further into his unfamiliarity with cooperation and the strictures of a tag match and such. He’d be pacing up and down the apron muttering to himself and slapping his belly and sporadically he’d start climbing the turnbuckles ready to jump off, Akbar and Friday trying to coax him down. DiBiase would get progressively more exasperated at this and when he’d extend a hand to tag out Kamala would just walk away again, oblivious to it all. When DiBiase took matters into his own hands and tagged himself out a bit too forcefully Kamala immediately waylaid him. There was a great spot where DiBiase had Taylor in the heel corner while Kamala had gone AWOL again, then Taylor started firing back, but as he turned to bolt over to his own corner Kamala had come in the ring somewhere else and shut him down with a thrust kick, the camera swinging around to catch it like a jump scare. Kamala’s running splash looked great as always and I loved his falling palm thrusts to the throat as a cutoff. The finish also ruled, with DiBiase loading the glove and clocking Kamala by accident, Kamala obviously swinging on him in response, Reed and Taylor capitalising on the mayhem.

Jim Duggan v Kamala (Mid-South, 4/15/85)

I watched a couple Duggan/Kamala singles matches years ago and at its best it’s a match up full of mayhem. This was an earlier iteration of it, before Akbar tried to blind Duggan with a fireball, so it wasn’t as chaotic as some of their later matches. It was maybe even a little subdued, although the crowd not being as nuclear hot as most Mid-South crowds around this time might’ve contributed to the feeling of that. They packed a decent amount into eight minutes and you could tell they weren’t ready to go all out on it anyway, Duggan always being thwarted by Akbar’s bullshit before he could really turn loose. The ref’ bump finish with Duggan eating a chair shot keeps things ticking along as well.

We'll come back for part 2 in a couple days. Perhaps.