Flair v Nikita

Ric Flair v Nikita Koloff (JCP, 1/4/87)

I liked this a lot. I guess it's unfair to look at it this way, but at this point I sort of judge a Flair match based on how fresh it felt as opposed to how good it might actually have been. Or you know, something like that. As an example, I watched the Flair/Windham match from Battle of the Belts '86 a few months ago and I sat there thinking it was good and all but I'd kind of seen it a hundred times before. And look, this match was not something particularly unique. By '87 Flair wasn't really about to have a clean wrestling match where he starts out sporting the way he might've a few years earlier against Butch Reed in Mid-South, and this pretty much followed the broad template of that except Flair was a rampant shithead from the start. He didn't slowly go off the rails and start cheating. He was never on them to begin with and he never even feigned scrupulousness. You could probably call most of the momentum swings and major story beats and yet...it felt different enough overall that it stood out. Maybe the structure just worked for me. You knew Nikita was going to walk tall in the early stages and Flair wanted no part of it. I think he'd begged off twice by the 5-minute call. He got Nikita in the corner and threw a chop, Nikita slowly shook his head to demonstrate his IMPERVIOUSNESS and Flair just dipped out immediately. He did that at several points, another time when Nikita ran through him and pointed at his sickle arm. Eventually Nikita got fed up enough that he went out after him and clotheslined the post. Accidentally, I assume. Flair's work on it was brief but good stuff and I like how he was for using the ropes any chance he got. He had holds applied close to them often enough that I'm thinking they made a point of playing that up, how badly Flair needed whatever advantage he could get against Nikita. I liked Nikita's selling of it as well, letting the arm dangle low as if the shoulder had popped out and using his other hand to hit what was basically a running chokeslam. Nikita making his comeback by just throwing Flair shoulder-first into the turnbuckles was cool and led to some revenge arm work. In the back half Nikita gets busted open and Flair working the cut was another great if brief little segment. When he went for the running kneedrop and Nikita caught his leg I figured they were going for the route of Flair having his own hold put on him a little earlier than usual, but Flair countering it by just clawing Nikita's eyes ruled. Of course Nikita puts it on him eventually but I like that they teased it first, then let Flair get properly frantic after being busted open himself, before Nikita locked it in later. They had me biting on the roll-up in the corner with Flair's feet on the ropes because I was certain that was how they were for ending it, especially after Flair had just narrowly avoided being pinned with the sickle by rolling his foot under the rope. In the end he got DQd for chucking Nikita out the ring and in doing so might've came off tougher than had he won through shenanigans. This was really good, you know. 

Lawler v Bam Bam - a Texas Death Match Classic

Jerry Lawler v Bam Bam Bigelow (Texas Death Match) (Memphis, 9/7/86)

It's been almost 17 years since I last watched this. I guess I forgot just how good it was because I came away from it this time thinking it might be THE Jerry Lawler masterpiece. Maybe not his best MATCH - although a phenomenal one all the same - but his performance in it is about as good as any I've ever seen. It wasn't a carry job by any stretch and I'll talk about Bigelow in a minute, because he was amazing here too. The King was mesmerizing, though. The way he sold all of Bigelow's shots, the way he showed hesitancy and how cautious he was in engaging with Bam Bam, the way he communicated the STRUGGLE of going up against this guy, it was exceptional. Lawler's start was cagey, maybe because he knew deep down that he was indeed a slow starter and if he let Bigelow build up steam early it was over. So he picked his moments and his weapon of choice was the jab. Those shots stung more than anything, certainly not enough to put Bigelow down, but they clearly annoyed him and maybe Lawler was using them to goad the big fella into something. When it goes to the floor Lawler finds himself up against the ring post - perhaps through happenstance, perhaps through strategy - and when Bam Bam throws a punch Lawler ducks and Bigelow cracks the post. When they get back in the ring Lawler offers up a test of strength and I love how Bigelow really wanted to go for it, probably because he knew he'd win it without much trouble, but that's with two hands and he only had one good one at that point. Eventually he bites anyway, shielding that bad hand as long as possible. Then Lawler dotted him with a hook like you and I and probably even Bigelow always figured. And really this was an amazing Bam Bam performance. He'd been wrestling for all of 13 months so it would hardly be unfair to suggest Lawler was leading this, but it wasn't Lawler throwing all of Bigelow's shots for him and it wasn't Lawler bumping around for his own punches. Going through the '86 Crockett footage I've said about a dozen times that Magnum TA looked like the future of the business, but Bigelow looked absolutely spectacular here and there's a universe where he stays in Memphis another few years and Magnum never gets into the car accident and Magnum v Bam Bam for the world title headlines Starrcade '89. After Lawler duped him into the test of strength Bigelow obviously decided he wasn't about to get popped in the mouth again and from there he went to the headbutts. These were like the Ted DiBiase fist drops of falling headbutts, just crushing Lawler's ribcage with every blow. Sometimes he'd jump into them and those ones looked even nastier. His punches to the gut looked awesome too, lifting Lawler fully off the ground like he was trying to punch a hole through him. He never forgot about that bad hand either. Even though he threw body shots with it, punches to the belly are not the same as punches to the skull, and when he lamped Lawler with a haymaker to the jaw late on he immediately sold the hand. Despite losing several falls Lawler won't stay down, and you can see Bigelow start to tire the longer it goes. In the last third of the match he just lay on Lawler with a sleeper hold that was more rear naked choke, really grinding Lawler down with his weight while preserving as much energy as possible for another rally. When Lawler gets cut open Bigelow even applies the Iron Claw and starts biting the cut so that was another awesome thing in this match. Even before Lawler makes the big comeback Bigelow is visibly gassed, throwing his hands up in frustration and sagging against the ropes as Lawler beats yet another 10-count, and then when he does rip the strap down you wonder if getting beaten from pillar to post wasn't part of the plan. Maybe he'd survived long enough for Bigelow to punch himself out. A truly exceptional match and one of the very best of the decade. 

Going through some 1987 footage

Chigusa Nagayo & Lioness Asuka v Yumi Ogura & Kazue Nagahori (AJW, 1/4/87)

This wasn't entirely for me. There were things that I thought they did well, certainly. I liked the escalation as it went, with the bigger moves coming later and not being thrown out early. Chigusa and Asuka were obviously the favourites and top dogs and they acted like it, never really being flustered or coming at things too HASTILY. Chigusa adopted a sort of martial arts stance at one point and started bouncing on the balls of her feet and it was very minor but very badass. The crowd of course lived and died with everything she did, to a quite frankly absurd degree. Ogura and Nagahori were the very opposite of not hasty and they knew they needed the full court press. They were quick to come to each other's aid when they looked in danger, whereas the Crush Gals were mostly fine to let the other extricate themselves from any predicament. The only time in the opening third I remember one of them coming in to break something up was when Asuka kicked Nagahori in the spine when she had Chigusa in a kneebar, but there wasn't much mustard behind it and she never followed up when Nagahori didn't let go immediately. Chigusa had things well enough in hand and Asuka knew it. They cut a hell of a pace as well, but there wasn't a real story hook for me to latch onto the longer it went. Even though they never worked even there was a fair amount of parity and I'll sometimes struggle to stay engaged with this much back and forth. If there was some interpromotional heat or searing hatred or even just a bit of mild distaste then maybe it would've been different, but there was clearly respect between both teams at the end of the day and that's less appealing. The commentators grimacing at the sheer crowd volume pre-match was kind of wild when you think about it. The Crush Gals were perhaps somewhat over?

Dick Murdoch & Tim Horner v Rick Rude & Manny Fernandez (JCP, 1/4/87)

House show footage and a bit clipped up (we miss around six minutes of the 20) but it wasn't hard to get the gist of it. Really I wanted to see this for the Murdoch v Rude parts; a dream match I'd never even thought about before. So I was happy when Murdoch hit an atomic drop and Rude crumpled holding his keister. Horner was in for most of it and played FIP twice. Early on he did this amazing twisting flip over Rude's back when the latter went for a back body drop. Then later Rude went for a dropkick that I think Horner was supposed to avoid but instead he walked face first into it and Rude landed on his own neck. Rude must've been watching Flair work the main on these shows because he got up and simply redid the spot the way it was supposed to be done immediately afterwards. Murdoch hits a first drop to Rude and someone in the crowd proclaims that "Murdoch ain't playin' now" and no I can assure you he is not. He held Manny in a full nelson at one point so Horner could crack him a few times while the ref' was distracted and Horner was almost adorable in how he threw one body shot from the apron and stopped. Murdoch just kept Manny there so Horner had no choice but to dirty his hands further. I guess that's what you get for hanging around with Dick Murdoch. I'd like to see this in full so maybe one day the WWE Vault people release it and sixty three of us watch it and talk about it on the twitter. 

Savage v Bruno in Boston! Hogan v Mr. Wonderful in the cage!

Randy Savage v Bruno Sammartino (WWF, 1/3/87)

Hard to ask for much more out of the Macho Man v the Living Legend for six minutes in 1987. Bruno's stomps and forearm strikes just drip with energy and Savage's bumping and stooging is electric so obviously this worked a treat. Savage tries to hide behind Elizabeth at the start until Bruno grabs him by the hair and rams him head-first into the buckles so for the next couple minutes Savage tries to hightail it out of there. Each attempt is unsuccessful as Bruno will not RELENT and Savage almost gets his trunks yanked off and of course the crowd eats it up completely. The Boston Garden still loves Bruno and it's not difficult to understand why he was a megastar in the Northeast for like 15 years. Eventually Savage uses Liz as enough of a distraction to knee Bruno in the kidneys and Lord Al on commentary is convinced Elizabeth is shown too much sympathy from the public. She's in on the whole thing and knows what she's doing, by god. Savage is frantic energy, hitting axe handles off the top to the floor and Bruno's old legend who is now an old man selling is great. He's never beaten but at any moment he might just be broken. Savage wellying Bruno in the back with a chair not being called by Marella is interesting and Bruno was well within his rights to be apoplectic afterwards at losing by count out. Maybe Monsoon was right about his adopted son's incompetence all along.

Hulk Hogan v Paul Orndorff (Cage Match) (WWF Saturday Night's Main Event, 1/3/87)

Really fun WWF-style cage match. It started great with Hogan ripping the shirt off as he climbs over the cage into the ring only to be jumped by Orndorff. There are obviously allowances you have to afford the wrestlers when it comes to these escape the cage rules, but I thought they mostly worked around the inherent limitations well and if nothing else they used them to their advantage by cutting a quick pace. Orndorff had Hogan rocked from the start, whipping him with the title belt and immediately trying to escape out the door. Makes sense because why wouldn't you walk out the door as soon as you could? Hogan cut him off a couple times so Orndorff must've figured that wasn't for working and instead tried climbing up and over in the opposite corner. Seems sensible enough. Hogan regrouping and dragging Orndorff back in, slamming his head off the cage repeatedly while he was upside down, was a great transition spot and Jesse's call is perfect - "Hogan would've lost the title if Mr. Wonderful was bald!" Hogan even uses his own discarded bandana to choke Orndorff, much to Jesse's disgust. If the match ended after the stereo escapes it would've been a nice cage match sprint, but the restart allowed it to build some more and gave Orndorff a chance to run up some proper heat on Hogan. Orndorff's falling elbows and stomps are always exceptional and that was no different here. There was also a cool double head knock into the cage that served as a reset of sorts, which was a neat choice structurally. Orndorff even gets a bit of colour on network TV and then post-match Heenan takes three absolutely world class bumps. I'm a fan of Orndorff so I kind of like how he never lost this feud decisively, only being defeated in the end by not escaping a cage quick enough and even then with the argument that he should've been declared the winner before it got to that point. I don't actually remember what he ends up doing the rest of the year and by early '88 he's gone from the company entirely. It was a hell of a four-year run, though. 

It's a Reoccurring Memory, Familiar Old Refrain. If Tenryu had Been Born a Hundred Years Ago, this Bus Would be a Train

Genichiro Tenryu & Great Kabuki v George Takano & Shunji Nakano (SWS, 10/18/90) - GREAT

This was the finals of a one-night tag tournament, either for title belts or a wealth of prestige, perhaps both. Tenryu and Kabuki made quick work of a Bob Orton/Jeff Jarrett team earlier in the night while Takano and Nakano had to go through Takagi and Yatsu in the match immediately preceding this one. So you'd think the advantage would be with the team of Tenryu and Kabuki; even more so than simply by virtue of the fact that team has Tenryu and the other team does not. The cool thing about these early SWS shows with the match timer in the bottom corner is that it lets you see exactly how long it takes for Tenryu to come in and kick someone in the face unprompted (it was one minute and 31 seconds on the dot). Kabuki hasn't bothered repainting his face after the earlier match and my world has been shaken but he will still thrust kick someone straight under the chin. And this was largely a stomping from Tenryu and Kabuki, the young lads floundering and trying to stay afloat, swimming upstream while getting some shots in sporadically. It was a pretty awesome underdog performance from both of them and they really made those shots count when they threw them, hitting some killer dropkicks and high knees as hope spots with Tenryu taking all of them clean in the face. Then with every shotgun blast Tenryu receives he comes back meaner and more aggressive than before and it leads to several instances of someone getting punted in the spine. Nakano must've picked up a knee injury in the semi-finals because it's taped up here and targeted in the back half. As the match goes on the crowd get properly behind the underdogs and they do not like it when Kabuki comes in to break up pins and the like. At one point he walked over and just stomped on Nakano's knee to major heat. Tenryu eating a pin off the German suplex must've been a shock at the time. Maybe he saw where All Japan were going with Misawa and the boys and he wanted his own Jumbo passing the torch moment. You can see why he'd want that because the SWS roster was not particularly deep and the hierarchal gap between Tenryu and the rest was substantial. We'll see how Takano progresses from here and perhaps one day we'll be talking about him like we do Misawa. 

Genichiro Tenryu & The Undertaker v Yokozuna & Bam Bam Bigelow (WWF, 5/7/94) - FUN

This started great and I wondered if we were going to get some big SPECTACLE wrestling. Undertaker is what Undertaker is but the crowd were into him and his zombie shtick so I figured he and Tenryu could make for a fun pairing. The first few minutes were the best and after that it kind of meandered at points, but Yoko and Bigelow working over Tenryu for a stretch was decent enough. If nothing else it made me interested in a Tenryu/Bigelow singles match. Some of the Fuji interference stuff towards the end dragged on for an age and Hebner really should've been taken to task by whatever governing body the referees had. If this was the English FA he'd have been given a STERN talking to about something or other. 

Complete & Accurate Tenryu