The Horsemen

I've bought lots wrestling footage over the years. Like, a stupidly fucking needless amount considering I'll never manage to watch it all. The multi-disc comp game sadly seems to be dying (still hoping against hope for someone to make a 70 disc Tenryu set), but now and then I'll fling money at someone for bootleg wrestling DVDs and they'll end up sitting in a drawer somewhere because I have no room for them and I'll forget I even have them. I obviously did that with goodhelmet's 4 Horsemen comp because I found that in an unopened parcel a couple weeks back. How long it had been there I can't say. I honestly had no memory of even purchasing it, so it was a pretty awesome surprise to run across it. I've been slowly going through it (which started me on this recent Crockett kick) rather than doing the stupid amount of work I should be doing instead, so I'll probably write about some things for a while.


Arn & Ole Anderson v Dusty Rhodes & Magnum TA (JCP, 7/21/85)

This is from a big Omni show with Flair/Nikita on top and is the best match I've watched so far. It got plenty of time and was really good. One thing this footage lets you do is track the progress of Arn, who'd only been wrestling a couple years by the start of the set (March '85). He was a super fun stooge machine already and had amusing shtick even if he wasn't nearly as good at integrating it yet, but his offence was pretty basic for the most part. When I did those Double A of the Days years ago I must've mentioned his awesome stomps a hundred times. His stomps in 1985 were nothing like those and looked real flimsy, but you can tell where he picked up the ones he'd use eventually because man does Ole have great stomps. Maybe I've way undersold Ole through the years. He's been a great promo so far and always did look the part as a surly bastard, but I don't know if I've seen that translate in the ring better than it did here. The heat segment was on Magnum and Ole was hammerlocking the arm then stomping on the elbow and shoulder joint, really leaning into the hammerlock by pushing his legs way up for leverage, doing the hammerlock body slam which is one of the great arm work spots. He brought lots of neat little touches as well, like making sure to stand in front of Magnum so he couldn't tag as Arn cut him off. And he stooged and bumped well for all of the early shine, even if he wasn't quite as loud with it as Arn. The early babyface control period was decent enough, though it maybe went on a bit long. Magnum and Dusty work the leg of both Andersons and it was plenty energetic, but it wasn't until the heel workover that I thought it really picked up. Finish itself was kind of rubbish, but the set up was cool. Dusty obviously comes in hot and he throws Ole into the turnbuckle, but Magnum is still lying there in the corner so he gets knocked to the floor. Ole follows him out and posts him, while in the ring Dusty goes back to Arn's leg as a set up for the figure-four (the leg work mostly gets forgotten about after the shine segment, but I liked the callback either way). Ole comes off the top to break it up, match gets thrown out and the Andersons start a mugging on Dusty. Really good stuff.


Ric Flair v Nikita Koloff (JCP, 7/21/85)

I had no real recollection of this feud at all. I'd probably read about it because I've spent the last fifteen years dicking about on wrestling message boards talking about Flair to the point where I can no longer be bothered to, but I don't know if I've ever actually seen anything from it. Have I seen *a* Flair v Nikita match? Probably. But this feud from the middle of 1985 is almost squirreled away in a lesser-discussed corner of Ric Flair's career. Nobody seems to bring it up and yet it's totally awesome. The angle that kicked it off rules, with Nikita giving David Crockett the Russian Sickle on TV after Crockett besmirched Mother Russia or whatever. Flair and Crockett might have different ideologies but they survived a fucking plane crash together so there's a bond there. Flair is still sort of feuding with Magnum TA around this point so he doesn't necessarily do a full turn (as an aside, Crockett's overall booking in '85 is so great), but when it comes to the Russians he's in full babyface mode. Some of his shouty promos on TV where he's tearing off shirt jackets and ties are wild and awesome. I also watched their Great American Bash match in clip form and it looked really fun, so I was pretty hyped for this. I don't usually get hyped for Flair footage anymore, but babyface Flair is about as close to an untapped well as you'll get with him at this stage and everything leading up to it had been great. And I thought this match was shit hot. It started out with Nikita chucking Flair across the ring off of tie-ups, and maybe I'm full of shit but it felt like Flair reacted to this a little differently than he would if it was babyface Luger or Reed or Road Warrior Hawk in there with him. Babyface Flair doesn't tend to work a great deal differently from heel Flair. It's not a knock and he changes it up enough that you notice (probably), but now and then he'll slip into habit and beg off or grab the tights before remembering he's not supposed to be that guy tonight. This time he never sold it like humiliation, it was more determination. He was resolute and he already knew Nikita had him beat for strength anyway. When they tie up a third time Nikita tries to launch him again, but this time Flair quickly steps out the way and Nikita's momentum lands him on his face. Flair strutting and preening and wooing was pretty damn wonderful and right then and there he had me exactly where he wanted me. Match wasn't that long, probably only around twenty minutes, and Flair spent most of it on the back foot. His bursts of offence were full of fire, though. The chops landed like they always land and there was a real sense of the underdog about them. Nikita working the bearhug wasn't the most compelling and Flair fighting to get out of it wasn't Ronda Rousey level, but it gave us a couple moments where the back prevented him from doing something even if you'd have liked it to matter a little more in the macro sense. Flair of course bled and I loved Nikita biting the cut and spitting the blood Pirata Morgan style (because I will never not love that in a million years). I think they tried to pay that off later with a revenge posting and Nikita blade job, except the blood never really got flowing so Flair started throwing nasty little rabbit punches to precipitate things. We also got some Flair stock spots with a babyface twist, and it's cool seeing him go upside down in the corner, run along to the adjacent turnbuckle and actually hit a move off the top, rather than use it as a set up for getting thrown off just because it's something he likes to do. The finish probably wasn't surprising to anyone, but the way Schiavone was talking on commentary I'm guessing they're building to a cage match down the line. If that's the case I'm definitely in, because this was fun as fuck and right now it's probably the most I've enjoyed Flair in about eight years. And who says buying bootleg wrestling DVDs is a waste of time?