Dump v Bull! The King v Wildfire! A couple very good wrestling matches from 1986

Dump Matsumoto v Bull Nakano (AJW, 5/17/86)

This was less outrageous than many of the Dump singles matches (or just Dump matches) of the time, at least in that she wasn't trying to chop Bull's hair off mid-match or stab her in the arm with scissors. Given that they were stablemates maybe she respected Bull enough to only clobber her across the head with a kendo stick. Dump has always been and maybe always will be a bit of a strange case to me. An ENIGMA, if you will. I don't always love the act and all of the bells and whistles, sometimes I don't find her particularly compelling working from beneath, but on those occasions where she does lean all the way into selling vulnerability, however briefly, it makes it feel like the opponent's climbed a mountain. Bull would be cut off at every turn here, usually by one of Dump's other underlings bowing to her commands and jumping Bull, so any time Dump looked in danger it wouldn't last. Bull might hit a German suplex and rock Dump, might even retaliate with some weapon shots of her own, but Dump had the game rigged fifty ways in her favour. There was one point where Bull went at her with a kendo stick and Dump produced two more from who knows where. At another point Bull strung together some offence, then Dump's cronies halted her, and that gave Dump enough time to wrap a chain around Bull's neck and dog walk her around ringside. I don't have a clue where she even got the chain from, didn't see her grab it from anywhere, it just appeared when she needed it, some black magic from a deal Dump might've made with the devil. All of that made the moment where Bull actually got the upper hand feel momentous. She turned the tables and Dump went down, clearly in trouble, then came up bloody, and for a second there I was desperate for Bull to press the advantage and take Dump down a peg. It never happened because sometimes the deck is stacked just too high, but there will frequently be a moment in a Dump Matsumoto match where it hits me that, even if I don't love it personally, it's just about impossible to ignore how effective all of the surrounding bullshit is in delaying that gratification. Even if it only leads to a chink in the armour, the opponent comes off all the better for it. Imagine the reaction if someone were to actually beat her. This was pretty awesome and easily one of my favourite Dump matches.

Jerry Lawler v Tommy Rich (Memphis, 12/29/86)

It's a bummer that we miss what sounds like about half of this, if we're going by the time calls. Even what we get is pretty great, though. The clips of their match from the previous week make that one look like an all-timer, how it built to them trying to punch each other's head off and Lawler even getting knocked off the bleachers, and this one didn't take long to match the vibe of that. They at least TRY and not turn it into a fist fight straight away but you can tell it won't be long before it goes that way. Even with both being babyface I loved how Rich was sort of underhanded early about throwing forearms. Not even underhanded really; it was a legal strike, it just came quickly off the clean breaks and there's a part of you that knew he was doing it to goad Lawler into losing his cool. Of course Lawler did and responded not with forearms but with punches. You knew Rich took some satisfaction in that, even with having to eat those punches. I would bet money on that being deliberate, a bit of heel subtlety considering the crowd probably would've been MORE inclined to get behind him had he just dropped the charade, been up front about everything and punched Lawler in the face. Knowing where this feud goes and what it leads to a few months down the line it's a cool piece of progression towards Rich and Idol dishing Lawler the ultimate humiliation and inciting a riot in the process. Rich's first punch of the match might not have been the one where he's falling backwards into the sunset flip, but that's the one that sticks out most and what a fucking punch it was. Then by the end they do what you knew they'd end up doing and that's trying to punch each other's lights out. Again. I haven't revisited the Lawler/Rich-Idol feud since going through the DVDVR Memphis set in 2008 (holy fuck that is nearly half my life ago) and I feel like I should do it justice by re-watching the whole thing in its entirety. This was a hell of a place to start.