Spent a Lotta Summer Nights in the Back of That Field, Every Inch of Mid-South Seen These Four Wheels

Buzz Sawyer & Dick Slater v The Fantastics (10/27/85)

On paper there's very little chance of this not being good. It's been over a decade since I last watched most of this stuff (apparently I started this project eleven years ago this month. I refuse to believe that) and I didn't remember a thing about this match, but they had a match on TV a day earlier that was really nifty and sure enough this fucking ruled. I think Sawyer and Slater were only together as a team for a short while, which is pretty unfortunate because they were an awesome pair of bruisers here. Buzz was having one of those nights where you bought him flying off the rails any minute. During the Fantastics' entrance he was covering his ears and rocking back and forth, the shrieks from the audience's female population and the droning of ZZ Top's 'Sharp Dressed Man' clearly setting him on edge. The early shine segment was strong as you'd expect, but things got really good when Buzz and Slater took over. The transition was great, with Rogers going for a sunset flip on Slater, Slater countering by just dropping on top of Rogers and drilling him in the mouth. Sawyer works a great side headlock, grinding his chin across the neck and head of Rogers, really cranking back and forth on the hold, then we get an incredible rope running sequence where Tommy crashes and dies off a missed crossbody. The surlier Sawyer and Slater get the more agitated Fulton becomes, the easier it is to then goad him into the ring, to draw the attention of the referee, so the more opportunities arise for Sawyer, Slater and even Dark Journey to pile in on Rogers. Slater really squeezed as much heat out of that hot tag as he could, waiting until Rogers was just about able to reach Fulton only to drag him back by the trunks, then a second time, then a third, so when Fulton actually got the tag the crowd was set to blow the roof off (we assume anyway. This was one of those matches where we had no crowd audio and instead it was Joel Watts doing commentary from his bedroom or whatever). Rogers fucking wastes Slater with an amazing dropkick during the scramble at the end, and then the finish with Sawyer and Slater hitting a Hart Attack was great. A very badass tag, in a great year for tag wrestling in the US. 

Ric Flair v Butch Reed (11/9/85)

This was an excellent bitta TV. It was Watts' take on Harley Race hiring bounty hunters to cripple Flair, only with Flair now in the Harley role and Reed in the Flair role. Amusingly enough, Dick Slater was the one collecting the bounty in both instances and I could absolutely see Slater as some roaming hitman terrorising the south for whoever pays the most handsomely. Originally this was supposed to be Flair versus Al Perez in a non-title match, but Reed comes out before it and calls Flair a lowlife back-jumper (for the bounty thing). He challenges Flair instead and even turns his back so Flair can jump him again. Flair says all of this is beneath him but then of course goes to back-jump Reed, only to walk into a right hand. It leads to a nice studio bout, around seven minutes so obviously they cut out the fluff from the longer arena matches. Flair is mostly on the back foot and having to throw pot shots where he can, quick chops, knees to the gut, kicks from his back, even his awesome double stomp that I'll once again maintain he should've kept as part of his regular moveset. All of Reed's power offence looked great and his big shoulder tackle at the end felt like something that would put a World Champion on their back for a 10-count. Reed barely has time to celebrate the victory as Slater immediately hits the ring and, like he did to his current employer only a couple years earlier, sets about putting Reed on the shelf. I guess nothing highlights the fickleness of the pro wrestling game more than the Champion of the World helping a man who once tried to break his neck to now try and break the neck of another. 

Mid-South Project

Territory Road Trip: There's a Snake in Mid-South

Jake Roberts v Brad Armstrong (Mid-South, 4/16/85)

I'm not sure this is a great match. I thought it was comfortably a good one, just not sure it's a great one, and I'm not even sure it's a great Jake performance. But I know it was a mesmerising one. He was an incredible scumbag here. Brad Armstrong is a rock solid wrestler at his worst, who will bring lots of energy as a babyface even if he's sort of meat and potatoes in the overall sense. He's easy to root for, or at least the way he works is easy to root for, if you know what I mean. That wasn't enough for Jake though, who decided that if there was a ceiling on how much a crowd might want to get behind Brad Armstrong then there would be no ceiling on how much they might want to hate Jake the Snake Roberts. They didn't do anything particularly unique to start out. Jake would grab an armbar and yank Armstrong to the mat with the hair, the ref' would question him about it as the crowd got on his case, but Jake would obviously deny it, gesturing innocently like "Me?! Really?!" He basically treated Armstrong like a scrub and the longer it went the longer it felt like he didn't actually NEED to do all this cheating, he just...wanted to. It was a thing he enjoyed. He would drag Armstrong to the mat and muss up his hair, shouting "Braaaaad. Braaaaaaaaaad" in his ear, just bullying this kid in front of everyone. Armstrong fired back with a couple shots, but they mostly just annoyed Jake and Armstrong was always a bit too nice to do what needed to be done. At a certain point you almost have to fight fire with fire, even if it runs contrary to how you live your life as an upstanding American, and it looked like Brad just wasn't about that no matter how far he was pushed. Even then I don't think anybody in that building was more sick of Jake's shit than the ref'. This was probably as wound up as I've ever seen a referee, and that includes every match where Earl Hebnar loses the plot and nearly has a heart attack. Jake terrorised this poor guy about as much as he terrorised Brad Armstrong, though this was wholly psychological. The longer it went the more Jake cheated, and because the referee never actually saw most of it he was powerless to do anything, which enraged him even more. Then Jake would blatantly cheat right in front of him, like when he'd have Brad in an armbar and start pulling his ARMPIT hair. The ref' would scream in Jake's face and Jake would just grin and stare at him, unblinking. It was kind of disconcerting. Jake does slimeball as well as anyone but this was more sinister, like '91 WWF where he set upon a man with a king cobra. As someone who was an antagonistic wee bastard as a child I've seen the look of many a school teacher who's wanted to physically strike me, and I can tell you right now that this referee wanted to lay one on Jake's chin. It made the big payback spot about halfway in doubly awesome. After one too many hair pulls Brad had finally had enough, so he kipped up and dragged Jake to the mat by the hair, and when Jake got up in disbelief Armstrong punched him clean out the ring. Jake then pulled a rope out of his pocket, but as he slinked back in the ring everyone knew he had something in his hand, including the ref' who jumped all over him and actually managed to take it away! A victory for the little fella! In the end it didn't really matter. He had to raise Jake's hand anyway, because the DDT was inevitable, but referees in every profession take a hammering on the daily and for a change you maybe felt some sympathy for this one. 

Jake Roberts & Nord the Barbarian v Dirty White Boys (Mid-South, 6/30/85)

This was a very different look at Jake. If you needed any proof that he was a changed man, our referee from the last match was in charge again here and not once did it look like he wanted to take a shotgun to the Snake. I actually don't know if Jake had even turned full babyface yet, but he and big Nord were working as such and Jake was so over by this point that it would've been impossible to keep him heel anyway. And this was a decent tag, in a year where Mid-South had about a thousand decent tags and on a show that featured an awesome RnRs v Midnights tag. You probably won't remember it months down the line, but you can't really go wrong either. Jake played face in peril for a while and he was really good at it. He milked the hell out of those near tags and Barbarian is always fun on the apron getting more and more agitated. Denton looked badass in this. All of his cutoffs looked sharp, he sailed face first into the mat off a missed headbutt, and he sold wanting absolutely no part of the DDT by not even letting Jake grab a hold of him. Usually Jake would at least make enough contact to set the move up before the would-be recipient would bold, but Denton wasn't inclined to let it even get that far. Maybe he thought Jake was out there SHOOTIN'. Better to be safe than sorry. 

Territory Road Trip: Tully v Garvin!

Tully Blanchard v Ron Garvin (Worldwide, 5/3/86)

An absolute corker of a match. One of the biggest compliments I could give it, bearing in mind that I no longer have the patience to sit and watch most matches that go any longer than about twelve minutes, is that this never felt like it went over half an hour. A lot of that is down to the pace they cut, which was electric right from the start. Garvin comes in with a busted hand, sustained in the first place by Tully and Arn when they wrapped it around a ring post and clobbered it with a cowboy boot. It takes away the punch, his biggest weapon, so he has to pull out everything else in his arsenal. He was relentless and gave Tully no breathing room at all. I thought his selling of the hand was pretty much perfect. It's not just how he would sell the physical pain, like when Tully would take a swipe at it or later when it was actively being worked over. All of that was great, but there were the more subtle touches as well, like when he wouldn't be able to hook the leg on a cover, or when he'd use his forearm instead to grind Tully's face into the mat, and those instances were what really drew me in. He threw one or two strikes with the hand - a couple overhand chops, no punches - and immediately regretted it, so he had to switch it up and use forearms, elbows, kicks and headbutts, pretty much anything else he could think of. The headbutts were amazing, especially the first one early on where he caught Tully going for a kick, held that leg there as Tully tried to throw punches off the standing leg, then just whomped him with a jumping headbutt. The Garvin Stomp was also a phenomenal moment and even David Crockett getting all weird on commentary couldn't detract from it. I can see why people might think Garvin's offence was a bit haphazard overall, or that there was no escalation to it, but to me it absolutely worked and he came across as a guy doing everything he could think of because he couldn't do the one thing he usually would. Tully was incredible as well. His runs on offence were few and far between, but he was vicious when he got the chance to be and tough as a bastard working from below. I think this more than even the cage match with Magnum is the perfect representation of Tully. He's a weasel and a cheat, but when it gets right down to it that boy will scrape and claw and bite and do whatever else needs doing to keep his belt. He took an almighty shit-kicking and refused to stay down. When there was an opening he would jump on it - quite often literally - and even if he couldn't sustain those advantages you never felt like he was out of the fight. At points he would resort to just grabbing one of Garvin's legs and twisting it around the bottom rope, I guess because he happened to be close to it and it would hurt so why would you not do that? He'd leap from his knees and try to headbutt Garvin in the guts. Then JJ got involved like you knew he would and the brief run of hand work was tremendous. There was one bit where he went for a sunset flip from the apron and Garvin held onto the ropes with both hands, then eventually had to let go with the right and Tully practically yanked his trunks clean off just to drag him into the pin. It almost summed up the match: Garvin fighting uphill with one good hand, against a guy who wouldn't go away no matter what. The finish is one of my favourite Dusty Finishes. Tommy Young gets bumped and JJ sneaks Tully a roll of quarters, but at the same time Dusty tapes up Garvin's hand for that one big shot. Both get up and throw a punch at the same time, Garvin is half a second quicker, Tully gets dropped. Coins everywhere. And of course JJ is apoplectic after Garvin gets the pin, pointing to the taped fist and the coins all over the mat. Decision reversed, Garvin dejected, Tully oblivious, a cockroach surviving yet another nuke. Just an awesome match from start to finish. I guess if I had a criticism then I'd have liked for Tully to work the hand a bit longer, but it's really a minor quibble when you consider how much of the match he spent getting smashed to bits. 

She Said She's Going Back to Mid-South; New York is Way too Cold

Dick Murdoch v Butch Reed (10/14/85)

I wish we had a thousand versions of this match-up, or at least a baker's dozen. We have two hundred Flair/Kerry matches, even a mere REGULAR dozen of Murdoch/Reed shouldn't be too much to ask for. The September match might be the best US match of the decade and I thought that the first time I saw it thirteen years ago, but I remembered a whole lot less about this one other than it going over half an hour. I think it's a step down from September, but not by a lot and of course it ruled like fuck. It was also very different from the first match, when they quite easily could've worked the same contest with a rejigged finish. The first fifteen minutes are for Reed's TV title while anything after that is for Murdoch's North American belt, which is a cool sort of wrinkle. TV title or not, those first 15 minutes were pretty much a masterclass in building to a punch. Not a big highspot, no piledriver, no brainbuster, just a punch. They're still face v face so work clean early, even if you know Murdoch is the most likely to drag things off the rails if it comes to it (like the September match). Reed works the arm and it's decent enough, plus Murdoch is always interesting working from below. They half tease things breaking down, both of them looking like they're about to throw a fist at one or two points, but it never comes to that and they do in fact keep it clean. Reed just keeps grinding him down with the hammerlock and armbar and Murdoch is frustrated, then we get the first moment of chicanery from Murdoch as he backs Reed into the corner, waits for the ref' to try and break them up, and shoves him away so he can throw a forearm that, while legal in and of itself, was at the very least unsporting. I like that Reed under most circumstances would've retaliated, but here seemed intent on seeing out that first fifteen minutes to make sure the TV title was safe. So he keeps himself in check and goes back to the arm despite Murdoch getting more surly, even resorting to throwing VERY questionable pot shots from the headlock. When the fifteen minutes are up Reed's title is safe and Murdoch is clearly annoyed, but now it's all about the North American title. And Reed hasn't forgotten about those little pot shots or that sneaky forearm. They both hit the ropes, Murdoch clears Reed with a leapfrog, then upon landing turns around into an absolute bastard of a haymaker. They'd built that one shot up from the start, feeding the crowd opportunities for Reed to take it earlier but holding back, Murdoch going from obviously legal elbows to questionable forearms to sly rabbit punches. The crowd knew it was coming at some point, and when it connected it resonated perfectly. Murdoch sold it like it took the whole jaw off him as well, losing a giant wad of spit or maybe a row of teeth before falling through the ropes and stumbling around on the floor. It was one punch but it felt like a blast from a cannon. The second half is tremendous; really just a brilliant fifteen minutes of duelling limb work, starting with Murdoch going after Reed's leg. He throws some of the best stomps ever, right to the kneecap, the side of the knee, the back of it, then pretty much everywhere else on Reed's head and body. That has him on top for a while until Reed goes back to the arm from earlier, which sets up a finishing run of both picking apart a limb. The way they sold exhaustion along with the body part damage down the stretch is some of the best you'll see. I also like how this never degenerated into a brawl like the September match did. It never turned into a fist fight and, barring Murdoch repaying Reed with a carbon copy haymaker of his own, I can't even remember any instances of them punching each other in the back half of the match. Reed's lightning bolt right at the midpoint suggested it would go that route, but it largely stayed on the straight and narrow. Good first half, exceptional second half, and Reed hoisting the belt up in the air at the end while all the black kids in attendance rush to the front row was fucking biblical. That's yer pro wrestling right there. 

Mid-South Project

Territory Road Trip: The Second, Third and Fourth Best Guerrero Brothers

Chavo & Hector Guerrero v Rip Oliver & The Grappler (NWA Battle of the Belts, 9/2/85)

I'm always psyched about new Guerreros footage, not just because they were an awesome tag team, but because any Hector Guerrero is a treat that I can't not be thankful for. This isn't even "new" in the sense that it was recently unearthed or whatever. It opened a pretty famous card and as far as I'm aware that full show has been out there forever. But other than the Flair/Wahoo match I'd never seen anything from it, nor did I know until last night that there was a lengthy Guerreros tag right there jerking the curtain. And this was pretty damn great. It got lots of time to build and they clearly put some thought into what they were going to do in each segment. The Guerreros always throw in some neat - dare I say INNOVATIVE? - stuff and I loved their play on the "babyfaces get whipped into each other" spot. Just before the point of contact they decelerate, then push off one another as they roll backwards and flip up to a standing position. When Oliver and the Grappler try the same immediately afterwards they are much less graceful, and the Guerreros catch them prior to the backwards roll and jump into the row boat sequence using the heels' legs as oars. Hector has a long stint in peril and Oliver and the Grappler were a really fun pair of bruisers. At one point they did a king of the mountain segment with Chavo getting more and more irritated, but every time he lost his head Hector would get thrown into a table or the barricade or sent flying across the floor while hanging off the edge of a chair. They even get a few minutes after the hot tag to take it home, and I liked how Chavo never just ducked out the way of the loaded boot shot, but actively pulled Oliver into its path as he leaped to safety. The Guerreros. What a wrestling family. 

Hector & Mando Guerrero v Badd Company (AWA, 5/14/88)

Well this was like two thirds of a stone cold classic. A few more minutes during the heat segment, maybe a bit less time spent on the babyface shine, a proper finish, we're easily looking at a five and one quarter star affair. Pre-match DDP asks the Guerreros where the nearest Taco Bell is, so Hector grabs his bullwhip and threatens to bring some ruckus. A man who's had to endure that sort of shit more than once. When the match actually starts, Mando does a goofy Karate Kid crane pose in front of Tanaka and Tanaka looks at him like "c'mon man, really?" A man who's had to endure that sort of shit more than once. I actually like how Tanaka played it up like he was almost disconcerted by it. "Okay mate, you can stop now, I've seen it before, we all think you're hilarious." Except Mando kept doing it and then even Hector started and Tanaka must've figured there was something not right with these two. The Guerreros were just a hoot running up the score here, and the crowd went from being sort of apathetic towards them to losing their minds for all of the cool stuff they were doing. They work Tanaka's arm for a while and run a bunch of fun double teams and miscommunication spots, cleaning house to a standing ovation while Mando does a mini spin-a-roonie in the middle of the ring (a mini-roonie!). One or two of the spots didn't come off perfectly, but it's hard to ding guys for trying something different rather than going through the motions. Trongard and Nelson are going wild for all of it on commentary as well, culminating with Mando hitting a bonkers dive from the top rope to the concrete, wiping out both Diamonds (Paul and Dallas Page). What held it back most was the TV time limit, so we never got much of a heat segment despite Tanaka leading into it with his impeccable leaping forearm. Hopefully there's a longer match between them because this could be a killer pairing. 

Territory Road Trip: Texas When I Die

Kevin Von Erich v Chris Adams (No DQ, Gino Hernandez in a Cage) (WCCW, 9/2/85)

Imagine how much hair was torn out by health and safety boards across the country in the 1970s and 80s whenever they caught wind of a "person locked in a cage" match at one of the stupid pro wrestling shows. Some poor bastard locked in a too-small cage thirty feet in the air, hoisted up there in the first place by six people pulling on a rope, the rope then held in place with a fisherman's knot anchored around a stack of chairs partially bolted to the floor. Gino couldn't even stand fully upright in this particular cage, had to ask the small handful of people in charge of raising him to the ceiling to hold on for a second so he could say something on the house mic, then the thing never stopped swaying around when it was actually up in the air. I'm pretty sure people were still sitting directly underneath it, like a cage with a person in it hanging over their heads was just an everyday thing. This was the lead in to the double hair match between the Von Erichs and Dynamic Duo, so of course the heat was nuclear and everyone was completely fucking rabid. It actually started out a little cleaner than you'd think. The intensity was high, but Kevin never went straight for the throat and instead worked the body scissors. And Kevin Von Erich has a great body scissors, the way he'll lift the recipient up and drop them back down hard, really squeeze as hard as possible. Before long it spills to the floor and the last few minutes are manic. Adams was really awesome at desperately fighting out of what Kevin threw at him, and then being vicious in response. Kevin would try for a piledriver and Adams would smash him in the ears by bringing his knees together, then he started choking Kevin with the microphone chord and jabbing the whole microphone into his throat. Adams was not the least bit interested in enduring the claw for the fourteen-thousandth time since he's been in Texas, but Kevin wasn't for giving it up and I loved the bit where he basically dragged Adams into the middle of the ring with the claw hand. You knew Gino would get involved at some point, and it's Texas and there's a Von Erich in there so you probably knew it would backfire, and the finish and post-match scene was insanity. Gino gets his SWANK suit torn to pieces but he and Adams manage to stuff Kevin in the cage (which was lowered to the ring through no small amount of effort by referees and Kevin himself), then Gino whips out scissors and tries to cut Kevin's hair! The fight over the scissors after Kerry hits the ring is borderline terrifying and I'm kind of surprised nobody wound up stabbed. I remember the hair match being awesome so I'll maybe watch it again later. Maybe. 

Michael Hayes v Buddy Roberts (WCCW, 5/13/88)

Remember there was a time when Michael Hayes was not only NOT considered the best Freebird, but actively considered the WORST Freebird? What a ridiculous world we lived in. The DVDVR Texas set was quite the eye-opener for me, as prior to that I had always considered Gordy to be the best wrestler of the Freebirds by a distance, while Hayes was the promo guy (an incredible promo guy, but still). I have been wrong many times in my long and foolish life and I was very wrong about Michael P.S. Hayes. Because Hayes was the godking of the ten-minute bar fight, the rabid cage match or strap match, where he would try and claw someone's eyes out when it became apparent that he couldn't weasel his way out of a fight. He was a cornered animal and hell mend whoever did the cornering (usually a Von Erich). By '88 he was a full blown babyface, and I can't recall how that came about but by Christ this was an amazing babyface Michael Hayes performance. His babyface energy was off the charts here and people were bonkers for him. It would be hard to imagine these two being running buddies five years earlier; hard to imagine a point in time where these Texas crowds were going ballistic for Hayes being the one getting his clock cleaned. He threw some awesome punch combos while Buddy pinballed all over the shop for him, including a sequence early where Hayes popped him off the apron and Roberts landed on the announcer's table. Hayes stomps a mudhole in Roberts in the corner like the herald of Stone Cold and then moonwalks into the middle of the ring and I think someone fainted in the crowd. They brawl around the floor and Hayes clobbers Buddy in the back of the head with a chair and you almost cover your eyes knowing what you know about CTE in the year 2022. This was about seven minutes all in, and I loved it when I watched it 10+ years ago and I'm glad it was as great as I remembered. 

Territory Road Trip: Wildfire!

Tommy Rich & Bill Dundee v Bounty Hunters (Memphis, 2/2/81)

This was peak Memphis. Pre-match the Bounty Hunters (Dave and Jerry Novak, managed by 'Cashbox' Jimmy Kent, whom I honestly have zero recollection of) jump Rich and Dundee on their way to the ring, and Kent slabbers Dundee with a shoe and Dundee is carted away covered in blood. You probably know where this is going. Rich and Dundee are the tag champs and if the match doesn't go ahead they need to forfeit the belts, and obviously Rich says to hell with that and decides to go it alone. Rich was so awesome in this, sticking and moving, always making sure he couldn't be cornered by the Bounty Hunters, throwing quick shots (amazing punches), regrouping, throwing more quick shots (amazing punches), never being static long enough to be caught, a couple times roping the two Bounty Hunters into elbowing each other or having one of them monkey flip the other. He even loaded up his elbow pad with a foreign object and the people were a million percent behind him elbowing a hole in Jerry Novak's forehead and drinking the blood. There was also one bit where he threw four consecutive fist drops that were some of the greatest fist drops you've ever seen. When the numbers game ends up proving too much for him he bleeds everywhere (of course he does) and sells the blood loss amazingly, then Dundee sprints out with a bandaged up head and the last minute is bonkers. Unfortunately the finish is clipped out, but if I know Memphis like I know Memphis then I can only assume we saw what LED to the finish (Dundee getting slabbered with a shoe again), even if we don't get to see the actual pinfall. This ruled. 

Tommy Rich & Steve Armstrong v The Nightmares (Continental, 6/22/85)

Continental is a real blind spot for me. I could probably count on one hand the number of matches I've seen from when it actually became Continental Championship Wrestling, and not too many more from when it was still Southeastern. The TV set up in the Boutwell Auditorium (in Birmingham, Alabama; "deep in the heart of Dixie," as Gordon Solie puts it) has a similar sort of aesthetic to some of the early AAA shows. So there's a thing for you. Anyway this was a real blast. Basically every time I watch the Nightmares they're a hoot and I probably come out of every one of those matches thinking I should watch all the Nightmares footage I can get. This was another awesome pinballing heel performance from them. I don't know whether it was Nightmare #1 or Nightmare #2 (nor do I know which one was which between Davis and Wayne) but one of them takes an absolutely incredible over the top corner bump where they smack their head off the apron on the way down, and it was done with such grace that I can only assume it's a signature spot and I guarantee I'd pop for it every time (though maybe not enough of a signature spot that I've seen them do it before, because I don't think I have). When they finally take over you know they run some phantom tag shenanigans as Rich and Armstrong and the crowd gets irate. Steve Armstrong may not be the most accomplished of the Armstrong family but he does have a superb dropkick, which he threw several of here. There's a follow-up match to this with Johnny Rich joining Tommy so perhaps I should watch that soon. 

Territory Road Trip: Attempted Murder on Turner Broadcasting!

Ric Flair & Sting v The Great Muta & Dick Slater (WCW Clash of the Champions VIII, 9/12/89)

I needed to forget about that Flair/Reed match from the other day so naturally I decided to watch another Ric Flair match. I guess in a lot of ways the '89 run revitalised him, having the Steamboat series and then the babyface turn. I think Flair's even said himself that Funk lit a fire under him. And judging by this it was a fucking inferno because man what a tremendous Flair performance. Maybe it's because he got to work like this so infrequently, touring heel NWA champ as he had been for nearly the entire decade, but when Flair is fired up like he was here it almost makes me wish the NWA business model was a little closer to Vince's and they had Flair tour the country against not the local babyfaces but the local dirtbags and bastards. Because babyface Flair could be sensational, boys. He brought a gigaton of energy to this and never stopped the whole match. I suppose that was his approach to wrestling anyway, heel or face. Keep things moving, always be doing something, don't give the people a chance to get bored, all of that. Whether you enjoy that approach or not is another thing, but it sure translated perfectly here. He was always active on the apron, never let you forget this was a hate feud even if the main source of his hatred wasn't present (Funk was "injured" so Slater was drafted in as a replacement and...come on, that just writes itself), never allowed the heels to let their guard down. When he wasn't wooing and high-fiving Sting he was bursting into the ring unprompted to shred folk with chops, then he went face in peril and that was just as good - maybe even better, honestly - and I guess it's easy to forget how great a tag wrestler Flair was. Early on he gets knocked to the floor and Muta catches him with a plancha, then Sting catches Muta with a plancha, then Slater jumps Sting, then Flair starts throwing chops and punching noses and the crowd just erupts. When Sting takes a turn being beat on there's an amazing moment where Slater and Muta have him on the floor over by their corner, so Flair runs all the way around and goes bonkers on them. A phenomenal performance all round. Under normal circumstances the non-finish would've been a bit of a bummer, but I'd suggest these are not normal circumstances and you don't really care about the non-finish when Funk shows up with his arm in a cast, the sleeve torn off his suit jacket, and tries to literally suffocate Flair with a plastic bag. The Flair/Funk feud was something else. 

Territory Road Trip: Funk in New York (by way of Toronto)!

I've been watching a lot of random 80s US territory stuff lately. Just hopping around promotions, from up north to as far south as the border will allow, watching studio matches, arena matches, some promos, some angles, just whatever takes my fancy when looking through match lists and whatever. I'll see where it takes me.

Terry Funk v Steve Gatorwolf (WWF from Maple Leaf Gardens, 10/13/85)

This was basically Terry Funk being as Terry Funk as possible in order to make a purse out of a gatorwolf's ear. He was ten thousand percent ridiculous and if you like the idea of Terry Funk being a ridiculous idiot against enhancement talent then you will probably enjoy this. Alternatively, if you are a joyless sack of meat and potatoes and do not like the idea of Terry Funk being a ridiculous idiot against enhancement talent then you can go and watch whatever else it is you people like. Funk was determined to make Steve Gatorwolf look like someone who had even the tiniest chance of victory. That often entailed stooging around in absurd fashion. "How can I make this feller look like he has a shot of winning? Perhaps I'll have him bonk my head off the turnbuckle and I'll sell it by staggering all the way over to the opposite corner, bonk my own head off that turnbuckle and then nearly fall through the ring ropes over there." Funk clotheslines Gatorwolf over the top rope and nearly goes with him, then teeter-totters on the rope for about fifteen seconds waiting for his bewildered opponent to do something. He falls off that Maple Leaf Gardens stage twice, then on his way back into the ring he takes a kick at Monsoon and I love how Funk riling up Gorilla was a nightly occurrence with him. Gorilla would bite nearly every time (he didn't this time on account of the fact that it MIGHT'VE been an accident (it was not)) and Funk would find a new way to stir up shit every match. Prior to the finish Funk tried to apply the sleeper three separate times and Gatorwolf slipped out of each attempt, managed to even apply his own to Funk, but in the end you knew who was getting jabbed in the chest with a branding iron. I can't think of many wrestlers in history that you could put in there with Funk and their presence would make me not want to watch the match. 

I'm a Man with a Plan and a Taste for Freedom, and I got 34 Acres on the Mid-South Line

Ric Flair v Butch Reed (10/11/85)

Well, this is a match that happened. It was pretty Flair by the numbers, and I figure if you're one of the seven people who reads this thing then you've seen enough instances or read enough words on Flair by the numbers that you don't need another thousand of them today. It started out fine. Reed worked the headlock and he has a great headlock, so that was okay. Flair couldn't mount any offence so he threw some quick chops, and I thought Reed sold the initial impact of them great, showed that they stung like a bastard, but then immediately wanted to punch Flair's head off and the ref' had to talk him down (a bit too forcefully, because we're dealing with Tommy Gilbert). It had the feel of Flair trying to get under Reed's skin, maybe goad him into making a mistake. It was decent stuff. Then at some point they just kind of dropped everything else and started running through the signature Flair spots, including the bridging backslide that felt about as out of place as I've seen it. It was like they worked the first ten minutes of a 40-minute match before shifting to the last ten minutes of the 20-minute match it actually was. I love Reed to death but I'd rather watch him work a series with the Iron Sheik at this point. 

Ted DiBiase v Bob Sweetan (10/13/85)

This was pretty similar to their match from a couple days earlier, just without the taped fist stipulation. But taped fists or not, many punches were thrown. I feel like Sweetan's a guy who does a lot of stuff - or at least works in a way - that I like in theory, but watching one match of his every sixteen months or so makes it difficult for those matches to really engage me. I'm not likely to learn anything new about DiBiase at this point so I'm looking to see how Sweetan works with him, how he throws in any hope spots, how he sells for DiBiase, all that fun nerdy shit you think about when you've been reading about wrestling on the internet for like twenty years. He's GRUFF but sympathetic enough and I liked him trying to smash DiBiase's head through a table in a rage. He will also bleed, as you may very well expect from a man who looks like Bob Sweetan. This was pretty alright. 

Mid-South Project

Piper Stops Wrestlers' Careers, the Weak Spot was Their Ears, Scorpion Darts Hit Their Mark, Pierce Their Heart with Silver Spears

Roddy Piper v Dick Slater (Mid-Atlantic, 4/24/83) - GOOD

This was a fun Slater showcase. I don't know if it was intended to be that, but either way it felt like it was his match and Piper sort of let him lead. It worked pretty well, other than a bit in the middle where Piper made his comeback and Slater basically shut him down and abruptly went back on offence. We got one amazing Hot Rod punch flurry, an amazing eye poke, a string of headbutts on all fours - a low key Piper performance, but a good one regardless. "Slater is a poor man's Terry Funk" is probably a tired talking point by now, and might even be a little unfair (they were pretty much contemporaries and started wrestling only a few years apart, so it's not exactly the same as a million indie wrestlers aping Johnny Saint), but it's hard not to make the comparison watching something like this. I don't even mean it as a knock really, because Funk might be the best wrestler ever and if the film was a little grainier I could've been convinced this was actually Terry Funk at points. The mannerisms are striking, from the obvious stuff like the seesaw in the ropes spot to the more subtle, like how he would throw jab combos or even just the way he'd move at times. But it wasn't just the Funk similarities. There were parts of this where it looked like Slater was doing his best Harley Race impression too. He did a falling elbow drop that was pure Race, then hit a falling headbutt and it was the best Harley impression I've ever seen, the way he stepped back and measured Piper, took a wide base, seemed to fall forward in slow motion, even the way he connected with the headbutt. In all the years of Triple H doing Ric Flair and Harley Race cosplays I've never seen him capture the ESSENCE of Harley like Slater did with that one headbutt. 

Complete & Accurate Hot Rod

Anjoh Wasn't Trying to do No Harm, He was just Trying to Prove He was Tough. What He Lacked in Years, He Made Up in Guts

Yoji Anjoh v Tatsuo Nakano (New Japan, 8/29/87) - GOOD

This is one of the earliest Anjoh match I've seen. Maybe the earliest Nakano match. Both were still raw here, but they had twelve minutes to go and do their thing and by the end it was a nifty little contest. You could see some of that tetchiness both would soon welcome into their lives, though Anjoh wasn't a complete asshole yet and Nakano was still a little too lean to be considered the portly wee squash-faced monster he'd become. That what they did was rough around the edges added to the feel of it, like these were two rookies out to put their name in peoples' mouths. The kicks weren't always the prettiest, but they were thrown like they were intended to land hard and a few times they did, including one awesome high kick in the corner that hit Nakano flush in the neck. Anjoh had some great looking takedowns where he'd grab a limb first, and I don't know if it was intentional or not but Nakano took at least three of them by landing almost on his head. One was a hammerlock takedown and usually the recipient of that would roll through onto their back, but Nakano didn't and basically DDTd himself with his head all twisted. Maybe this was a thing he planned on doing going forward, a niche that he wanted to carve out for himself, like the Necro Butcher taking powerslams on his face. I reckon there would've been a place for that in shoot style. I guess he changed his mind and instead leaned into the guy whose nose would bleed in every single match. For his own safety the latter was probably the wisest course of action. 

Complete & Accurate Anjoh

Revisiting 90s Joshi #34

Shinobu Kandori v Yumiko Hotta (AJW, 3/10/99)

Yeah, this is the good stuff. I half wondered if this match wasn't a myth and it never actually existed, because despite reading about it over the last couple years I could never find it on yon internet. But lo and behold our favourite Eastern European Facebook came through in the clutch! It's very different from their '98 match, much more deliberate, a bit stop-start in terms of pacing, which gave it a bit of a shoot style vibe. Ikeda/Ishikawa works again as a comparison, at least in the sense that they wallop each other many times. I liked that those big shots felt like huge moments though, partly because they used them sort of sparingly. There was a tentativeness to what they were doing, where you knew one of them could reel off a KO shot at any moment, then when they did you bought it as a potential knockout, whether it was the first minute or the fifteenth. Lots of low key moments of nastiness to go with the overt in-your-face holy shit I can't believe she just did that moments of nastiness, like Hotta punting Kandori in the wrist as her arm was hammerlocked and Kandori making a point of selling it for the next few minutes (or maybe it wasn't selling). At one point Hotta full on volleyed Kandori in the spine and Kandori opening and closing her hand like she had nerve damage was an incredible little piece of selling. The grappling wasn't flashy at all, but like everything else it had an underlying danger, and on a couple of occasions one of them would snap into a hold and the other would need to scramble to the ropes. It was pretty awesome how they'd build tension like that and the crowd responded to it big time. Hotta using an old fashioned arm wringer to set up a brutal knee to the face was also amazing. I suppose I could see the finish maybe falling a wee bit flat for some, but I thought it was really cool how technically Kandori got up before the 10 count, but she wasn't actually in the ring when she did. Also the punt that put her down was brutal as fuck, because obviously.

RINGS Maelstrom: 1st (3/25/96)

Emil Krastev v Yuri Bekichev 

A spirited little contest. Didn't have a clue who either of them were but the customary google search tells me Krastev competed at the Sydney Olympics for Bulgaria in boxing, while Bekichev is - or at least would become, based on a glance at his late-career fight record - an actual mixed martial artist, though I don't know how many of the martial arts he'd dabbled in mixing at this point in time. I would imagine not very many as this was fought entirely on the feet. Which is probably not shocking when one guy is wearing boxing gloves and the other doesn't attempt to take him to the ground inside four seconds (suggesting he himself would rather the fight not go there). There were a couple awkward moments where they seemed unsure how to react to something, a hesitancy to maybe force the issue and stray a little too close to the shootfighting. At one point Bekichev took a kick to the face and sort of stood there like "what the fuck mate that HURT," as if Maeda suggested this was all merely going to be an illusion and so the possibility of ACTUALLY getting smacked in the face hadn't occurred to our man. But they both grew into it as it went and when Krastev unloaded with a flurry of jabs and a by god spinning backfist I was very much on board. I even hoped he'd get up and we'd get another couple minutes by the end. 

Wataru Sakata v Christopher Haseman 

A short bit of business that I'm thinking may have been a shoot. Not a whole lot happened. There was a bit of struggle on the ground that trickled over to the ropes, they were stood up, Sakata caught Hasemen's leg and after another brief struggle a nice heel hook scored the tap. Watch it while you wait for the kettle to boil, maybe. It's your life, don't let me stop you. 

Mitsuya Nagai v Mikhail Ilioukhine

Ilioukhine is the bomb. He's a short, pale, stocky wee tank of a man, like a Russian Dynamite Kid who will throw you around like a sack of flour. His mere BEING is a continual advance and Nagai can barely do anything about it, especially on the ground. Some of the setups are a little clunky, like Ilioukhine's cross-armbreaker, but he's inventive and the crowd certainly don't seem to mind too much. I guess this boils down to striker v grappler, which is a tale old as time when it comes to the shoot style. Ilioukhine practically ragdolls Nagai at will but Nagai can cause him real trouble on the feet, so not shockingly that's where he tries to keep it. The one time Ilioukhine tried to respond he fired off a piddly leg kick that Nagai outwardly laughed at, retaliated with a much more effective flurry of his own, so Ilioukhine swiftly took him down and went about bending his arms and legs at weird angles. Ilioukhine also looks like a fella who can take a shot to the face so Nagai needed to make a TKO look convincing, and that palm strike to end things looked fairly convincing. Ilioukhine has at least one stone cold RINGS classic. This wasn't that but it was awfully fun. 

Tsuyoshi Kohsaka v Hans Nyman 

This was nifty as well, and also very much your striker v grappler contest. Nyman always has pretty looking kicks, all of them with a real nice snap to them, but they don't always look like there's a ton of meat behind them. They quite often look like kicks thrown by a guy not actually trying to knock out his opponent *for real* for real, you know? Not every kick he threw in this looked lethal, but some of them did and Kohsaka was absolutely great at selling them, like when he took a glancing blow to the back of the head and half stumbled into a nasty body kick. He gets the full Fujiwara point for his selling performance in this fight. Kohsaka's strategy was obviously to hit the mat but Nyman wasn't about to engage there at all. He basically grabbed the rope any time there was even a chance he'd be caught in a problematic situation, which didn't always make for a very compelling contest but at the same time I guess it was realistic enough. I'm a sucker for someone pulling a rabbit out the hat right when all hope seems lost, so even if the finish was a little on the nose I dug it. 

Volk Han v Dick Vrij

This wasn't as good as their match from 1992, but it was fought along the same lines. A shorter bargain bin version of it. Vrij is no fool and wants nothing to do with Han on the mat, or anywhere in the building if grappling is involved. He wants to swing for the fences and if he can't score a knockout he'll settle for racking up points via downs. It's a strategy that serves him pretty well, but Han will always be dangerous and Vrij immediately goes to the ropes whenever he's grabbed. There's no attempt to escape by any other means - it would be stupid to bother so why even waste anybody's time with the pretence? A fun six minutes, as you'd probably expect. 

Yoshihisa Yamamoto v Bitsadze Tariel

Before this show I'd largely been focusing on the early years of RINGS, the furthest I'd gotten when writing everything up being 1993. At that point Yamamoto was a pretty fun rookie starting to find his feet, usually pairing off with Masayuki Naruse in a sort of young lions series. Fast forward a few years and here's Yamamoto in a main event, fresh off a win over the mighty Volk Han a few months earlier, ready to push on and maybe even climb to Ace status. He was obviously more assured here than in '92-'93, though he always had a bit of a chip on his shoulder even as a wee lad. Based on the size difference you'd expect Tariel to come out and force the issue, but it's Yamamoto who throws forty palm thrusts as soon as the bell rings. He fought this like a young phenom who was on a roll, who knew he was ready to put the pieces together and confidence was high. Tariel got pretty fun in his RINGS run but he maybe wasn't quite there yet. He was a bit hesitant at points, where you'd expect him to press on and knee Yamamoto in the spleen while he's buckled over in pain there, and it never quite happens. Maybe he is the gentle sort of bear. Alas, the gentle sort do not last very long in the Fighting Network. It's been ages since I've watched any late 90s Yamamoto and I'm hyped to do so again, but I've never really seen much from his "in between" years so that should be cool as well. 

Complete & Accurate RINGS

Fujiwara v Funaki!

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v Masakatsu Funaki (UWF, 5/4/89)

The king back. This was Fujiwara's first match in UWF 2.0 since jumping over from New Japan, and I guess it's fitting that it was against the shoot style prince. There was something about Funaki around this period. While he didn't necessarily act like a prick, he sort of had that demeanour. You know the kind. He's all cut up, super athletic, good looking, has the incredible 80s metal drummer hair. He's the shit and he knows it. Fujiwara's old and wrinkled, has a buzz cut that he did at home with an egg beater, has worn the same black trunks forever, his white socks have faded more to grey, nothing about him screams box office. But he's as dangerous as they come and every single person in the building knows it. There was some really slick grappling in the first few minutes, which probably made up my favourite stretch of the fight. Then Funaki's temper started to flare and Fujiwara fed off it, as has always been his wont. Funaki would go for a flurry of strikes and Fujiwara would duck and weave and grin like you'll need to try harder than that, young man. It made Funaki almost petulant, especially with how he kicked his way out of a kneebar using the heel of his foot and looking at Fujiwara like how dare he even try and submit the prodigy. There's a strange restart after Fujiwara gets disqualified for headbutting Funaki in the face, and the finish wasn't great, but this had some decent stuff and I really should watch their PWFG bout already. 

We conquered 1987, now how about some 1988 New Japan!

Antonio Inoki v Riki Choshu (New Japan, 2/4/88)

I thought this fell surprisingly flat. Straight from the bell Choshu comes running out the corner with a dropkick and hits two lariats, so at that point I'm thinking okay it's going to be one of THOSE matches and I'm ready for the roof to go. It just never really kept hold of me for very long after that. I liked Inoki's dazed selling on the floor, the way he'd try and get back in the ring only to be knocked back down again, his whole demeanour in the face of Choshu's thuggery, and Choshu is always going to be interesting playing king of the mountain in a stretch like that. He paces around and threatens to swing at the ref' for restraining him, always eager to be dishing out punishment while being smart enough to not go out after Inoki and risk it backfiring. Then he gets a little too mouthy with the ref' and Inoki hits an apron enziguri, which is a pretty great transition spot. From there it simmered without ever really coming to the boil. They did some decent stuff and they definitely grabbed me again when Inoki punched a divot in Choshu's forehead. This was Inoki channelling whatever he unleashed on Kintaro Oki back in the day, dishing out receipts for earlier in the match. Choshu hits a real gusher and he might not be the most expressive or dramatic seller, but I sure bought him being in danger here. The finish felt like an Inoki finish, in that it left us with more questions than answers. 

Antonio Inoki v Big Van Vader (New Japan, 7/29/88)

This was the business. I remembered not a single thing about it, but it was my #31 on the DVDVR New Japan set so I must've thought highly of it back in the distant past (of 2009, which is fuckin DISTANT now, boys). I loved the start of it. Vader is a menace and before the bell he chucks Inoki out the ring, then does his pre-match ceremonial war dance with his huge mastodon helmet thing. He drops to one knee and roars, arms held aloft as this ridiculous helmet sprays steam into the air, so Inoki just enziguris him in the head because to hell with standing on ceremony. The story here was all about Inoki's persistence against Vader's dominance. Vader is inevitable, a thing whose advancement you can only divert if you're lucky, but never halt completely. He really walks that line amazingly between smothering an opponent and giving them just enough where it's plausible, largely because his selling is so good, and I thought his selling was sensational in this. He picks up a knock on his arm early and Inoki immediately hits it with an enziguri, because of course you would because you need to take advantage of every chink in the armour that presents itself. Whenever Inoki grabs one of those armbars Vader bellows to the heavens, so maybe every monster can be felled after all. It's just that Vader can swing momentum again with one big fist, or by flinging his entire body at Inoki like he's a small vehicle. There was one part where Vader had Inoki in a seated abdominal stretch, pulled Inoki's head back by the hair to expose his face, and just clubbed him with half a dozen hammer blows. The match finally turns when they end up on the floor again and Vader tries to bludgeon Inoki with some sort of sceptre, only Inoki moves and Vader jars his hand when he hits the post, so Inoki picks it up and stabs him in the bad arm. Vader comes up with a bloody arm and the close-up shot is properly gruesome. He's shrieking like a bear caught in a trap and it looks like Inoki full on stabbed him in the arm with this thing, a real nasty gash just streaming blood. Of course Inoki sticks with what brung him and hits another enziguri to the arm, and the vocal selling from Vader is legit some of the best I've ever seen (or heard). It was almost disturbing and if he was somewhat less monstrous you might even feel sympathy for him. The finish is also spectacular. If some predators like to play with their prey then the sight of his own blood hit Vader with some urgency, because he tried to finish things quickly after that. He slammed Inoki in the corner to set up the moonsault (or something else off the top if he wasn't using the moonsault yet), and even though Inoki retreated into the middle of the ring Vader was not for hanging about. He leaps off with a clothesline, but Inoki catches him upon landing and drags him to the mat with a Fujiwara armbar. Vader howling at the moon in agony afterwards, blood continuing to flow from his wound, while ring boys sheepishly try to usher him backstage was a pretty incredible bit of theatre. 

The rest of November is now Yoshiaki Fujiwara Month

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v Riki Choshu (New Japan, 6/19/88)

Another fine entry into one of the greatest match-up scrapbooks in history. This wasn't as heated as the two matches from '87, but it had a lot of the same things going for it. Initially I thought they were going to work a more grounded contest, one that wasn't built on Fujiwara being a bastard and forcing Choshu to be the same. They even started with a knucklelock, much like a nice sporting contest might. Then Fujiwara headbutted Choshu dead in the face and I mean DEAD in the face and that was the end of that. I don't know what it is about Choshu but Fujiwara is a man possessed every time he steps in the ring with him. Did he hate him for real? I've never seen him not try to choke the life out of Choshu any time they square off. At one point Choshu was flat on the canvas and Fujiwara stood over him, one foot planted on Choshu's hair to keep him pinned, staring at him in obvious contempt, then let him back up just to slap him as hard as possible. The match slowed down a bit when Choshu took over, but he always has that quality where he'll grind someone down then unleash a huge burst of offence, where even a snapmare will look like it comes from a place of malice. Choshu goes after the leg for a little bit and I love how savage he comes across when he has a guy in the corner. This time he wrapped Fujiwara's leg in the rope and started throwing kicks, hit a couple nasty back elbows to the neck, used his weighty advantage to keep Fujiwara stuck in there, just some really mean corner offence. You still get the sense Fujiwara's biding his time and he even manages a tentative run at a Fujiwara armbar, in case Choshu forgot who he was dealing with. Great bit where Fujiwara is on the apron and Choshu is peppering him with shots, then as Fujiwara steps through the ropes he pauses, waits for Choshu to throw another one, and as he does Fujiwara headbutts him in the stomach. First lariat comes after Fujiwara locks in the armbar too close to the ropes and takes umbrage with the ref' forcing the break, but then he dodges the second and grabs it again out the corner to a massive pop. These two are always great at milking that big lariat into Fujiwara armbar counter in their matches and people go nuts for it every time. Choshu cracking Fujiwara with a punch as the latter winds up for a headbutt was incredible and not a single person in history is better at selling a lariat decapitation than Fujiwara. 

One more 1987 New Japan entry for the road

Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Kazuo Yamazaki v Akira Maeda & Nobuhiko Takada (New Japan, 9/1/87)

Maeda is wearing a t-shirt pre-match with a big cartoon fist that says "I PACK A MEAN PUNCH", so this is already five and a half stars. Overall it was quite similar to the May match, at least in terms of pacing and roles and how they communicated their individual strengths and weaknesses. Yamazaki is still young and inexperienced and sometimes the overexuberance that comes with youth will be punished. Maeda and Takada throw very many nasty kicks and Maeda was dropping him on his head with throws, including an amazing capture suplex to counter a high kick. The main difference from May was Fujiwara's mood, as in he was not in a good one in this match. He was a demon at points and slapped the taste buds out of Takada's mouth, headbutted both Takada and Maeda in the jaw, threw body shot punches, head kicks, the whole repertoire and all of it done with a scowl. Maybe he remembered how that May bout went and how Yamazaki was eventually targeted, and this time his paternal instinct kicked in and he wouldn't let his young partner suffer so again. The exchanges with Maeda picked right up from their outstanding singles match a couple days earlier and once again we are here considering if it might be a worthwhile venture to watch in one sitting every Fujiwara v Maeda match committed to tape. Fujiwara embracing an exhausted Yamazaki at the end was pretty much the perfect post-match. 

And with that, as we draw to a close this impromptu little project, I present to you the highly anticipated 1987 New Japan Top 15. What a quality year for the pro wrestling. 

1. Yoshiaki Fujiwara v Riki Choshu (6/9/87)
2. Yoshiaki Fujiwara v Akira Maeda (8/29/87)
3. Antonio Inoki, Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Masa Saito, Seiji Sakaguchi & Dick Murdoch v Tatsumi Fujinami, Nobuhiko Takada, Riki Choshu, Akira Maeda & Super Strong Machine (9/17/87)
4. Antonio Inoki, Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Kantaro Hoshino, Seiji Sakaguchi & Keiji Mutoh v Tatsumi Fujinami, Riki Choshu, Akira Maeda, Kengo Kimura & Super Strong Machine (8/19/87)
5. Nobuhiko Takada v Shiro Koshinaka (2/5/87) 
6. Tatsumi Fujinami v Kengo Kimura (1/2/87)
7. Antonio Inoki v Masa Saito (4/27/87)
8. Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Kazuo Yamazaki v Akira Maeda & Nobuhiko Takada (5/25/87)
9. Riki Choshu v Yoshiaki Fujiwara (6/29/87) 
10. Akira Maeda & Nobuhiko Takada v Shiro Koshinaka & Keiji Mutoh (3/20/87)
11. Tatsumi Fujinami v Kengo Kimura (1/14/87)
12. Antonio Inoki & Dick Murdoch v Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Masa Saito (12/4/87)
13. Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Kazuo Yamazaki v Akira Maeda & Nobuhiko Takada (9/1/87)
14. Masa Saito v Kengo Kimura (6/10/87)
15. Akira Maeda v Masa Saito (5/18/87)

The 1987 New Japan hits just keep coming

Antonio Inoki, Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Kantaro Hoshino, Seiji Sakaguchi & Keiji Mutoh v Tatsumi Fujinami, Riki Choshu, Akira Maeda, Kengo Kimura & Super Strong Machine (New Japan, 8/19/87)

I think the most impressive thing about these multi-man matches is how the pace basically never drops below a hundred miles an hour. And if that's not the most impressive thing then the most impressive thing is how it never feels like it's too much despite that pace. They never shirk on the selling just to get more stuff in, never let it feel rushed, never let it feel like overkill. If I've watched one Dragon Gate multi-man tag then I've watched a thousand (or maybe just one and it felt like a thousand) and those guys worked rapid quick and did ten million things over the course of a match, but none of them had the urgency and desperation of these. This had the feeling of a match where any move could result in an elimination, and not in the stupid way where you'd get wrestlers being eliminated by stuff that ordinarily wouldn't be enough to pin or submit them but the booking was such that those falls just...sort of happen. This had no Nikolai Volkoff being eliminated by a Sgt Slaughter elbow drop energy. It had holy shit Fujinami just body slammed Hoshino so hard he might've killed the wee fella energy. That people could be eliminated by leaving the ring added to that ever-present danger - fuckin UBIQUITOUS you might say - as it meant even the lowest in the pecking order could get rid of the highest with a quick shift of weight or a yank of rope. There's history for that too considering Maeda once got rolled by Umanosuke Ueda of all people. And of course, consistent with the very best of this stupid artform, the crowd being absolutely scorching doesn't hurt. Like the September match this was old guard v new generation, only with a few different faces, and in a bit of a twist we had the youngest of the whole lot on team Inoki. I'm not entirely sure why Mutoh was with the old-timers, maybe he just had some bloody respect for his elders, but either way his addition there was a fun wrinkle. Also like September this was amazing and every person involved pretty much ruled in one way or another. Hoshino was probably my MVP this time. His role wasn't necessarily a central one, but he was a pocket rocket of violence and had no problem leading the charge for the boss. I think everyone on the opposing team got potatoed and the first flurry he landed on Fujinami was spectacular, especially the uppercut that I rewound seventeen times. Inoki was going nuts on the apron as well, throwing imaginary hands like he was watching a title fight in his living room. The Hoshino/Kimura parts were almost all punches and once again taped fist Kimura is a sensation. Fujiwara was unbelievable as the wrecking ball. Yanking guys into armbars, trying to rip legs off, headbutting folk into next week, everything. There was one bit where Choshu was on the apron holding onto the rope and Fujiwara was peppering him with slaps and headbutts and the crowd was going bananas. Loved when the tables were then flipped and Fujiwara was on the apron, Fujinami ramming his head into the turnbuckle bolt for the big death blow, only for it to backfire and wake the old warrior up instead. Inoki did that thing again where he came in as the roof blew off the place, threw a slap to Maeda and tagged straight back out. It had to be a deliberate dick move because he pulled that too often for it to be anything else. His proper exchanges were molten though, and the double elimination with Maeda would've been the perfect setup to a singles match that would've drawn 80,000 people if Maeda hadn't wellied Choshu in the face. In the end you've got the young upstart staring down the barrel of Fujinami and Choshu, and you know and I know and everyone else knows it's basically inevitable, but I loved how Inoki got up on the apron, one arm around Mutoh, offering a few words before sending him into a battle he can't possibly win. "Take one of them with you if you can. We'll talk about that Kabuki idea if you make it back." A tremendous bit of pro wrestling. 

I have still not finished watching 1987 New Japan

Akira Maeda & Nobuhiko Takada v Shiro Koshinaka & Keiji Mutoh (New Japan, 3/20/87)

I wasn't super into this for the first half, but when they kicked things into gear they did so in a big way and I was pretty well in on it after that. Takada and Maeda are a pair of total wrecking balls here, especially Maeda who was a force of nature. This was proper Big Dog on Campus Maeda as he would assertively shut down any offence from Mutoh or Koshinaka, usually by fucking murdering them with kicks. He also threw about four suplexes that were beautiful and lethal in equal measure, just the prettiest technique while dropping guys in the way that you would least enjoy being dropped. Takada was full steam ahead and he clearly wasn't over the feud with Koshinaka because that boy was getting walloped at every opportunity. The German suplex counter to Koshinaka's hip attack ruled and I loved that any time Takada came in while Kosh was already there, usually after being left on his butt by Maeda, Takada would pick him up and slap the stubble off him or kick him in the liver. The longer it goes the less chance you feel Mutoh and Koshinaka have of actually winning. Like, that first half was probably 50-50, but you felt the UWF guys had three or four more gears to go up while the New Japan pair were struggling to even hold serve. Then 50-50 started veering more towards 60-40, then 70-30, and it wasn't in favour of Mutoh and Koshinaka. The UWF pair were sustaining runs of offence and tags were getting harder to come by for team New Japan. Mutoh would need to break up consecutive pin attempts on Koshinaka and if he wasn't around you get the sense it would've been over. Even when it looked like Koshinaka might string together some offence on Maeda - after Maeda took a wild missed wheel kick bump into the corner - Takada would immediately come in and shut him down. By the end Koshinaka was on his last legs, getting peppered from all angles, and baby Mutoh's energy was only going to take him so far. For what it's worth I thought Mutoh was really fun in this. His selling was a wee bit iffy once or twice, but lazy old red mist Muta sometimes makes it easy to forget how quick he could move back when he still had knees, and holy smokes was his moonsault a thing of beauty. The finish is great. Koshinaka basically has no chance of fighting his way back into the match, so instead he tries to use the element of surprise. He rolls up Takada with a super tight cradle that Maeda has to break, then he almost catches Maeda himself with one of the slickest backslides you've ever seen. He clearly figures this is his best shot, and persistence pays off when he graba a small package on Takada (and this was a perfect looking small package) while Mutoh holds Maeda at bay on the apron. Those last five minutes were awesome, Korakuen Hall is in raptures, grown men weep, the world is good. Yeah this was pretty great. 

I have not finished watching 1987 New Japan

Dick Murdoch v Akira Maeda (New Japan, 9/14/87)

Talk about a styles clash. In fairness it's not shocking that this was pretty damn fun, considering the match Murdoch had with Fujiwara in PWFG (which ruled). That was when Dick was broken down though, more about the shtick than what it would've been in 1987 (their interactions in the December tag show as much). Still, I wasn't sure how this would play out because if anybody was going to full force kick the shit out of a closet racist in the middle of a wrestling ring then it's Maeda (not that you blame the man). There were many kicks, but I don't think any were of the shoot variety and they crafted a nice little story despite the fact we were never in a million years getting a proper payoff at the end. I loved how Murdoch sold all of Maeda's shots. Right at the start Maeda unloads with a high kick and Murdoch goes down like his eardrum is ruptured, then later he does an unbelievable KO sell off the apron when Maeda clocks him again. Maeda would throw kicks to the arm and shoulder and Murdoch was really fun selling all of that, then he'd sort of go after Maeda's leg because around this period I guess everyone knew to go after Maeda's leg. There was a great bit where Maeda rolled all the way out the ring to break a figure-four and that crowd fully expected the double count out, so Murdoch held his hand up for a ceasefire and gestured to the ring like "shall we not finish this in the squared circle like GENTLEMEN?" He even held the ropes open for Maeda and everything. A very nice curveball before Murdoch smacks the ref' and the match gets tossed in the end anyway. Such is the way of things. 

1987 New Japan was very good!

Antonio Inoki, Yoshiaki Fujiwara, Masa Saito, Seiji Sakaguchi & Dick Murdoch v Tatsumi Fujinami, Nobuhiko Takada, Riki Choshu, Akira Maeda & Super Strong Machine (New Japan, 9/17/87)

The old guard and the new generation explode! I must've been HITTIN' the good whisky back when I put together my DVDVR New Japan ballot because I had this outside my top 30, and that is quite frankly a nonsense of a thing to do because holy smokes what a match. I think the biggest compliment I can give it is that Dick Murdoch and Riki Choshu are both eliminated right away and we see none of what led to that due to a commercial break, and yet 30 seconds later you don't even care because everyone else has dragged you back in. And everyone else was amazing in this. Not a bad or average performance to be had anywhere, just top drawer pro wrestling from all involved. Masa Saito may have been the star though, turning in one of the all-time great thug performances. What a monumental bastard of a man he chose to be on this night. It wasn't even like he was underhanded about it either. There were no cheapshots to speak of, nothing sly, it was all pretty clear and obvious. Clear and obvious in that he was clearly and obviously enjoying being a bastard. He was a total shark in the water, where he'd jump into attack mode and maul someone if the opportunity presented itself, but he was just as likely to go right for the throat of a fresh man as well. Sakaguchi wasn't in this for very long but he was a hoot while he was. He was the sympathetic big lanky kid in school who'd get mugged for his YuGiOh cards even though he was the only one who even played YuGiOh before finally snapping and making the bullies pay dearly. Takada was always eager to throw grenades and he had some great exchanges, especially with Fujiwara who slapped him down to size more than once. Also got wrecked by Saito because Saito was just in one of those moods. Inoki is always a bit of a prick in these matches. He's stupid charismatic and crowds will live and die on anything he does, so whenever he gets in for the first time the building just erupts, but it was always like he enjoyed fucking with people and would tag back out again straight away. This time he came in to a monster pop, immediately took a swing at Fujinami on the apron, and then Fujinami demanded to be tagged in to an even bigger monster pop. Teacher versus student, the old king versus the crowned prince...and Inoki just tags out. I think the first time I saw him do it (I specifically recall him doing it in the first big New Japan v UWF match) I was disappointed, but at this point I sort of like it because I'm pretty sure it's a deliberate wind-up tactic. There were two stretches of the match that stood out to me above the rest and the first was Fujiwara and Maeda reprising their fight from a couple weeks back. Fujiwara goes after the leg again, dogged in forcing the tap and Maeda sells it spectacularly, really milking every near submission while there's a palpable sense that he's going to submit. The desperation roll-up to flip the tables and eliminate Fujiwara was incredible, then Saito came in like a dog with a bone and was fucking amazing smashing Maeda's leg off the mat, twisting him into the prison lock for the huge tap out. The second awesome (or even more awesome) part of the match was the finishing run. Fujinami is left alone against Inoki and Saito and Saito just tries to break his skull open off the exposed turnbuckle. Fujinami is a mess and I love him swinging blindly at Inoki, while Inoki almost looks on regretfully at having to do this to his old pupil. Saito regrets nothing and completely abuses him, biting the exposed wound, hitting multiple Saito suplexes and a sick lariat, picking Fujinami's shoulders up off the mat after every two-count so he can dish out more punishment. Initially the crowd are going crazy because it looks like Fujinami is kicking out, but after the fourth or fifth instance of this it's clear he's not. His legs might be moving like he's TRYING to kick out, but the only reason the shoulders are coming up is because Saito's lifting them. Fujinami is pretty much dead in the water, so Inoki tags himself in, slaps Saito and immediately pins Fujinami to put him out his misery. I thought that finish was fucking sensational. I could see it maybe falling flat for some people, but knowing the history of Inoki and Fujinami, and Inoki and SAITO - who tried to kill each other six months ago - I thought it was a perfect little bit of storytelling that never felt forced or melodramatic or hammy at all. Choshu is irate after the bell. "He was your wee buddy and this is how you treat him?!" I assume. Murdoch has no idea what's happening and Fujinami is carried out with a head bandage the size of a bath towel and this was phenomenal. 

Some New Japan! But from a year that's not 1987!

I'm making the most of that fuckin New Japan World subscription that I've had for about ten months and used for maybe two weeks tops. Don't try and stop me!

The Great Sasuke & Black Tiger v Wild Pegasus & Shinjiro Ohtani (New Japan, 10/18/94)

This is probably not going to be something I'll love at this stage of the game, but there was enough here to keep me interested and overall I'd say it held up pretty well. Look, if you're one of the seven people who read this nonsense of a thing on a regular basis then you don't need me saying another word about Eddie Guerrero to know where I stand on him. If I watch a match with him in it and he's at least halfway entertaining then I'll write lengthy paragraphs about everything he did that made him so. I'm a broken record and I know it. But here I am, back on my bullshit to yet again tell you that Eddie Guerrero was outstanding in this wrestling match. It might be his best heel performance as Black Tiger and almost certainly his best performance under the mask up to this point (heel or babyface). He was fully in Gringo Loco mode by now back in Mexico so he brought some of the bastardry over with him for this tour. To be honest I don't know if anybody actually worked babyface here. I guess there were babyface moments, if for no reason other than the fact someone was being beaten up for stretches, but everybody basically acted like a dick and there was tetchyness all around. Ohtani is the young pup but he would dish out as many cheapshots as he'd take, so it was sort of hard to feel any sympathy for him. Benoit was surly as a bastard and sure never worked babyface and...well. You know. Sasuke was MAYBE sympathetic? A little bit? Then again he did not enjoy being chopped out of his pyjamas and I get the feeling his response wouldn't have been very babyface-like if he wasn't physically restrained. Still, we are all about the chippiness and potato-farming and so we welcome it, embrace it, treasure it. Eddie was working OVERTLY heel, though. He would come in and break up pins or submissions, but he'd do it by being a prick and I about lost it when he sauntered over and broke up a Boston Crab by casually poking Benoit in the eye. Fancy watching some of that snappy juniors offence? Eddie wasn't bothered his arse about what you fancied and would intermittently come in to put a stop to it. He brought the surliness, the hostility, the rampant shithousery, and everything he did on offence looked picture perfect. The finish was whiffed to hell but Ohtani scoring the win felt like a big moment for him, and ultimately was satisfying in that respect. Yeah, this was decent. 

Shinya Hashimoto v Riki Choshu (New Japan, 1/4/01)

The final chapter in the eternal story of Hashimto and Choshu beating the dog piss out of each other in front of 50,000 people. This did not reinvent their particular wheel, did not stray far from their beaten path. There were many thumping lariats, many chops, many kicks and many awesome bits of selling. The one major wrinkle here was that Hashimoto in full dickhead mode. I guess as a rivalry or series there's never been a true heel or babyface divide between these two. A lot of it was built around respect and HONOUR and not so much about good or bad. Grey areas and all that. By this point Hashimoto is close to being out the door in New Japan, and I don't really know the full history behind that but I guess his ongoing disagreements with Choshu were relatively well-known. Either way, as soon as this started Hashimoto remained in the corner and wasn't even interested in locking up. Choshu was obviously annoyed by this and continued to get more annoyed as Hashimoto would barely acknowledge him. Even the ref' was getting frustrated! Then Hash stepped onto the ramp like he was ready to walk out on the whole mess and it's the first time I've heard a crowd actively boo Hash in...what, forever? When he eventually decides he's ready to fight he slabbers Choshu. And Choshu slabbers him back and neither will give the other the satisfaction of leaving their feet no matter how hard they're hit. It's the tried and true Hash v Choshu formula, just a bit more strike-driven than some of their previous matches. The finish is a bit hokey with Fujinami putting a stop to it, I guess because he's worried someone gets beaten to death or whatever, and the crowd were not particularly happy about it. However it is these two and so we take every second of it. 

I may soon run out of 1987 New Japan to watch

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v Akira Maeda (New Japan, 8/29/87)

Fucking hell what a match. Is this the best Fujiwara v Maeda bout? It's been ten years since I've watched any of them but if there's a better one then I need to check it out again, because I thought this was a masterpiece. I mean I've watched a handful of amazing Yoshiaki Fujiwara performances the last few days and this might be the best of the lot. I thought he was absolutely phenomenal in this. People much smarter and far earlier to the party than me have written many words about how Fujiwara is one of the best defensive wrestlers ever. They've written many words about how he's someone who conveys actual strategy in wrestling better than maybe anyone else. Words upon words about his matwork and skill as a grappler. Countless paragraphs about his selling. Just a whole bunch of stuff typed up and flung onto the internet singing his praises (you'll find plenty on this here nonsense of a blog as well). All of that is present in this bout, and all of it to a stupidly high level. It started with him weaving in and out, lots of energy without overextending. He throws a little kick to Maeda's knee - specifically the knee; it wasn't just a leg kick - and goes for a kneebar, but generally speaking he's happy to keep most of this on the feet. We even get a glimpse of his striking early as he reels off a quick combo of body punches and a slap, then he immediately backs up as Maeda stalks him down. And that kind of sets the tone for much of this. Fujiwara isn't as prolific a striker as Maeda, but these were some of the best strikes I've ever seen him throw and by christ he was laying them in. There were punches to the body, slaps to the face, punches right to the temple, full blown Tenryu punts to the head, those nasty kicks to the knee, it was as vicious as I'd ever seen him and that was even before the headbutts (just wait). You question how viable a strategy that might be because Maeda will inevitably catch him with a howitzer, and yet the whole time he's doing this he's grinning and throwing goofy feints and very clearly reeling Maeda in. You can put it down to him being a carny and you might be onto something, but if you've seen one Fujiwara match where he's setting traps then you've seen a dozen and this was classic Fujiwara. It really had the feel of a red hot young sports team coming up against a group of veterans, where the latter have seen it all before and know how to use their experience to manipulate an outcome. You can see it unfolding and you KNOW it's happening, but the young guys either can't and stick to what had been working up until now, or they can and are powerless to actually do anything about it. 

Fujiwara's selling is amazing from beginning to end. Maeda obviously gets his licks in and there are several moments where Fujiwara will sell them brilliantly. Moments where you can find yourself getting super pretentious trying to write about them because it's like, this is pro wrestling not fucking Broadway but I don't know man, they don't teach this at your Royal Academy of Drama or whatever. The very first shot Maeda lands, Fujiwara stumbles in the corner and half slumps to the mat, and as Maeda throws another shot Fujiwara catches it, grabs hold and almost curls around the foot for a few seconds just to recover. There are shots that partially land and Fujiwara laughs them off, still goading Maeda, then there are shots that land more than partially, that clearly sting, and he laughs at those ones BECAUSE they sting. There's a bit later where Fujiwara's been downed for an 8-count and is visibly rocked, and as Maeda presses ahead Fujiwara backs into the corner for some respite, hanging through the ropes while Maeda throws knees to the body. The first chance Fujiwara gets he grabs Maeda and switches their position, then he pins Maeda in the corner and throws some shots to the body and head, but between those flurries you get the sense his goal is more to keep the fight in the corner for a minute just so he can recuperate. It was such a cool bit of defence from the best defensive wrestler ever. He's also the best headbutting bastard ever and this might be the GOAT Fujiwara headbutt spot. He actually hadn't thrown any in the match before the last couple minutes, and it wasn't even him who started it. Maeda's frustration had boiled over, because it was always going to, and as he backed Fujiwara into another corner it was him who threw that first headbutt. Fujiwara took it and covered up, absorbing a few body shots, then when Maeda paused Fujiwara just smashed him in the jaw with one of the grossest headbutts ever. This was a genuine headbutt to the face, not one of those bowling ball headbutts that makes you wince when you hear one head clonk off another. I mean both types are hellish but I think the surprise factor of this was what made it truly vile. 

The finish is pretty much perfect. Fujiwara had been throwing those little kicks to Maeda's knee all match. They all bent the knee at awkward angles and he was clearly using them to try and set up something else, but Maeda was always onto it and nothing materialised. Maeda throws a kick to the body and Fujiwara buckles over like he's been shot, so Maeda throws another, because why wouldn't you? And the old bastard knew it was coming because he caught that kick, booted Maeda's planted leg twisting it at a disgusting angle (I'm talking snapped MCL angle), and followed up with the kneebar. Just a wonderful finish to a wonderful match, with a wonderful Fujiwara performance. And maybe the best shoot style match to ever happen outside of an actual shoot style promotion. 

Another day of 1987 New Japan

Tatsumi Fujinami v Kengo Kimura (New Japan, 1/14/87)

This kind of swung between decent enough and balls out awesome. On the one hand that's a little disappointing because you can't help but want the balls out awesome to be the constant, but on the other hand pretty decent is pretty decent, you know? How loudly can we really complain? I think this feud only lasted about a month and that was definitely nine months too short. I actually thought the best parts of this were even better than the best parts of the January 2nd match, though they were rooted in the same idea (or PHILOSOPHY, if you will). Kimura still has serious ill will for Fujinami and this time Fujinami is less forgiving when his old partner blatantly punches him in the jaw. Fujinami wrestles like someone who'd rather do that - wrestle - than have a fist fight, but he won't give Kimura the same leeway he did before. The early grappling had a nice intensity to it and I loved that they both decided to put that to the side so they could have a stand up exchange in full boxing stance. Moments like that happened throughout, where one or both - though most often it was Kimura - would let their tempers boil over and someone would get cracked in the mouth. The first slap Fujinami threw landed flush and Kimura shot him this look of "I really hate you, you know that?" When Kimura next backed him into the corner everyone knew what was coming, and I love that Fujinami just stood there and braced himself, daring Kimura to throw his best shot and get it over with. It was almost derisory, like even leaving himself open so Kimura could hit him unimpeded wouldn't matter in the long run, confident as he was that he was still The Ace and Kimura never would be. I'm sure that sat brilliantly with Kimura. I'm also sure it added a little mustard to every closed fist he threw at Fujinami after the fact, and he threw a good fucking few of them let me tell you. There was one punch flurry in particular that was incredible and I guess Kengo Kimura is super underrated as a puncher? The leg lariat plays a part again, but I wish they played up the first one that connected a little more. I thought it came off like a bit of an afterthought, which is strange considering it was a huge part of the feud up until now. That might be nitpicky though, because I did really like how Kimura never seemed to be satisfied and would lift Fujinami's shoulders on a few pin attempts (like after the leg lariat). Either he was messing with Fujinami because he knew he wasn't beaten yet anyway or he was messing with him because he thought he was VERY beaten, but as soon as he did it you got the sense he was wrong one way or the other. When Fujinami countered the third leg lariat and put him in the Scorpion you pretty much knew Kimura had fucked up. He held on as long as he could and nearly made it to the ropes, but in the end Fujinami is The Ace and Kimura is not. 

Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Kazuo Yamazaki v Akira Maeda & Nobuhiko Takada (New Japan, 5/25/87)

This was pretty awesome, and maybe the best mixture of shoot and pro style in a tag match that New Japan produced from around this time (that '86-'88 period with all the shoot style guys, between the original UWF closing down and the second iteration starting up after Maeda shoot kicked Choshu in the eye socket). I guess it was a little more shoot than pro so it was mostly back and forth the whole way, which is fine when the transitions are this strong, but I would've loved an extended heat segment somewhere to really fire it up a level. After all I'm a 90s kid who was raised on the tag team prowess of the Headshrinkers and Men on a Mission, I can't help but be set in my ways. The roles are pretty well established -- Yamazaki is the young technician with picture perfect striking and rapid fast feet, a real prodigy with the sky as his limit. He's in there with three-quarters of the shoot style Mount Rushmore so you expect him to play whipping boy, but I like that they almost circumvented that with the existing injuries to Maeda and Takada. The former has a taped up forehead from the Strong Machine mugging the previous week and Takada has a bandaged up thigh, so there are a couple bullseyes for Yamazaki to tee off on and tee off on them he does. Those moments worked as plausible momentum swings, where he could drag himself back into the fight with a flurry of kicks to the thigh without it feeling like Takada was giving him too much. Fujiwara was properly fired up as well, maybe because he knew that he was tagging with a kid and might need to carry the load a bit. He's the one who starts tearing at that Maeda bandage, then Yamazaki follows suit because why wouldn't you follow the godfather? Lots of killer strikes, snug submissions attempts, nasty suplexes and a great final pairing to cap it off. One or two weird bits of selling, but when everything else is so on point who really gives a shit?

Masa Saito v Kengo Kimura (New Japan, 6/10/87)

Man, Saito was the ultimate badass. Someone on PWO described this as Saito working as Arn Anderson and that's totally apt, as he spends the majority of the match trying to wreck Kimura's bandaged up knee. Kimura does not take kindly to this and starts throwing wild potato punches to the cheek, so Saito grabs him and puts him on his head with a backdrop. This was some real mean leg work from Saito. All of the holds were tight and you knew he was looking for that Scorpion Deathlock. He also hit one of the cleanest dragon screws you've ever seen, made even better by the fact it was a reversal to Kimura going for the leg lariat. I liked Kimura's scrappiness as well and you could tell he had a chip on his shoulder in '87. Although you maybe question whether that mean streak hampered his judgment because going for a top rope kneedrop with a bad wheel was probably a risk too great to be taking, especially against the king of the Scorpion Deathlock. Pretty much the ideal 12-minute midcard bout.