Man this was some PREMIUM 70s pro wrestling. Dory Funk Jr is a guy I'm neither here nor there on; someone I don't find hugely exciting who at the same time has some fairly spectacular stuff to his name, or at the very least is involved in some fairly spectacular stuff. He tried to murder Abdullah the Butcher one time with a fork and it was basically transcendent. The story you always heard about Dory was that he was a grappler, laser-focused, calculating, cold. Terry was the bombastic brother, the colossal personality, the showman who also just happened to be amazing at basically every facet of pro wrestling that matters. Dory's headlock was better though (but not really). Whether you connect with Dory like that or not is a conversation between you and the mirror. And I'm not saying this was the ultimate Dory Funk Jr. performance, the one that might make it all click, the one where you see the master technician you've always heard about, but it WAS an awesome match and it might just be MY favourite Dory performance (or at least favourite that doesn't involve him trying to saw the Sheik's arm off with a butter knife). This was almost a story of Hoffman having to be as aggressive as possible while Dory was grinding him down, patient and methodical. The problem for Hoffman is that he doesn't necessarily get a ton of openings to BE aggressive. He has to be the aggressor to create them then has to be even more front-footed to keep them. Even before Dory put the clamps on him though Hoffman was willing to knee him in the back of the head, which was sort of unexpected but awesome all the same. The pacing of the match was very peak and valley with lots of short bursts of Hoffman's aggression followed by longer spells of Dory wearing him down, often leading to stalemates. If you'd told me beforehand that that's how it would go I'd pretty likely have wished for the dynamic to be flipped, but Dory was excellent in control and I found everything he did to be super engaging. In the first half Dory's weapon of choice was the cravate and it was legit some of the best cravate work I've ever seen. It was obviously as snug as you'd expect, really wrenched in and cranked at nasty angles, and for every creative attempt Hoffman had at getting out of it Dory was equally creative in yanking him back into it. I especially loved all of the bridge work while keeping hold of the cravate, snapmaring Hoffman back to the mat every time the latter came close to getting up to his feet. Hoffman was visibly starting to get frustrated and at points it led to them teeing off on each other with some incredible forearms, the real old-timer bazookas with hardly any back lift and even less daylight. Like a true psychopath Dory showed absolutely zero emotion afterwards and about 30 seconds later he'd have Hoffman back in that cravate. When he couldn't manage to hook that he'd improvise, one time just grabbing Hoffman in a bodyscissors and squeezing as hard as he could. Hoffman picking him up as Dory's legs were wrapped around his waist and drilling him with an elbow was an unreal counter, and it stung Dory enough that he decided not to persist with the bodyscissors like he did with the cravate. Dory was unperturbed the whole way though and really carried himself the way someone who'd been the champion of the world might. Even when Hoffman could capitalise on those rare openings - like he did with rapid butterfly and Saito suplex variations - Dory inevitably had the answer and Hoffman could never sustain momentum. Dory just smothered him and as soon as Hoffman was a little too hasty rolling out of a supine armbar, he got caught in something worse that he couldn't roll out of. You got the sense Dory was ready the entire match with a counter for any counter, and even if Hoffman had an answer for nine of the questions it was the tenth that stumped him. This was killer and as pure an example of Dory the ice-cold strategist as I've seen.
No comments:
Post a Comment