The Funker in Puerto Rico

Terry Funk v TNT (Puerto Rico, 10/15/88)

There are very few things in wrestling I enjoy more than Terry Funk in Puerto Rico. I don't know if there's a more perfect fit between a wrestler and a particular environment than Terry and Puerto Rico. Nobody thrives on visceral reaction and emotion and connection like Terry and the reactions in Puerto Rico are as visceral as they come. He wrestled this full match in his chaps and within 10 seconds he was running away from TNT, climbing up a set of scaffolding, being chased and caught and kicked down off it to then roll around in the dirt. He tried climbing over the barricade into the bleachers, tried crawling under the ring to get away, came out the other side and got caught, not realising TNT followed him under there. After a brief spell in the ring he tried running away again and went back to the scaffold, this time joined by two members of what I guess was the production stuff who tried to keep the thing held in place. I can only guess they did not know Funk would try climbing it in the first place and on the second occasion one fella looked to the other like "fuck sake he's gonna try and climb it again." His seesaw in the ropes spot where he gets peppered by punches is always great but this is the first time I've seen it where his opponent hits him with a superkick. He wound up back on the floor practically dry humping the turf and among other things maybe Terry Funk is the best comedy wrestler of all time. In the end he slammed a table down on the referee's head and then actually succeeded in running away. Every second of footage we have of Terry Funk in this territory is a treasure. 

Koko Ware Retrospective #3: Sweet Brown Sugar (part 2)

A couple years ago I started working my way through every Koko Ware match I could find on tape. I then got distracted and never went back to it and then the other day I watched some Koko.  

Sweet Brown Sugar & Dream Machine v Bill Dundee & Steve Keirn (Memphis, 12/19/81)

Shock horror, here's another really good studio tag. It never did quite reach studio classic territory, though at one point I thought it was on its way. Dundee and Keirn rile up Koko early and slap him about the head. Dundee slaps him from the apron, Koko turns to react so Keirn slaps him on the back of the head as well. You could see Koko practically grinding his teeth and then he went about twelve feet in the air off a monkey flip. If this was Monsoon on commentary he'd have said Koko LITERALLY hit the rafters. Bill Dundee as your face in peril is of course very good. I guess Koko is great no matter who you partner him with because he and Dream Machine were a pretty well-oiled unit, really staying on Dundee to keep him isolated. Dundee will always make you work for it as well, constantly trying to dart to his own corner for the tag. Koko's leaping fist drop really is a thing of beauty and he was also very happy to repay some of those head slaps from earlier. Dundee scooting across the ring on his back to make the tag is undoubtedly cool, but you still kind of wish they'd spent another few minutes building the heat and working in another hope spot or two before the hot tag. Maybe if it was in the arena. Either way the fall gets thrown out when Hart trips Keirn from the floor and Keirn drags him in the ring. Why that resulted in a DQ against Keirn I'm not sure, but Jimmy was always happy to take one for the team. I liked Keirn as a bit of a roughhouse in the second fall, peeved as he was from Jimmy Hart being a nuisance. He whipped Dream Machine into the corner with some VELOCITY and Dream took an awesome stumbling fall onto his face where he landed practically in the opposite corner of the ring. Keirn eventually has enough of Koko and chucks him over the announce desk and in the end Lance calls time on the thing before a full donnybrook happens. I'm looking forward to watching the Dundee scaffold match again, but I also wish there was a Koko/Keirn singles match out there because I bet it wouldn't have sucked. 

Sweet Brown Sugar, Bobby Eaton & Dream Machine v Bill Dundee, Eddie Gilbert & Tommy Gilbert (Memphis, 12/26/81)

How many times has it been said that Koko and Eaton are the lost great Midnight Express? I personally must've said it on this stupid blog about a dozen times and you watch this and the first thing you think is oh yeah Koko and Eaton should've been a Midnight Express. Eaton was a menace and constantly trying to stick his nose into everything, which riled up Dundee who was having none of it. Dundee is always worth watching in studio matches; he's maybe the best studio match wrestler ever and he was on fire here, popping guys with punches, dodging away from return shots, ducking in again to throw more punches, shaking his hips and strutting all the while. There was a part where he ducked away from an Eaton punch that wound up catching Koko, then Dundee slapped Koko in the head to add insult to injury, then when Eaton hugged Koko by way of apology Dundee scooted over and punched both of them. Eddie Gilbert was a fun face in peril who got to fire up and lay it in on occasion and I like how his old man was not about to let the heels double- or triple-team him, jumping in the ring to his son's aid when Koko or Eaton tried to instigate shit (which they tried often). I also love how just about any studio match with Jimmy Hart at ringside will have at least one moment where someone will leap out the ring to get at him and it leads to Jimmy running all around ringside to get away. This time it was Dundee's turn and for a second there I thought he might even catch the little nuisance. 

She Followed Tenryu from Tulsa to Tucson, Just Like the Dust when the Wind Blows, He's Gone

Genichiro Tenryu, Jumbo Tsuruta & Takashi Ishikawa v Riki Choshu, Yoshiaki Yatsu & Isamu Teranishi (All Japan, 1/6/85) - GOOD

This was the first time Jumbo and Choshu had been on opposite sides of a match and naturally the crowd was amped for it. They didn't match up a ton, probably because they were saving that for a bit further down the line, so it was Choshu/Tenryu that felt like the money pairing. Many words have been written on the internet about how Choshu rolled into All Japan and transformed the house style, about how Tenryu caught on immediately and let himself be swept up by the intensity and violence that Choshu brought. It took Jumbo a bit longer and in the end he got there, but Tenryu was a duck to water when it came to these exchanges and everything he did here had an edge to it. Sometimes it was a dismissive edge, like when he'd shut down Yatsu and just drop him in the corner at Choshu's feet. Sometimes his edge was sharpened to antagonise, like when he'd point at Choshu before clobbering Teranhishi with a lariat. And then sometimes he was just angry at the world for letting Choshu live in it, which he took out on whoever was in front of him, often by elbowing them really hard in the face. Some of that rubbed off on Ishikawa and he wasn't content to just make up the numbers. As soon as he saw Tenryu get in Choshu's face he wanted to do the same, hooking Teranishi in the sasori-gatame and pointing right at Choshu. Obviously Choshu took umbrage and Ishikawa paid for it. These matches won't have the same lengthy and epic finishing stretches as your All Japan six-mans from a decade later, but the last couple minutes are red hot and even if a count out might never be a wholly satisfying finish you can't help but marvel at Jumbo trying to decapitate Choshu with a blindside lariat before it. 

Complete & Accurate Tenryu

The King and The Superstar - The '86 Iteration

Jerry Lawler v Bill Dundee (Loser Leaves Town) (Memphis, 7/14/86)

Once again, these two simply do not miss. I've now written about every big Lawler/Dundee stipulations match from the 80s, a few tags where they're on opposite sides, a hair match from the 70s, and every one of them is tremendous. I don't mean good, I mean tremendous. Every match. The three 80s loser leaves town matches might be the best trio of singles matches between two wrestlers ever and this one might be the biggest straight up slugfest of them all. 

The '83 match was more of a slow burner, had a bit more of a tentative start, which made sense as it was their first big singles match in six years and I think their first with the loser leaves town stipulation. There was a caginess to it. The December '85 match was a Dundee mauling as a one-eyed Lawler just tried to keep his head above water. Between that and this they'd been on opposite sides of tag matches and Lawler had managed to exact some revenge, but not to the point where he'd rid himself of Dundee completely. So there was no caginess to this, no slow burn, no feeling out. It started with a quick Dundee jab, a look of indignation from Lawler who responded with a hook that put Dundee down, met with a return look of indignation, then after that zero hesitancy, both just throwing punches, dragging each other to the mat and rolling around. Dundee punches Lawler in the plums while they're on the mat and takes over, mostly with the punches which of course were spectacular. By god the punches. I know it's trite but holy fuck man. Throughout the match they threaded in callbacks to previous points of the feud and the first one was when Dundee went after that eye he nearly blinded in December, throwing punches and digging a finger in there, a real vicious wee bastard. 

Lawler has his first mini-comeback while he's on his knee taking punches, firing back without dropping the strap, going for a quick piledriver because he knows sending Dundee packing is more important than eking out a slow revenge. Dundee is close to the ropes and gets a foot over, which makes sense as it was basically Lawler's first real offence of the match. We get more cool throwbacks to previous moments in the feud with the tables out on the floor. First Lawler smashes Dundee's mouth into one of the ring stanchions before giving him a running bulldog on an upright table. But then he tries it again and Dundee reverses it, cutting Lawler open. Dundee goes back on the offensive for an extended run after that and even decides to go after Lawler's arm, which is another reference to their first match the previous December when he picked it apart for about 10 minutes. Dundee's punch as he flies off the top is a perfect spot and as good as any punch you'll ever see, standing out even in a match full of punches as good as any you'll ever see. 

Everything after Lawler's PROPER comeback is just incredible, god-tier stuff. Lawler on his knees asking for Dundee to hit him again and again, Dundee obliging even though he knows what's coming, it was magic. If you've been following along with Charles from PWO's Wrestling Playlists newsletter then you would've gotten to his gigantic preview of 1986 over the weekend there. In that piece Charles talks about how no promotor knew how to promote for their territory better than Jerry Jarrett. Well watching this you get the impression no wrestlers knew how to WRESTLE for their territory better than Lawler and Dundee. They had every person in that building exactly where they wanted them. When Lawler rips the strap down and lets loose Dundee tells him to keep throwing, responding with his own shots, absorbing but refusing to go down, leading to maybe the greatest punch exchange in wrestling history that Lawler caps off with a running fist drop. The scope of that sentence when you consider all of the punch exchanges these two have had is massive, but it might really be their best. Lance obviously calls it perfectly and people are going nuts and the selling and aggression and every other thing is off the charts and once again why can nobody work a strike exchange like this today? How can you watch this and tell me your rote New Japan forearms are actually good? Ah fuck it. Dundee might be 4 foot nothing but he'll fight until he's drawn his last and even kicks out of the piledriver. The general selling of exhaustion towards the end is amazing. Both lace into each other at the same time with punches, both go down, then Dundee makes a comeback by taking his boot off and clobbering Lawler in the head for a huge nearfall. Dundee then punting Lawler in the balls was an absolutely spectacular "fuck off and die already" moment. 

The finish is great. Dundee comes off the top for an axe handle and when Lawler moves you think he's going to put him away, but he can't properly capitalise because HE'S on his last legs and Dundee lays him out with another punch. Dundee goes up top again so this time Lawler just throws himself at the ropes, Dundee topples off and Lawler puts him away with a JUMPING piledriver. An emphatic, resounding exclamation on a classic. 

I've had this pairing as my pick for the best match up in US wrestling history - maybe wrestling history, period - for like 15 years and this re-watch solidified that. An unreal match and honestly, I wouldn't spend much time arguing with anyone who said this was their best together. And I think their December '85 loser leaves town match is the best match in US history, so that is not a low bar. Wonderful pro wrestling, brothers and sisters. 

Brody rumbles into Memphis

Jerry Lawler v Bruiser Brody (Memphis, 5/20/85)

You kind of take what you can get with Brody. You know he's not going to bump if he doesn't feel like it, and that's not always an issue because you don't NEED to bump around like a maniac and if you're Bruiser Brody you probably shouldn't anyway. Special occasions and all that. Prolly. But he's not really compelling as a seller or at showing any vulnerability so sometimes it can get rough unless you're Abdullah the Butcher and stab him repeatedly in the head with a fork. Here he did a lot of dead-eyed staring when taking punches, sometimes falling - perhaps TUMBLING - to the mat before immediately sitting up again; that thing he would often do in lieu of taking an actual bump. Half a bump, maybe. Lawler is the sort of person who'll work around that while simultaneously towards Brody's strengths, so he'll throw a punch and shake his own hand out like Brody's skull is made of brick. This is no mere ordinary man shrugging off the King's best shots. Lawler is smart enough to play up Brody's singularity as an attraction. He'll take a whipping too, then when he drops the strap Brody absorbs Lawler's punch flurry like a drunk man doing a vision test. Which was actually fine because in the end he does take that flat back bump and maybe he was building to that all along. Maybe we just got WORKED this whole time. Brody will also be more than happy to bleed when called upon so he won't shy away from being thrown head-first into a table. The finish was whatever but then Brody stealing Lawler's crown and walking away with it like a trophy afterwards was pretty great. 

A bit of 50s Verne Gagne. And Billy Goelz!

Verne Gagne v Billy Goelz (Chicago, 6/21/50)

My initial thought after watching this was, "I wish people still worked like this today." Then after four seconds of consideration my next thought was that I don't actually watch enough of today's wrestling to know whether or not people DON'T work like this. It at least FEELS like what these two were doing is something mostly lost to time. I started thinking about when wrestling in the US shifted away from what this was towards what it became in the 70s and then the 80s and then every decade after that. I always used to hear about how wrestling was much slower in the 50s and I guess that might be true if you ignore what they were doing in France, but this was nothing like the sort of thing I would've expected when I first started reading about wrestling on the internet however long ago. I know wrestling moved towards having more high-impact moves and general ACTION~ as it went along, but there was and is still matwork and grappling and working of holds in US wrestling. By the 80s there was pretty much no matwork like this, though. Even your most go-go-go Flair matches didn't have half as much energy from the perspective of actually working holds. They didn't even do a lot here -- Gagne largely worked around a headlock while Goelz went after Venre's arm with a few different holds. The difference was the intensity and aggression with which they approached all of it. There was no slapping on an armbar and sitting in it, no ponderous side headlocks where the person on the receiving end was content to lay there for a minute or two. You'd maybe call the pacing of that "deliberate," and there's lots of 70s and 80s matwork where they work deliberately and I can enjoy it, but the pacing of this was almost frenzied and the difference is stark. Gagne's headlock work was some of the best I've ever seen. It was damn near torturous, like he was trying to squeeze Goelz's brains out his nose. He was grinding the headlock with his right arm then did a standing switch to apply it with his left and it looked like the fucking thing was in fast forward. There was absolutely zero daylight between temple and forearm on this headlock. Goelz is tremendous and I feel like if we had a bunch of his footage we'd be raving about him as an all-timer. He was ferocious going after Gagne's arm. At one point he took him down with an armbar then floated over into a gorgeous hammerlock. He wrenched the absolute fuck out of that thing as well, repeatedly, like he was trying to yank the arm clean out the socket, and you know Gagne had to sleep on his other side that night. When Gagne kept wringing Goelz's head with the headlock Billy just dropped to the mat and curled up like a turtle. There was another moment where he managed to pop out of the headlock by sort of jumping and throwing himself backwards and I love how he sold being discombobulated as he tried to get up to his feet quickly. Really the struggle over everything was sensational and somewhere along the line that sort of thing got lost in the States. The rope running parts ruled too, with rapid fast leapfrog attempts and dropkicks, sometimes connecting at full speed, while sometimes one would try a leapfrog while the other would just charge into them as they were in mid-air. An awesome 20-minute draw that feels like it would've been the first half of a classic 40-minute war. 

Smile Brighter than them Arkansas Diamonds, Dreams Bigger than a Mid-South Horizon

Butch Reed v Buzz Sawyer (Dog Collar Match) (12/31/85)

In a world where Roddy Piper and Greg Valentine didn't try to mutilate each other with a chain this might be the best dog collar match in wrestling history. It's easily one of the best matches under 10 minutes there's ever been. I don't remember there being a specific issue between these two leading up to this, but Sawyer wants the dog collar stipulation so Reed obliges on the basis that there'll be no disqualifications. Sawyer howls like the mad dog he is as they're being hooked together by the chain and you can tell Reed was staring a hole through him the entire time. Sawyer regrets his hubris immediately as Reed just knocks lumps out him for about five minutes solid. It was a phenomenal five-minute stretch and I almost wanted to watch it twice. Reed throws some of the best chain-wrapped punches ever, just absolutely clobbering Sawyer under the jaw. His chain whippings don't have the same rampant disregard for flesh as Piper and Valentine's did but you forget that pretty quickly when he grabs a length of chain and starts grinding it back and forth across the cut on Sawyer's forehead. Sawyer squeals like a pig and you'd maybe feel sorry for him if he wasn't a HOODLUM. Also he asked for this. Reed roars and raises his arms to the sky like a wild animal driven to find this side of himself and it was biblical. Sawyer is feral at points fighting from below, biting Reed in the thigh and swinging lengths of chain blindly. Reed was almost shocked when Sawyer tried to take a chunk out his leg, looked at the bite mark, then at Sawyer, then kicked him in the face. When Sawyer finally comes back with a chain-wrapped fist of his own he drags Reed outside and busts him open, a man who knows his way around a dog collar match better than anyone. I don't remember if he bit the cut although I'll strongly assume he did as this is Buzz Sawyer but what he absolutely did do was try and whip Reed in the face with the chain. Reed was lucky he moved out the way or he might've been DISFIGURED or at the very least in some distress. Reed sawing the chain across Sawyer's MOUTH was fucking nuts and then the finish is even crazier. Sawyer is the master of this sort of match and sometimes that's because he knows exactly the right shortcuts to take. This time he unhooked his own collar and tied it to the bottom rope, then as Reed went to undo it Sawyer grabbed him in a bulldog and ran him across the ring, letting the chain still attached to Reed's neck snap him back as it went taut. Truly brutal stuff and a finish that's stuck with me since I first saw this over 15 years ago. One of my favourite matches ever and if not for Dick Murdoch and Jim Duggan it might've been both men's career match. 

Mid-South Project

The Kids are in Town for a Funeral, so Pack the Car and Dry Your Eyes. I Know They got Plenty of Young Blood Left in 'em, and Plenty Nights Under Mid-South Skies

Dick Murdoch v Ted DiBiase (12/31/85)

This ruled in many of the same ways as the Houston match a few days earlier, sometimes almost beat for beat, but was also different enough to stand and rule on its own. They start things out like they did in the first match, with Murdoch jumping DiBiase at the bell and DiBiase turning the tables by hitting a powerslam while Murdoch is still in his ring jacket. That's always going to be an awesome way to start a match though so who's going to complain about seeing it twice? Murdoch was sensational in that first match and he was sensational in this. I think his work on DiBiase's neck was even more vicious here. Some of the stomps were godly and those kneedrops right to the base of DiBiase's skull were some of the best you'll ever see. When DiBiase came back and built momentum you maybe wondered if they'd drop the neck work, but then in the back half Murdoch used the chair again, just like he did a few days earlier, and smashed the thing into DiBiase's neck. Murdoch wanted that brainbuster and you bought that everything he did leading up to it was designed to put DiBiase out for good. DiBiase always has great whip on his bumps - maybe too great considering his neck was shot to hell by the end - and his bump off Murdoch's slingshot over the top rope was tremendous. He took that thing like Murdoch was trying to rip his head clean off. When he wasn't being a sadist Murdoch was begging off and cowering from DiBiase's wrath, on one occasion outright running away when DiBiase started to make a comeback. That led to an amazing transition as DiBiase chased him outside the ring and over the barricade, but as Murdoch hopped back over he caught DiBiase with a right hook to the jaw. From there he smashed DiBiase into ring apron and the rail and a ringside table while Tommy Gilbert was apoplectic. Murdoch might've been the best wrestler in the world in 1985. 

Mid-South Project