Revisiting 00s US Indies #43

ROH Manhattan Mayhem (5/7/05)

One thing I did not expect to want to do when I started going back through this stuff a few years ago (lockdown was a wild time), was sit down and watch a full Ring of Honour show. Full, in its entirety, from start to finish (in several sittings over the course of about five years). ROH holds fond memories for me and that '04-'07 peak will always have a special wee place in my heart, but my days of wanting to watch ANY 3-hour wrestling show in its entirety are really only reserved for 90s RINGS or WAR. But I watched the thing and it was not a terrible time whatsoever.  

Lacey's Angels v Dixie & Azrieal 

This was supposed to be a 3-way tag match where the losing team would be forced to disband. Quite a severe stipulation for a curtain-jerker, but this is ROH's debut in New York - even Jay-Z is in the building, apparently - so I guess we're pulling out all the stops. Before it starts the Carnage Crew run out and annihilate Dunn and Marcos and tell the crowd they can kiss their ass, then they spit on the Ring of Honor turnbuckle padding, then leave. So it becomes a regular tag match instead, though the stipulation remains. I'll be honest, it's been so long since I've watched anything involving any of these guys that I had no clue who was who for a while, and possibly still don't. Lacey's Angels are Izzy and Deranged and they come out to the ring wearing tuxedos (without Lacey, who has a business meeting with P. Diddy, which I'm sure she regrets deeply now), while Dixie and Azrieal are part of Special K, which is the stable/group/unit that Jay Lethal was once a part of (under the name Hydro). So there you go. Do with that information what you will. I figured this would be your standard sort of 2005 ROH opener fare, and it probably was in all honesty, but it totally did the trick in the same way any good opener from any promotion or any era should -- it got the crowd fired up and ended with an awkwardly brutal headscissors takeover-reverse rana thing that probably could've killed someone. Deranged was pretty amusing in this as a skinny maniac. He took some impressive bumps, did a bit of stooging, got into a shoving match with an even skinnier referee, hit his offence nicely, a real fun ten minutes' worth of work. Dixie - or maybe it was Azrieal; I know it was one of them - definitely comes from the Dynamite Kid line of stocky juniors who work very intense, as he slashes a thumb across his throat and shouts "IT'S OVER" before grabbing a rear waistlock on Deranged and rolling backwards into a camel clutch. That was done to set up a top rope double stomp that, unfortunately for our man Dixie, went horribly awry, as one of those other people involved in the match intervened and instead it was Dixie - or possibly Azrieal - who got double stomped on the back of the head. For a spot-a-thon opener this ticked pretty much all of the boxes. They did cool shit that looked like it might even hurt, they fit in an actual heat segment, the crowd were red hot and that finish was a proper finish. 

Colt Cabana v Nigel McGuinness 

I don't really have much use for either of these guys but for a WHIMSICAL lower midcard match this was fine, if maybe a little too cute at points. Cabana is very jovial and he's here to have a nice sporting contest. Nigel is less jovial but seems to be on board with the sporting contest. The Euro style matwork was all neat enough and they ran through it at a decent pace. Like, you can tell that both of them have been doing this for a while so even the more elaborate and tricky sequences come off smoothly. There's a bit of comedy in there, some light-hearted parity stuff, all-around acknowledgment of the other's prowess, but then Nigel visibly starts to get a little more frustrated. There are about six exchanges in a row where Nigel tries to tie Cabana down and Cabana escapes every time by literally crawling away, once while Nigel rode his back like Cabana was a Shetland pony. The next time Cabana tries to shoot in for a leg Nigel just boots him in the mouth, and in that moment we all live vicariously through Nigel McGuinness because who hasn't wanted to boot Colt Cabana in the mouth at least once? Things never get properly surly and the matwork stays pretty light right until the end, but I thought the finish was cool as an idea, even if they had to just up and redo it because they made an arse of it the first time. 

James Gibson v Black Tiger IV

This was fine. Black Tiger is Rocky Romero and I can't really say I've ever been arsed about anything involving Rocky Romero, but Gibson was on a hot streak in '05 and they both meshed pretty well. A lot of Tiger's offence in the first half of the match consisted of him grabbing a cravate and ramming Gibson's head into things, sometimes the turnbuckles, sometimes the ring post. That was pretty neat. I actually really dug the last few minutes, and the best part is that a move I thought was sort of stupid initially wound up being the thread that ran through the best bits. Tiger going to an ankle lock straight out of a tiger driver or something (I genuinely don't remember the move now) felt kind of silly initially, and I wouldn't even say I'm someone who's particularly tied to the idea that submission moves need a ton of limb-focused build up. Fujiwara never spent every match working the arm but when he grabbed that armbar you knew the people bought it. This just felt more along the lines of being flashy for the sake of being flashy. HOWEVER who really gives a shit anyway and Tiger kept going back to it and Gibson sold it really well and it had a by god payoff in the end so who are we to complain? Who has given us that right? A perfectly okay wrestling match, this was. 

Jimmy Jacobs & BJ Whitmer v Roderick Strong & Jack Evans 

I enjoyed this about as much as I possibly could've hoped for. There were some iffy moments, some bits of questionable selling, a few parts where something didn't come off great, but for the most part it was a pretty awesome blend of workrate and traditional tag. It followed a fairly linear shine-heat-finishing run template and each segment was strong on its own, and that finishing run never stuck around too long and ended with a man nearly impaling himself head first on the canvas so we certainly can't complain about an anti-climax. This was whimsical mini-Brody Jimmy Jacobs rather than stab you in the head with a railroad spike and drink your blood Jimmy Jacobs, but whimsical Jacobs is still fun and he'll bump wildly if called upon. His personality is infectious and nicely offsets the lack thereof brought by his partner. Whitmer isn't even someone I actively dislike, he's just one of the least interesting wrestlers ever. He was mostly here to hit cool offence and make it look good though, and in fairness it all had some impact behind it and I guess that's enough. Him and Strong also chopped each other hard so there's another thing that happened. The transition to Jacobs in peril was truly ludicrous, as Strong flips Evans off his shoulders into a moonsault double stomp while Jimmy is lying prone in the corner across the middle ropes. For a second you wonder how his spine wasn't mangled and I guess Gabe did as well because he shouted "DANGEROUSSSS!" and I can't even tell you the face I made. The doomsday contra code at the end was very ridiculous and Jack Evans is a screwball. What a fun wee match. 

Samoa Joe v Jay Lethal

I liked the story of this. They didn't necessarily thread it through a ton of the match, it was more backstory narrative that the commentators explained until I muted it when Gabe got to talking about something or other, but knowing what that backstory actually was accentuated some of the moments. Joe had taken Lethal under his wing a while back and taught him how to BE A MAN. Lethal is now ROH Pure Champion and wants to prove that he has not only BECOME A MAN but become his OWN man. So a play on teacher versus student when you boil it down. A few of the broader story points were fairly self-explanatory. Lethal has been Pure Champion for a couple months and is familiar with the rules and strictures of a Pure title match. Joe has never been in a Pure title match and takes a while to collar how best to operate within one. He gives up two rope breaks early because going to the ropes to break a hold is what he'd do in a regular match. Then he loses his third break by throwing two punches. The first warning is met with annoyance, probably at himself as much as the rule that you can't punch someone in a wrestling match. I liked the spot because it wasn't telegraphed for dramatic effect, he just threw one of his regular combos because he's been doing them for years. It was muscle memory as much as anything. Then he throws the second one and right away he knows he's fucked up, which was cool because it gave you the sense that he was absolutely taking Lethal seriously. As the match goes on it feels like Joe is the most likely to actually win, but Lethal understands the challenge a little better, and if nothing else can maybe manipulate Joe into shooting himself in the foot. Lethal beat Spanky on a previous show by using a rope-assisted submission (which Spanky couldn't break because he'd used up all his rope breaks). This time he locks in a choke while both guys are on the apron, using his legs to wrap the ropes and keep Joe pinned. So Joe bites the bullet and just hurls the both of them through a ringside table. The final transition was a little weak, with Joe kicking out of the dragon suplex and just reversing another attempt into his own string of offence, but the stretch run itself was pretty tight and they never went crazy so you take the good with the questionable. Maybe the best Jay Lethal match of them all. Do with that what you will. 

CM Punk v Jimmy Rave (Dog Collar Match) 

This was kind of long and drawn out as a match-angle segment, but the Punk/Rave feud has been fairly enjoyable on re-watch and I at least appreciated them keeping the match itself relatively short. Part of me was worried they'd go 30 so I was pleasantly surprised when they went like 14. Punk is obviously a huge Piper fan so you knew he'd have some gnarly stuff up his sleeve. Sure enough the point where Rave had the chain across Punk's mouth as he shoved his face into it with his boot was disgusting, but then he took it a step further and turned it into a chain-assisted curb stomp! It looked very brutal. They also didn't do anything overly flashy or INNOVATIVE and leaned into wrapping a chain around their fists and throwing punches, which of course I liked a lot. Punk taps a gusher and his blood-loss selling was pretty great, staggering across the ring to get at Nana only to be cut off when Rave yanks the chain up into his privates. This is building to a cage match in Chicago a week later so there's plenty of interference, I think in the end from every single person in the Embassy, so eventually the numbers catch up to Punk and Rave yet again stands victorious. I've watched this feud in smatterings over the past five years so it's not like much of it is fresh in the memory, but they've built Rave well over 2005 and overall it's been a really fun pairing. 

Austin Aries v Alex Shelley

Honestly, I keep waiting for the point where I'm over Austin Aries. I don't even really know why, maybe because he's a real-life shithead or whatever, but I always expect to go back and revisit something and think he maybe wasn't as good as I used to for a while there. He was my favourite guy in ROH when I was following in real time from around '05-08, then when I fell out of that loop he was someone I'd still check out from time to time if something caught my eye. When we did the PWO GWE project in 2016 he made my list (at #99) and then when I started going through this stuff again in 2020, everything with him in it held up great. Maybe at this point I should just embrace the fact he was kind of fucking awesome? I thought this was an excellent match and I thought Aries' performance was absolutely top banana. He was an offensive dynamo here. He's quite often an offensive dynamo, but what really impresses me isn't just that he a has LOT of offence. I mean he does have a lot of it and all of it looks great, with real snap and intensity and impact, but if you've bothered reading more than five entries of this stupid blog over the last 15 years then you'll probably gather that I don't really need a ton of varied offence in my pro wrestling to enjoy it. What I like most about Aries is how he uses all of that offence - his offensive REPERTOIRE, if you will - and builds compelling control segments and cut-offs and sure, at the end of the day some of it just looks badass as fuck. His work on Shelley's neck was tremendous - varied, targeted, focused, paced well, the lot. It was an awesome control segment and kind of brought to mind Eddie working over Rey in their Smackdown! match a month after this, albeit played to an audience that was looking for different things. The original transition was great, with Shelley being rocked and stood dazed by the ropes, Aries catching him with an amazing Randy Savage style clothesline, snapping Shelley's neck back over the ropes as Aries himself landed outside the ring. This was lightning quick, even faster than Savage and he LEAPT into this thing, almost making it a flying cutter/clothesline combo. He followed up with a brutal looking apron neckbreaker across the middle rope and to borrow another page from the Eddie Guerrero playbook, a hilo across the neck, rolling up and sprinting to the opposite ropes, hitting a flying kneedrop to the neck on the way back. The coolest part of the workover is that it actually felt organic, even when he was doing some complex stuff. It didn't look choreographed or mapped out to the letter. I guess you could call it innovative or whatever, but it was reactive rather than wanky and he did it in response to whatever the situation gave him. Those neckbreaker variations obviously looked great. The twisting one off the middle turnbuckle also made sense in the moment because it was a reaction to Shelley trying to superplex him. The snap neckbreaker onto his own knee is always a cool spot. He didn't just do it to be flashy though; it was used to cut Shelley off when he tried to run the ropes and build up momentum. His signature stuff was geared towards the neck as well, like the pendulum elbow while Shelley was on all fours, then later he grabbed him in a crossface and tried to twist his head around by fish hooking him (which would've fucking ruled no matter what). And then he has the brainbuster to set up the 450, so it all built back from his killshot. I liked this a ton. 

Samoa Joe & Jay Lethal v Low Ki & Homicide 

I watched both of the wild Joe/Lethal v Rottweilers matches from '05 about 12 years ago and thought they were just about the best tags to ever happen in an ROH ring. Unless the rematch from later in the year doesn't hold up then my opinion has not been SWAYED by the passage of time. This was a fantastic balls out sprint and the crowd were nuclear from the jump because it was impromptu. Homicide and Ki were a pair of maniac bastards here and tried to murder Jay Lethal several times. Lethal and Joe had already gone through their Pure Title WAR - skirmish at minimum - earlier in the show only to be jumped post-match by Ki and Homicide. So this is payback, but the promise of revenge can only carry you so far, as my great grandmother would always say, and pretty soon fatigue kicks in. When it does the Rottweilers isolate Lethal and get to the killing. Ki's tree of woe double stomp to Lethal's chest might be the craziest version of that move ever, and that includes the times he did it to Necro Butcher's face and willy. Joe coming in off the hot tag was molten but I love how even his adrenaline could only last so long. He ends up hanging between the ropes and Ki hits a double stomp to the back from the top rope with such force that he bounces himself all the way across to the opposite corner. It was like Joe was a trampoline. How they never honest to god killed Jay Lethal with that double stomp/Cop Killa combo is a mystery. A fucking absurdity of a thing, I'll tell you. These four should've had a dozen 10-minute matches that year. 

A whole lotta Buzz (Sawyer)

A few years ago, in preparation for the 2026 PWO Greatest Wrestler Ever project, I started running through every Buzz Sawyer match we have on tape. I did not get through everything nor will I ever, but I did write about stuff I never posted. You're all devastated, I'm sure. Well be devastated no longer. 

Buzz Sawyer v Tommy Rich (GCW, 1/28/82)

Pretty damn awesome studio match. It's supposed to be Rich against a ham n egger but Sawyer muscles his way in and Rich accepts the challenge. Flair - a few months into his first world title reign - is on commentary and says he's proud of Rich for actually accepting, but in a way where he's being fully condescending about it. Solie makes a comparison between Flair and Rich and Flair says "being not quite as good as the best of all time is no insult," but really it was an insult. Sawyer hits a scoop slam and an armdrag to start and really revels in it, self-congratulatory like he's actually done something. Rich comes back with a scoop slam and armdrag of his own, in much quicker succession than Sawyer hit his, then hits a second armdrag as Sawyer has to bail. Just good, simple, tried and true match-building. Rich works a headlock for most of this and it's a really strong headlock segment. Sawyer rolls out the ring and Rich keeps the headlock applied as he rolls out with him, drags him back in headlock still applied, Sawyer then jumps over the top rope, but Rich maintains that headlock and yanks him back in over the rope. When Sawyer finally comes back he does it with a big hip/butt attack that catches Rich in the face, and as Rich flies backwards out to the floor Sawyer takes the time to sell his own butt! The running KO spot at the end looked killer and I thought for sure it was going to result in a double knockout, but they both get back up and this really just felt like the opening stretch of what probably would've been an amazing arena match. One without a cage anyway.

Buzz Sawyer v Rusty Roberts (GCW, 2/13/82)

A merciless 4-minute mauling of our good man Rusty Roberts. Sawyer is just an awesome bully, cackling every time he inflicts some horrendousness on this gentleman. Hits an AMAZING dropkick and crushes Roberts with a top rope kneedrop/headbutt thing. Piper is on commentary here and now I'm very sad that we'll never see that Piper/Sawyer dog collar match from the Omni. OR maybe we will, if our boys and girls running the WWE Vault on youtube do us all a solid...

Buzz Sawyer & Dick Slater v The Fantastics (Mid-South 10/26/85)

This looks like the first competitive match Sawyer had since arriving in Mid-South. Nice 7-minute TV tag. If nothing else it convinced me that a Sawyer/Tommy Rogers singles match would rule. Buzz slaps him a couple times and Tommy pops him in the mouth so Buzz goes flying through the ropes with that amazing signature bump. They do two rope running sequences here that were perfect, particularly the one at the end culminating with Buzz absolutely drilling Rogers with a flying forearm that would bring a tear to Tito Santana's eye. Dark Journey has a kick at Bobby Fulton on the floor and Watts says "I'm sorry, I may sound like a chauvinist but I think a woman should be pretty and in the home" and at least he apologised ahead of time, I guess.

Buzz Sawyer v Hacksaw Duggan (Mid-South, 11/24/85)

We're JIP five minutes in here, which is quite frankly a travesty because this was another awesome Sawyer/Duggan brawl. When we join the action Duggan is lying on the floor with a freshly opened wound. Sawyer bites him in the forehead, spits what looks like a chunk of flesh in the air Pirata Morgan style, then CATCHES IT AGAIN IN HIS MOUTH! Truly gross. Sawyer applies a headlock at one point that's about as loose as a headlock could be. You could fit two heads in there. But fuck all that because Duggan's eventual comeback is of course phenomenal and I love how him biting Sawyer in the head is what leads to Buzz bleeding. This wasn't Duggan biting an already-opened cut, it was the biting that drew the blood, which is appropriately grizzly for these two. A whole bunch of incredible Duggan punches and more cussing as Sawyer crawls around with blood in his eyes. "Come on, you son of a bitch!" At one point Sawyer tried to leap on Duggan and bite him in the face and Duggan caught him in a bearhug. Things break down eventually like you knew they would and the post-match pull-apart is one of the best ever, with one Duggan punch flurry that was legitimately up there with any Lawler/Dundee combo you'll ever see. They roll around pulling hair and digging fingers in eyes and punching each other in the ear while half-dressed jabronis futilely try and separate them, three, four, five times to no avail. Just when it looks like they've managed it...Duggan leaps out the ring and they're back at it again. This is a perfect pro wrestling match up. 

Buzz Sawyer v Nick Patrick (Mid-South, 12/14/84)

More of an angle than a match, but Buzz Sawyer v future WCW/nWo referee Nick Patrick is a cool piece of history. Sawyer is pacing around like a nutjob pre-match, swinging a dog collar chain around, and I love how Boyd Pierce introduces him by saying, "SUPPOSED to be in the red corner, Mad Dog Buzz Sawyer." There was a Slater/Reed confrontation at the desk that bled into another Sawyer/Duggan brawl, though Sawyer was able to first eek out a win by hitting the powerslam on Patrick. 

Buzz Sawyer v Jake Roberts (Mid-South, 1/4/86)

Badass TV match. Sawyer was great here, really coming across as a vicious wee bastard. He backs Jake into the corner early and starts biting his midsection, then goes hurling into the ring post off a missed shoulder tackle in the corner. That sets up a nice run of Jake working the arm and Buzz is quick as always getting yanked into armdrags. When Buzz takes over he works the chinlock and uses the ropes for leverage, and I like how after he's caught and the ref' puts the count on him he uses that five count to PROPERLY lean into it, just to eek out that little extra juice before letting go. DQ finish might be somewhat unfortunate, but this was part of a TV title tournament - on TV, of course - so it's hardly unexpected. Really good stuff and a super fun Sawyer performance. 

Buzz & Brett Sawyer v Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Osamu Kido (New Japan, 1/2/87)

This is JIP, we only get about five minutes of it and it ends in a no contest, but we thank the footage gods that any Buzz Sawyer v Yoshiaki Fujiwara exists. Fujiwara headbutts him - and Brett, who he headbutted right in the face - and Sawyer chucks Fujiwara into the post and is mystified when Fujiwara merely stares at him in response. Kido is you mild-mannered fellow who wants a wrestling match and instead Buzz just bites him in the ear. 

Revisiting 00s US Indies #42

Low Ki v Xavier (Ladder Match) (ICW Last Stand at the Elk's, 6/30/01)

I thought this was shockingly good. If I've written about five ladder matches here in the last 10 years then I've mentioned five times that I'm pretty much over ladder matches as a concept, but I watched this because to hell with it and I certainly didn't regret it. I was a wee bit worried initially when Xavier set up a ladder across the ring apron and guardrail, because at that point naturally I'm thinking they're going the route more conducive to nonsense and less conducive to making it look like they're trying to actually win a match, but it didn't really veer too far into that and they grounded it with enough brutality to make it work. This happening a quarter-century ago is also sort of crazy because a lot of it wouldn't look out of place today. Those Hardys/Dudleys/Edge & Christian matches happened within the year prior to this, but what Ki and Xavier were doing here felt closer to something you'd see in 2025 rather than 2000. Innovative and all that. The big spots were wild, pretty much all of them landed on the money, and they only used two ladders the whole time and not one of them broke in half so all of those bumps must've SUCKED. Ki also kicked the living shit out of Xavier whenever he could. There's one part where Xavier is hanging upside down with his leg stuck between two ladder rungs and Ki is just teeing off on him with hellish roundhouse kicks. Xavier climbs the ladder and Ki almost yanks his trunks off trying to pull him down, but Xavier just keep trying to climb bare-arsed and Ki chops him as hard as humanly possible on the exposed buttocks. Pretty cool that they injected Shawn Michaels influences into things, I guess. Xavier's seated springboard moonsault to the floor was nuts and then the Ki Crusher off the ladder at the end was bonkers. I mean truly fucking bonkers. 

Rugged Ronnie versus The Snake!

Jake Roberts v Ron Garvin (GCW, 11/6/83)

This was a really nice 10 minutes. They didn't do a whole lot and there wasn't anything complex, but the way they approached everything, the way they injected character, especially Roberts, made what they did do feel important, like it truly mattered. I loved Jake in this. He comes across like a real slimeball, Snake by name, snake by nature. Even the way he takes bumps has a slithering quality to it, as does how he'll slink out the ring to regroup when he needs to. I've never personally seen a snake wind its way through a desert sand but I'm sure it moves just like Jake did here. I'd bet a goodly sum of money on it, in fact. The first five minutes were about him and Ellering trying to sucker Garvin into a mistake only for Ron to outsmart them and throw those hands of stone every time. The first shot he threw had Jake loopy and sure enough he slithered out the ring as soon as he could shake the cobwebs. When Jake takes over he goes to the armbar, nothing properly urgent, maybe more containment, but then there's the call for four minutes remaining and I love how he instantly upped the intent behind it. He even turned and held up four fingers as if to confirm, then wrenched on the hold upon receiving confirmation, grabbing Garvin's leg to turn the armbar into a sort of bow and arrow, reaching for the ropes for extra leverage. He knew time was short, he wanted to win the TV title and you bought him trying to actually force the issue. I liked the finish too, with Garvin pressing for the win himself and throwing punches, Jake huddled up in the corner, then as the ref' tries to move Garvin back Jake undoes the tag rope and uses it to clothesline Garvin in the throat. And Jake's DDT never did look anything short of sensational. 

Jake Roberts v Ron Garvin (GCW, 12/17/83)

This was quality too. It was rugged as fuck, which I guess makes sense with Garvin in there. When he goes after Jake's arm early he throws a bunch of neat and nasty little wrinkles in, like barring that arm while stomping on the fingers of Jake's free hand. Jake's attempts at shaking Garvin or taking him down feel less like something you'd see in a wrestling match and more like what someone might do in a street fight. There was nothing scientific about it, sometimes he'd just try and grab Garvin and drag him to the mat or kick him away. When Jake eventually takes over he works the leg and Garvin shows great desperation at trying to avoid all of that. It was super gritty stuff and a lot of it had a nice sense that it was not cooperative. It was something you'd see Ian Rotten do in a cage match in front of 72 people 20 years later. There was a point where Jake took Garvin's leg, wrapped it around the bottom rope and started yanking at it in really ugly fashion so Garvin just headbutted him in the face. The finish seemed kind of whiffed or mistimed, but nothing major and they at least got across the point that Ellering on the floor would interfere when possible. 

Lord Knows Piper's a Mess Sometimes, He Struggles to Keep it Clean. One Minute He's Walking a Thin Straight Line, then He'll Fall Right off the Beam

Roddy Piper & Rick Martel v The Sheepherders (Portland, 5/3/80) - GREAT

The long 2/3 falls Portland TV main event is a beautiful thing. This got about half an hour to build and like many a Roddy Piper tag in Portland, it gave us a look at him working a long traditional tag match where he took up several roles over the course of it. The first fall was basically 10 minutes of Piper and Martel trying to tear off Luke Williams' arm. They made quick tags, sometimes legal and sometimes phantom, and the people ate it up while Miller on the apron and Rose on the floor lost their mind. Martel would jump into the ring with stomps to the shoulder and Piper would bar the arm and take Williams down over and over again. When it looked like Williams would finally make it to the corner either Piper or Martel would do something to distract Miller yet again and before they knew it the chance was gone. In the end Williams couldn't take any more and submitted! I mean, it makes sense that he would, given the punishment he'd endured and in theory the idea that he and his partner still have two falls to win, but it was nice surprise either way. Plus it made Piper and Martel look like a well-oiled machine. I loved Williams coming out for the second fall with the arm bandaged up, just to put over what he'd sustained already. Obviously the Sheepherders - and Rose who's skulking about on the floor - won't be denied forever and in the last couple falls we get a bit of Martel in peril AND a bit of Piper in peril. Both those guys are two of the best babyfaces ever so getting to see them sell and EMOTE while the other chomps at the bit to get in there was great. I've said it a hunner thousand times but Piper's energy is damn near unparalleled and so is his scrappiness and TENACITY and whatever else. He was so fucking good, brothers and sisters. This might not even be a top 10 Portland match of the year, you know. 

Complete & Accurate Hot Rod

The Funker in Puerto Rico

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Complete & Accurate Tenryu

The King and The Superstar - The '86 Iteration

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brody rumbles into Memphis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mid-South Project

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

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

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

Mid-South Project

Ohtani v Murakami II

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

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

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

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

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

Complete & Accurate Hot Rod

Fujiwara v Super Tiger - The Third Instalment

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

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

A couple '85 Devil Masami matches

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

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

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

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

Murakami and Ohtani VIOLENCE!!

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

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

The very best Fujiwara v Super Tiger?

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

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

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

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

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

Complete & Accurate Tenryu

Yoshida and Aja! Two pensioners in a junkyard!

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

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

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

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

Vader v Sid!

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

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

The Hacksaw and the Headhunter (part 2)

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

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

The Hacksaw and the Headhunter (part 1)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Juvi and Rey Bring the Thunder!

Rey Misterio Jr. v Juventud Guerrera (WCW Thunder, 1/15/98)

What a Juvi performance. It's actually been ages since I've watched any masked Juventud and even longer since I've watched any in WCW, but this was him working hyper aggressive and I guess I forgot how fun this pairing actually is. After an early Rey flurry and a plancha, Juvi takes over and basically doesn't relent for the whole eight minutes that follows. The transition was bonkers, with Rey getting catapulted to the floor and Juvi crushing him with a tope suicida, practically landing fully vertical and headbutting Rey in the face. We one and all choose to replay it half a dozen times. Juvi is an offensive machine from here, hitting a huge brainbuster, a legdrop from inside the ring to the floor, a HUGER powerbomb, cutting Rey off in really nasty and interesting ways. My favourite part might've been his Masato Tanaka-style sliding elbow outside the ring as Rey tried to sit up. Both of them even got surly as a bastard with the striking, everything was paced well, it had a nice story of Juvi being one step ahead of Rey, and then the finish was great with Rey just being too dynamic to be shut down completely. This was just about a perfect 10-minute B Show title match. I hope they fly in Michael Buffer for the rematch.