Gilbert Leduc! The Headsman of Bethune! A very different sort of French Catch!

Gilbert Leduc v Le Bourreau de Bethune (French Catch, 2/5/59)

Well this was very different to everything I've watched so far. It's my first look at Gilbert Leduc, a guy who pops up frequently in this footage. It's also my first look at the Headsman of Bethune! And apparently my last because he doesn't seem to show up again after this. Le Bourreau is a tall stocky guy in a mask, barrel-chested, thick of forearm, an imposing figure that almost dwarfs Leduc (who was 5'10", so hardly a smout). This wasn't an outright squash, but by the end it felt like Leduc had been demolished. Leduc would try and work some wristlocks and armbars, all really swank stuff that has me excited to check out more of him in a regular match. But the Headsman was having very little of it at the best of times and absolutely none of it at the worst of them. He would power out of those armbars and get back to a base unscathed, then when it looked like Leduc might have one sunk in good le Bourreau would just cheat and rip away the advantage. The best example of the latter came when le Bourreau grabbed a handful of Leduc's hair, the sort of blatant cheating I haven't really seen in this footage so far, and the crowd jeers and hisses immediately. It was amazing heatseeking, the way they built to the moment where it looked like Leduc might've put a crack in the armour. Early on Leduc spun out of a headscissor, literally by spinning on his head, possibly a signature spot judging by a) the way the crowd reacted, and b) the way he tried to do it several more times throughout the match. The problem was that he managed it that first time and never again. Whenever he did try it later le Bourreau would just clamp him in place and Leduc would end up cranking his own neck, his body spinning one way while his head went nowhere. Le Bourreau absolutely killing him with a gorilla press slam gutbuster was wild as fuck. You can imagine Rush doing it today and it looking devastating, imagine seeing this thing in fucking 1959! Leduc's selling going into the second fall was perfect, and le Bourreau hitting the same gutbuster for the two straight falls victory must've been astonishing for those in attendance. It's a shame that this is all the Bourreau we have, because seeing someone potentially conquer him would've been amazing.

A Superbowl Sunday fulla Captain Redneck

Dick Murdoch & Stan Hansen v Killer Khan & Tiger Toguchi (New Japan, 11/20/81)

The West Texas Wranglers! The Waxahachie-Borger Connection! Is the 12-year tag team we would've gotten if the world was a just place. Murdoch in the waistcoat and cowboy hat pre-match! There's a kind of "two ships passing in the night" feeling with Murdoch and Hansen, considering Murdoch had just jumped to New Japan from All Japan and Hansen would jump the other way in a matter of weeks. I don't think I've ever seen them actually match up either. It probably would've been good maybe. This was mostly standard stuff from all involved, but pretty much every interaction is fun and unique. Murdoch and Toguchi had a really nice under the radar WAR-style potatofest a couple months prior and they pick up some of that here, albeit briefly. Murdoch/Khan is a hoot just for Murdoch selling Khan's chops and wild shrieking. At one point Murdoch shouts "knee, Stan!" and Hansen, from the corner, raises a knee for Murdoch to ram Khan into. A well-oiled machine. Redneck chemistry in action. Toguchi mostly got clobbered as you'd expect but when it's Hansen and Murdoch doing the clobbering you know it works. The lariat off the apron also worked. Or at least it worked for us, the gentle spectators. Toguchi may have a different view. I also have no idea if Borger is even in west Texas. 

Dick Murdoch & Masked Superstar v Al Perez & Brett Sawyer (Mid-South TV, 1/25/86)

Nice heated TV tag. A couple short heat segments, a red hot studio crowd, Perez and Sawyer being the canvas for Murdoch to display his art. He had some amazing slow motion pratfalls, followed by close-ups of him checking for teeth in a mouth that's already missing several of them. Perez and Sawyer brought plenty of energy and that was about all I was asking for. Perez bumps Murdoch around with some nice headscissor takeovers, then goes for one too close to the heel corner and Superstar grabs Perez while he's up on Murdoch's shoulders and splats him off the turnbuckle. Murdoch deciding he's had enough and braining Sawyer with a chair at the end was very great. He was top 5 in the world that year. Maybe top 3. 

Dick Murdoch v Nikita Koloff (World Championship Wrestling, 1/16/88)

A good old fashioned donnybrook! How do I have no memory of Cornette bringing in Murdoch as a hired gun for the Midnight Express? This was around the point where Dusty and Nikita were a team and Murdoch's main goal is to take out his old partner, but tonight he gets the chance to take a run at his old partner's new partner. Murdoch was amazing from the start here, being backed into the corner by Nikita and slinking almost to the floor like a coward as Nikita threatened to hammer him. I know some folk get irked by Murdoch acting the fool basically every time out, edging a little too far towards comedy when the situation may not call for it, but I thought he was perfect here, with his stooging, his cartoony selling on things without going full goofball, and when it was time to get vicious you better believe he got vicious. There was a bit of both early on where he was slamming Nikita into the corner, really whipping his neck back against the turnbuckles, then when Nikita reverses it and pays him in kind Murdoch's sell of the buckle shots is incredible, looking at Nikita wide-eyed for some mercy. When Murdoch takes over he works the arm, cranking a mean armbar, draping it over the apron and dropping his elbow into the bicep, straightening it out on the mat and standing on the hand so he can freely stomp the shoulder joint. It was some real scowling Ole Anderson shit, simple but unquestionably nasty. At one point he also just up and bit Nikita in the face! Nikita spends most of this on the defensive but he fires back with a few big strikes as hope spots. Of course Murdoch sells them all amazingly, getting caught with a big boot, staggering backwards holding his jaw in place, buckling over and falling face first as slowly as physics will allow, butt sticking up in the air. The last five minutes are a scramble to the finish with Murdoch trying to put Nikita away and win the TV title before time expires. Usually you'd have your babyface fighting the clock late, but this time Nikita accidentally clocks Tommy Young with a Sickle and in the aftermath Cornette whacks him with the tennis racket. So it's babyface champ trying to survive against the odds rather than babyface champ pushing for the victory. Eventually the Midnights come to ringside, then Dusty and Windham arrive to cheer on Nikita, and the last minute with Nikita hanging on for dear life, surviving piledrivers and neckbreakers and everything else Murdoch throws at him, felt like the biggest thing in the world. Really a testament to how they built everything and especially the performance of Murdoch. Maybe if he hit that brainbuster five seconds earlier he'd have gotten a 17-month reign with the belt and Turner would've won the war before it really started. 

Our first look at Ami Sola. Our second look at Jo Labat

Ami Sola v Jo Labat (French Catch, 2/11/58)

This was a change of pace from some of the more flashy stuff I've been watching lately. Not that I NEEDED a change of pace or anything, but it's nice to see a bit of extra grit and meanness from a pair of guys not quite built for zipping around at ridiculous speed. Labat I've seen before, against the incomparable Inca Peruano. In that match he spent most of his time trying to knock Peruano's head off while not letting his temper get the better of him. So we know he can slabber someone if it comes to that. Sola is new and surprise surprise he looks very good. The matwork here was full of struggle, holds really being grinded, then as it went deep we got some nasty joint-manipulation for good measure. There was one spell where Labat secured Sola's arm and looked like he was trying to unscrew his whole fucking hand at the wrist joint, Sola continually tried to manipulate his position for a way out, and eventually managed it by hooking Labat's head in a vice-like headscissor. Down the stretch they started throwing the uppercuts like we all hoped they would and one or two sounded like shotgun blasts. At one point Labat nearly upkicked Sola's nose through his brain as well. There have been some brilliant finishes in these matches and Labat reversing a flying headscissors into a powerbomb was quite something. The powerbomb part didn't look all that pretty and it was probably more of a cradle of sorts, but we are one and all Tenryu fans around these parts so an ugly powerbomb is not something we'll get pissy at. 

Mantopoulos! Catanzaro!

Vasilios Mantopoulos v Billy Catanzaro (French Catch, 1/29/67)

Man get the fuck out of here. Every day I watch someone new from this stuff and I'm left gobsmacked at how ridiculously good they are. This was my first look at Vassilios Mantopoulos and wouldn't you believe it but here's another guy who looks like one of the best to ever fucking do it. Catanzaro I'd seen before. Like for most people, it was the Catanzaro/Cesca match that was my intro to all of this after it just showed up on the internet one day and everybody was like "this is one of the best matches there's ever been." I don't remember a lot about that specific match now, but it was awesome and I'll go out on a limb and say Catanzaro was good in it. But Mantopoulos is new and I already want to watch every match he's ever been in. Much of this was built around him working Catanzaro's arm, going back to it time and again in a hundred different ways, working some of the smoothest and quickest holds and float-overs you'll ever see, a pocket rocket of a showman. Catanzaro was a wonderful base for all of it, the perfect stooge into the bargain. For whatever reason he reminded me a little of Bockwinkel, maybe from the way he'd move, maybe from his reactions to things, maybe just from how he'd grab an armbar and punt Mantopoulos in the spine. If one thing held this back from being a real upper tier match it was a lack of Catanzaro properly putting a beating on Mantopoulos, even if they flirted with it briefly. Initially Cartanzaro takes over with a couple amazing tilt-a-whirl backbreakers and stomps to Mantopoulos' back. It looks like he's about to go on a run, but then on his third backbreaker attempt Mantopoulos reverses it (it looked sensational, obviously) and is quickly back on offence. I don't mind Mantopoulos working from above for the majority, he's so good that I wouldn't have minded another 15 minutes on top of the 30 minutes we got, just of Mantopoulos running circles around Catanzaro, but it still would've been cool to see our man Billy let loose a bit. Towards the end Catanzaro takes one amazing comedy bump onto the announcer's table (after the announcer sticks a microphone in his face as Catanzaro is sprawled on the apron), then takes a head dive through the ropes on the other side and we soon make peace with the fact we get half an hour of Billy Catanzaro acting the fool. 

More French guys I've never heard of being amazing

Ischa Israel v Jean Corne (French Catch, 1/15/65)

As far as babyface exhibition matches go, this was about as nifty as you'll get. I mean that is not the type of wrestling match I have much time for in my old age. When I think about my least favourite matches of my favourite wrestler ever, it would be the ones against Dean Malenko where a lot of what they're doing is built of mutual respect for their athletic prowess. The longer and more contrived or choreographed a sequence the less likely I am to stay engaged, no matter how impressive the actual athleticism is (and I was a gymnast so I am practically an AUTHORITY on athleticism). This was just the right kind of exhibition, the right kind of respect on display. Corne and Israel have teamed together in the past (going by the footage list anyway) so I guess a competitive yet friendly contest is to be expected. There's probably a World of Sport comparison that someone who's seen more World of Sport than me can point to. Your "gateway" match, if you like. Anyhow, this was about 16 minutes of slick exchanges, some light-hearted humour, some cool wrinkles on moves you thought you'd seen all the wrinkles of, and a satisfying finish. And I will watch at least one more Jean Corner match just to see if he does that backslide again. 

Michel Saulnier v Jean Rabut (French Catch, 6/20/65)

Or maybe this is the French Catch gateway. I thought this was incredible and just about the perfect "pure" wrestling match imaginable. Some of the exchanges were breath-taking, from minute 1 to minute 28, some of the smoothest tumbling and matwork you'll ever see. The way these guys work in and out of holds is remarkable. The speed, the precision, the ELEGANCY, by christ! It was another clean contest for the most part, but this was by no means an exhibition. It was for a title and that gave it an edge, one that on another night might've been sharp enough to cut. I loved how they built the idea of tetchiness as the match went on. After each exchange that went to a stalemate they'd give each other a pat on the shoulder, an agreement that this last gambit had gone as far as it could, that they would extricate themselves from the ropes or the corner or wherever else they'd tumbled to, that they'd stand up and take another run at it from neutral ground. For about 10 minutes it went along smoothly like that, then after one exchange Rabut slapped Saulnier's shoulder a little harder than before, Saulnier gave him a look without actually retaliating, and as he backed away into the middle for the next go-around Rabut stared at him like "you're kind of a little prick, aren't you?" The hand-slapping to gain an advantage on lock-ups was done with a little extra aggressiveness over time and you knew it would only be so long before one of them lashed out. When it eventually happened, firstly with Rabut throwing a forearm, there was always a receipt. I loved Rabut hitting a sternum headbutt as Saulnier ran the ropes, waving an arm after it like he was all but done with the niceties. Then Saulnier paid him in kind with a headbutt of his own, tit for tat like everything else they'd done. It never quite boiled over and part of me wishes it had, but the other part would tell me to shut the fuck up because every time they went back to the rope-running or holds it was tremendous. One of the best matches of the decade. 

Today we watch Inca Peruano

Inca Peruano v Jo Labat (French Catch, 9/5/58)

My first foray into Inca Peruano. I've purposely tried to avoid reading specifics about this stuff so I can go in as fresh as possible, but Peruano is a name that's popped up a bunch when trying to piece together a roadmap of where to go with all of it and everything written on him is glowing. Also someone compared his performance in the '57 Joachim La Barba match to 1997 Eddie Guerrero so of course I'm going to be hyped for that. I haven't watched that match yet but I think I'm sold already. We're JIP here to them tumbling and diving around the ring, both of them rolling through on attempted throws leading to a stalemate. Peruano tries to take Labat down with a drop toe hold, Labat doesn't budge, so they talk a little shit before getting back to their feet. The pacing of everything after that was kind of strange. It was niggly as fuck and borderline uncooperative at points, so it led to a number of resets where they'd stare a hole through each other. I think I liked it, though. I couldn't get much of a handle on Labat as a wrestler other than the obvious "this guy is another really good wrestler from 1950s France," but it was pretty easy to get a sense of Inca Peruano. He was grabbing holds and throwing nasty throat punches, kidney punches, yanking Labat by the hair, always feigning at least some sort of innocence, just an awesome rudo performance. Labat would get visibly annoyed and blast him with uppercuts, then Peruano would slink to the ropes, and whenever Labat would follow - which he usually did because I guess he couldn't help himself - Peruano would pull him in close and snap the ropes into Labat's neck or throat. When he wasn't being a vicious dirty prick Peruano was doing all sorts of tricky movements. He grabbed Labat in a knuckle lock at one point, used that to spin Labat around 180 degrees, then Peruano flipped into an awesome cradle/sunset flip for a nearfall. Some of the ways they'll build to quick finishes in these matches is a little reminiscent of lucha, where one guy will string together a sequence that you know the other guy isn't walking away from, and when Peruano started ripping Labat's shoulder and grabbed that disgusting armbar you knew it was over. That was as emphatic as any finish so far. 

Inca Peruano v Guy Mercier (French Catch, 12/19/62)

This is JIP even deeper than the previous match, with only about seven minutes shown. What a seven minutes, though. Right as we come in Peruano is hitting headscissor takeovers, a couple in a row, then on the third one Mercier blocks it and turns it into a giant swing, Peruano's legs still trapping Mercier's head. I don't think I've ever seen it done like that before. Peruano has a couple jaw-dropping bumps into the ropes here, the first coming out of an upkick that has him backflipping over the fucking ropes and landing in the signature Adrian Adonis rope tangle. Later he gets half whipped, half flipped across the ring and does the full Cactus Jack upside down tumble where his head is trapped in the ropes. Not many people will take that bump anyway, but of everyone I've seen do it (Foley, Headshrinker Samu, Peruano...I think that's it) Peruano goes into it about about a hundred times quicker. I'm not sure if this had a double pin or Mercier got a shoulder up in the end, but either way I liked the surfboard stretch used at the finish. Holy smokes Peruano is a fun watch. 

Iska Khan v Tony Oliver! Franz van Buyten and my new favourite wrestler!

Iska Khan v Jim Oliver (French Catch, 2/1/57)

This is the earliest of the French footage I've watched yet, and as is the case with much of the 50s stuff, it's difficult to believe it's the sort of thing that was actually happening in the 1950s. Some of this was sensational, namely the parts where they were just walloping fuck out each other. Khan was chopping Oliver in the neck and collar bone and throat and Oliver was punching and elbowing Khan in the face and liver. Khan's overhand chops were Hashimoto 30 years before Hashimoto and Oliver's forearms were right out the Big Japan meathead playbook. These were amazing strike exchanges, not just for the strikes and how good those looked, but the way they were all sold, the raggedness of everything, the way they made those exchanges look uncooperative, like things were on the verge of breaking down. That's not always easy to do when one guy is throwing big exaggerated Mongolian chops, but they absolutely nailed it. Some of the grappling wasn't quite as engaging as the best stuff I've seen so far, though it has to be said that Iska Khan made that nerve hold look lethal and if nothing else I appreciated how dogged he was in going back to it. It was also fun to see the babyface using that move and how the crowd popped big for it every time. Oliver's on-the-ropes selling was really awesome, eating those strikes and getting bounced around the ring, yet always retaining that sense of being able to land a killer blow at any point. And even if the finish wasn't a desperation shot it sure did look killer.  

Franz van Buyten v Robert Gastel (French Catch, 7/5/71)

It's been a minute since I've watched any Franz van Buyten; a guy I really ought to do a proper deep dive on. Gastel is yet another one of these French guys I'd never seen nor heard of before but is apparently amazing and I love him like my own father already. All I can find on him is that he was known as The Bull of Batignolles, and to be honest what else do you really NEED to know? He must be in his 50s here, balding, stocky, lumpy, ugly. A real treasure. He reminded me a little of Dick Murdoch in the way he'd bump and sell, sometimes a wee bit cartoony, a wee bit stoogey, but at the same time he'd work a hold like a bastard and you knew underneath it all he could go. Plus he was a little Murdochian in the face, if Murdoch had a sloped forehead and a hairline that started halfway back. The early parts of this were about Gastel working the hell out of a top wrist lock. Van Buyten would try and shake him, try and rolling headscissor his way out, but Gastel was a pitbull and would yank him back into holds. Then when van Buyten did start making headway Gastel got to throwing potatoes. His punches weren't quite full punches, more like clubs with the wrist that were still close enough to punches that you question their legality. Well the punches to the face were that; the punches to the body were very definitely punches and van Buyten must've woken up bruised from hip to armpit. Van Buyten's comebacks were great and I loved the spot where he just leapt on Gastel's shoulders in the corner and unloaded with strikes. The longer it went the more the old battler struggled to keep up, while van Buyten looked like an absolute stud. I guess both these guys deserve the deep dive treatment. 

Modesto Aledo! Teddy Boy!

Modesto Aledo v Teddy Boy (French Catch, 10/13/60)

This was unbelievable. Modesto Aledo is a Spanish lightweight who later in his career wrestled under a mask as Kamikaze, apparently one of the greatest gimmicks in Spanish Catch history. I have seen approximately zero wrestling from Spain but I'll take the word of whoever wrote the one article I read as gospel. Teddy Boy I know nothing about. He has an amazing leather jacket with his name across the back of it, is kitted out in baggy jeans pre-match and has the aloof swagger of a man who's seen some shit and probably caused most of it. The first half of this was an Aledo whirlwind. He was all over Teddy Boy with snug headscissors and one of the tightest headlocks you'll see, getting flung off the ropes before immediately leaping back into it while Teddy tries to knead the shape back into his ears. You could see Teddy getting riled up, maybe losing his composure a little, that cool indifference starting to crack. That he started needling Aledo with pot shots wasn't very surprising. Aledo was visibly rocked and Teddy was like a dog with a bone, stomping him in the spine while the ref' was trying to put on the count, hitting a brutal looking double knee lift right to Aledo's face, just giving him no respite while the crowd were getting more and more irritated. Then he grabs Aledo in a waistlock and fucking lobs him clean overhead to the floor! Twice! This was some of the wildest shit. Aledo took these bumps like a complete screwball, smashing his shoulders and neck off the apron on the way down, being helped back into the ring by spectators only to get heaved that second time, to the exact same outcome. When Teddy goes for it a third time Aledo blocks it and you're thinking we're in for some sweet revenge. Except Teddy just punches him in the guts and fucking launches him again! Three of the most insane bumps ever, 30+ years before Mick Foley upped what we THOUGHT was the bar for insane bumps. Aledo's comeback is everything you want and he goes right for the throat. He smashes Teddy in the nose with elbows, looks to the crowd, soaks in the roar and does it again. Teddy's nose is bloodied and by the end they're beating the brakes off each other, Aledo scooting under Teddy's legs and drilling him in the face with an upkick. The finish is amazing, with Aledo charging in and Teddy using that momentum to throw him out AGAIN, and as the crowd help him back in Teddy is there to quickly press slam him and make the cover. It makes no sense that this is what wrestling could even be in 1960. What a match. 

Le Petit Prince!

Le Petit Prince v Bobby Genele (French Catch, 5/22/66)

The Little Prince! Or the Small Prince, maybe! I've seen two Petit Prince matches now and on both occasions he's looked like one of the most spectacular wrestlers ever. Sometimes you don't need a four-hour comp tape of someone to know, you know? This was like Tiger Mask or Rey Jr in their pomp, where they were just doing stuff that nobody else was really capable of. Except Prince was doing it in fucking 1966 with even more speed. Imagine how mind-bending Rey Misterio Jr. on fast forward would be and that is Le Petit Prince. This seems to be the earliest Prince footage we have so I'm guessing he wasn't very deep into his career. His performance was a little more about the flash here. I don't know why it reminded me of a young Atlantis, but it did and I was getting some Atlantis v Satanico from '84 vibes, a young tecnico still finding himself against a rudo who would outright jump on his head if given the chance. I thought Genele was an excellent base for Prince and he sure got surly when he needed to. Initially that entailed him keeping Prince grounded with nasty wrist locks and armbars, then it evolved into kicking the wee fella in the chest and eventually stomping his ears into the canvas. Prince would try and take him over with big snapmares and Genele would just hold onto the ropes, refusing to be shown up by a gymnast. In the back half of the match Prince had had enough and started to retaliate, sometimes by clubbing Genele in the head while perched up on his shoulders. There was also the sense that Prince's evasiveness would win out no matter how rugged Genele got. At one point Prince flipped or spun or SPRUNG out of a hold and Genele tried to clothesline him clean in the face, so Prince turned into it and took him over with an armdrag, the sort of counter that looks wholly necessary on Prince's part, one not telegraphed or half-arsed even remotely on Genele's. It built to both of them getting bounced out the ring and when Prince gathered momentum on the rope running sequence there was an inevitability about what was coming. This was awesome stuff. 

I haven't watched any Horst Hoffmann in a while

I think there might only be about 10 Horst Hoffmann matches on tape. I think I might have seen all of them.

Horst Hoffmann v Lino Di Santo (French Catch, 10/5/61)

I haven't even scratched the surface of the French Catch stuff. The only two matches from that treasure trove I'd watched before this were bonkers great, and while this wasn't at that level I did get halfway through and wonder if I shouldn't just watch the entire lot of it right now. This is the earliest Hoffmann footage we've ever gotten. Everything we had before was from the mid-to-late-70s, right at the tail end of his career. This was a mere four years into it and he was already a machine, not quite fully formed but well on his way. He was like a young Scott Steiner, chucking Di Santo around with ease, a couple of his fallaway slams looking absolutely killer. Di Santo worked this like an ageing veteran, although I have no idea if he actually was and in fact I know not a thing about him if we're speaking freely. Some of his holds were awesome, a bunch of cool wristlock variations, one that he transitioned into a mean backbreaker, then a couple regular backbreakers straight out the Bret Hart playbook (or Bret Hart's backbreakers were straight out the Lino Di Santo playbook, as it were). When they got to trading strikes Hoffmann would nuke Di Santo and there was one knee to the chest that was outrageous. Di Santo hangs in there for the draw in the end, but you kind of get the impression that with a little more seasoning Hoffmann would be putting this to bed before any expiration of time. It's a real shame that we don't have any more Hoffmann footage from Europe. Maybe one day...

Horst Hoffmann v Jumbo Tsuruta (All Japan, 12/9/75)

This was much less fun. 70s Jumbo doesn't do a whole lot for me and my interest in his matches hinge almost entirely on the opponent. So I watched this for the Hoffmann and the Hoffmann was indeed fun, but Jumbo at this stage was no Lino Di Santo and all of the grappling was pretty rudimentary. Hoffmann did some cool stuff, I just don't think Jumbo was the sort to play off it in the most interesting ways. The idea that older wrestling = less exciting is a silly one that evidently isn't accurate, but if you'd asked me 15 years ago when that notion was one I still had in my head to guess which of these two matches was from 1961, I'd have said this one without a second thought. France was really ahead of the game with this shit. 

Well Tenryu's Been Spending All His Money on Weed and Pills, Trying to Write a Song that'll Pay the Bills

Genichiro Tenryu v Mitsuya Nagai (All Japan, 3/23/01) - GREAT

Just about the perfect 3-minute match. I've called Tenryu the king of many things over the years and probably the king of this thing I'm about to call him king of, but he really is the king of the sub-5-minute blitz against your faux MMA dickheads. I can't imagine Tenryu and Nagai had ever really crossed paths up to this point. Even for a guy who'd been everywhere, from All Japan to New Japan to the WWF to FMW and every moderately-sized indie promotion in the country including his own, the only shoot style fed Tenryu rocked up to was dying days UWFi and at that point Nagai was still rolling around in RINGS with a full head of hair. So I guess it's understandable that Tenryu might not be familiar with his opponent on the night. When Nagai offers up a handshake Tenryu sort of laughs at him, looks at the referee like "who is this yahoo?" then turns around and slaps the jaw off him. While Tenryu may not be familiar with Nagai, WE at Whiskey & Wrestling headquarters (it is only I) and all of you reading this blog (it is only six of you) are familiar with Nagai and so we know his response will be swift and brutal. One thing Nagai is always going to bring is nasty kicks, and I love how Tenryu tries to show defiance, tries to shrug them off while being visibly rocked with every roundhouse to a creaking ribcage. It was a man in his 50s trying to show fighting spirit like the young muscly guys, but that sort of thing doesn't come easy to a man with that much mileage on the clock. The moment where he drills Nagai with a punch just before getting booted in the sternum again was truly impeccable. 

Genichiro Tenryu v Masa Fuchi (All Japan, 2/22/04) - GOOD

This was Tenryu against an opponent who all objective reasoning would tell us is older than him, yet is in actual fact, somehow, four years his junior. Fuchi looks older, works older, and Fuchi sure felt like the old man in this match. Tenryu grabs him in a guillotine choke at one point and refuses to release it, so some of the ring boys get a little overzealous and Akira Hokuto, who for whatever reason is accompanying Tenryu on the night, wallops all of them with a kendo stick. When Tenryu finally lets go of the choke Fuchi rolls to the floor and stares dead-eyed at the ceiling. I loved how Fuchi played this, like he was completely out of it, all oxygen deprived to his brain, and I loved even more how Tenryu gave him zero sympathy and in fact kicked the shit out of him instead. Fuchi would stumble around and throw a useless slap and Tenryu would welt him up with chops. By the end Fuchi's chest was red raw and you wonder how that brainbuster never killed the wee fella. 

Complete & Accurate Tenryu

Rose v Martel (partially)

Buddy Rose v Rick Martel (Portland, 2/9/80)

This is such a great pairing. The two matches from April and May are as good as anything in wrestling that year, and while we only have one fall of this - which is infuriating - it had all of the qualities of those other matches. They open with a rope-running exchange for the ages, culminating with a Martel hurricanrana to make the masked luchadores of Mexico City weep. The bulk of the fall is built around Martel working the arm, Rose trying to shake him and Martel dragging him back to the mat. There were a few moments where they maybe stagnated a little, at least by their lofty standards, but the parts where they came up for air were really great. Martel going from a hammerlock to a top wrist-lock to an armbar to a sort of cross armbreaker made for cool variety as well. Going through the AWA 80s set over a decade ago now, one thing that stood out about Martel was that he was king at crashing and burning off a missed cross body. Clearly he mastered that before he ever got to the AWA because the tide swings here with him flying face first into the mat off a missed cross body. Buddy trying to break someone's spine will always rule and I loved the struggle over the Billy Robinson backbreaker at the end, like something Okada and Naito saw and added seven more reversals and did it halfway through the match. I bet the next two falls were very good and it very sucks that we don't have them. 

Liger/Sano - The Arm Match

Jushin Liger v Naoki Sano (New Japan, 8/10/89)

Man what is that Liger costume? It's just a red skeleton suit with a set of honest to goodness shoulder pads. Not even attached to the suit itself, they're just strapped up independent of the costume with zero regard for colour clash or anything. A wild boy. This is the arm work match. As in, "what Liger/Sano match is this? Oh it's the arm work match. That one rules." You know if a match is instantly recognisable based on a simple concept - in this case body part work - then that aspect of it is pretty, pretty, pretty good. It's the first time I've watched this since going through the DVDVR set all the way back in 2009. Which is a whole fucking lifetime ago. I remembered Liger's selling being great, but even that doesn't do it justice because after about three minutes I was shortlisting it for one of the best sell jobs in history. What an incredible Liger performance. Almost straight away Sano tries to rip his arm off - so clearly there was some history there and those shoulder pads were not merely a fashion statement - and it basically renders Liger one-armed for the rest of the match. The arm is left dangling by his side when he tries to mount any offence, it's pretty much useless when actually carrying out that offence, then when Sano is beating on him that arm remains limp and offers Liger zero protection against anything. When he went for big and dramatic he nailed it, like when he would clutch it in pain even while he was in control, or howl in agony any time Sano grabbed an armbar. When he went for a little more subtlety he nailed it, like when he couldn't properly apply the surfboard with both hands, or how he'd turn his body away from Sano just to try and shield it. Maybe the hardest part about limb selling is the consistency and he absolutely nailed that too, making sure you never once forgot that his arm was completely fucked, not when he was working from above, not when he was working from below. When he was on offence the selling wasn't as visceral, but the offence itself certainly was. If the arm was useless then what he'd do instead is punt Sano in the face and throw headbutts and pretty much anything else that might get the job done. I love how he turned the regular piledriver into a Gotch style piledriver because it was easier to hook with half an arm, and good grief was he crushing Sano with these piledrivers. Sano was amazing as well. You'd think beating up a one-armed man wouldn't lend itself to garnering sympathy, but you almost forget about that when he faceplants the concrete off a dive and Liger is trying to crack his skull open. From there all those armbars feel like desperation, pure hope spots rather than the sort of savagery it came off as early on. And then when he realises Liger won't submit he just drops him on his head instead, like any sane person would. This had pretty much everything. The violence and seething hatred, the nuclear heat and intensity, the amazing yet different performances from both guys, a crazy dramatic finishing run, just the whole lot. I'm not sure there's been a better New Japan juniors match since.

A couple Eddie tags

Eddie & Chavo Guerrero v Edge & Rey Mysterio (Smackdown!, 8/15/02) - GREAT

Basically a southern style tag on lotsa speed. It was six and a half minutes and they kept the broad structure of a traditional tag, more AWA than Crockett with one shorter heat segment followed by a longer one (relative to the match length), but they never really leaned into any hope spots or cut-off teases. Instead they went for the all-action approach, hit everything hard, hit it fast, and in the end it felt like the match had way more than six minutes of content. In the best way possible, I mean. It was urgent but not rushed. Or maybe it was rushed but it didn't FEEL rushed. Or maybe it did but not in the shitty way. Prolly. Look, it's right at the beginning of the Smackdown Six period so you know that above all else these guys are going to go out and try to rip it up for however long they get. The Eddie/Rey parts were magic. Eddie absolutely drills him with a powerbomb, that leads to Rey going FIP while the Guerreros target the back, and of course I'll always love the hilo to the lower back spot. There's a bit early on where Eddie gets knocked off the apron before Chavo is backdropped over the ropes onto him, but Eddie was so good at making it not obvious he's out there waiting for Chavo to land on him. Maybe this is the old man yelling at clouds part of me, but those spots happen all the time today and they almost never look organic. It's always obvious what's about to happen. And it wasn't just Eddie either, all four of them - yes even Chavo - were great at running through their sequences and hitting their stuff in a way that didn't take me out of the moment. And then Angle appeared and went jock roid rage on Rey and maybe after twenty years this Smackdown Six stuff will feel fresh again? He asks, knowing he'll never watch it all. But this was quality. 

Eddie Guerrero & Chris Benoit v The Rock & Edge (Smackdown!, 8/22/02) - GOOD

This got more time, about thirteen minutes which you can't complain about. They made the most of it and they cut a strong pace again, but it also felt fleshed out and nothing really came off rushed. Both babyfaces play Ricky Morton for a bit, Rock having the longer heat segment and I'm fine with that because I like him and do not like Edge very much. Eddie channels intensity every bit as believably as Benoit and all of their stuff looks like it would actually hurt, their cut-offs are sharp and their work on Rock's ribs is good. Eddie goes for a frog splash, Edge juuuuust manages to trip him before he jumps and Eddie lands practically on his face. There were a few minor miscues in the first half and Edge's stuff looks sort of crummy, but I can't say I'm not at least a little interested in finally revisiting the Edge/Eddie feud after all this time. I hope I like it more in 2022! 

Complete & Accurate Guerrero Brothers

Patterson v Patera! Or, if you like, Pat v Ken!

Ken Patera v Pat Patterson (WWF, 4/21/80)

Another day, another quality Ken Patera match. This wasn't as frenetic as the Bruno match from '77, and where the Andre tag was sort of whimsical this had STAKES attached, namely the Intercontinental title. So it's cool to see him in a few different settings (within the broader setting of the WWF, at least). I loved the beginning with Patterson working the arm. It really ebbed and flowed, they'd bring it to the mat, come up for air, bring it back down again, and Pat wrenching on the arm wringer leading into Patera taking a big flip bump ruled. Patera is also one of the more incredible athletes of the era, a legit Olympic-level weightlifter with hops to the moon and a leapfrog to match, so of course the rope-running sequences were awesome. Patera taking over by just heaving Patterson over the ropes was badass. I mean you're the strongest guy in the fucking state of New York, obviously you can just take over like that. Vince sells it on commentary like Patterson was thrown in a volcano and it's ridiculous how good this Vince was, especially compared to later Vince. That boy fell off worse than Dele Alli. Patera works an extended King of the Mountain segment with the crowd getting more and more pissed, then he goes to the bearhug and the sense of dread from the crowd is sort of insane. When he winds up for the full nelson and stalks down Patterson that sense of dread somehow increases tenfold. Patterson's work on the leg in the back half is really good and Patera sells it all well, really hobbling around while Patterson wraps the leg around the post or tries repeatedly for the figure-four. I wasn't sure who actually won this either, so I was into everything towards the end and even popped for Patera bringing home the belt (despite him being the heel. I am very edgy, yes). Every time I see Patterson I think he needs the proper deep dive treatment. Patera probably does as well but I suppose there are only so many hours in the day. 

Stash Box, X-Box, Laptop, Fax Machine, Phone - Bulletproof this Bitch and Piper's Gone

Roddy Piper v Jimmy Snuka (Fijian Strap Match) (WWF, 7/20/84) - GOOD

This is a Roddy Piper in a match where he and his opponent are attached by a strap/chain/collar so instantly that means the floor is somewhat raised. It was only about 10 minutes and comparing it to a Piper/Valentine would be a fool's errand, but it was fun and I liked it better than their no DQ match from May. Piper milks the hell out of hooking himself up to the strap at the start, milks the hell out of Snuka giving him a few little shots with the strap, milks the hell out of the strap-assisted test of strength. The longer it goes the harder they whip each other and Piper can only seem to make any inroads by poking Snuka in the eye, which of course is great because the more chance of seeing the GOAT eye poke the better. He tries to clonk Snuka's head off the buckle, realises the error of his ways, but ultimately it's too late and he gets punched to the floor. Loved Piper trying to grab a chair only for the old guy at ringside to pick it up and sit it out of reach, Piper contemplating having a go at him only to be dragged back in by the strap. I can count on one hand the number of times I've seen Piper lose a match clean as a sheet so that finish was unexpected. There are two or three more singles matches between these two that I kind of want to watch and I'm not sure I'd expect a classic out of them, but if nothing else it's fun seeing how Piper will work different stuff with someone who isn't very good. 

Roddy Piper v Tonga Kid (WWF, 11/26/84) - EPIC

HOT DAMN THIS IS THE PRO WRESTLING! How in the name of christ was the Tonga Kid not a megastar??? In an alternate - some would say superior - timeline this headlines Wrestlemania 3 with Piper dropping the belt to Tama in front of 94,000 people. These are legit two of my favourite wrestlers ever and I cannot tell you how much I loved this. Absolutely BONKERS crowd from start to finish. Piper is wearing an ungodly fur coat that he won in hand to hand combat with a Jacobite clan leader, the sort of thing Conor McGregor would wear to a press conference thinking he looked even FRACTIONALLY as dapper as Hot Rod. Snuka is making his return to MSG after Piper put him out of action some months ago and people are just going apeshit for him coming out to sit in the Tonga Kid's corner. This is one of the most fun Piper performances ever, leading a literal teenager - albeit a prodigiously talented one - through an awesome match and making him look spectacular into the bargain. He slaps Tama at the start and Tama just stares at him defiantly, then when Tama slaps him back Piper fakes walking out, turns around to throw a cheapshot, but Tama blocks it and rocks him with a headbutt. The place goes full crazy. Piper doing Snuka's double leapfrog bit was amazing and all of his jawing with Snuka ruled. At one point he bites Tama in the face over by where Snuka's sitting, spits on Snuka and calls him a piece a garbage, then chops Tama in the throat. The crowd reactions for every Tama hope spot are honestly ridiculous and Piper is masterful at stoking the fire every time, shutting the kid down with an eye poke here, a sleeper hold there, all the while making one of the least interesting wrestlers ever in Jimmy Snuka feel like the biggest deal in wrestling just sitting there on the floor. Tama's comeback is quite frankly the greatest thing you've ever seen. First he fights to his feet to break the sleeper and I was already stripped to the waist at his little hip shake to fire himself up, then Piper rams his head into the buckle and Tama POPS AND LOCKS right in his face! Piper looks at him in astonishment, very much the way you'd expect a white man who's never seen anyone pop and lock in the streets of Glasgow or Saskatoon to look at someone popping and locking like this. Perhaps sensing some ethnic witchcraft is afoot Piper tries to bolt, but Snuka is right there and when Piper turns around Tama blitzes him with a jumping headbutt. Tama stomps on Piper's willy and Monsoon goes silent for a second before intoning: "might've been illegal" in a way that suggests even he could not give a shit about the referee's lenience. For six seconds there I was a wee bit disappointed at the double DQ finish, but then Piper and Orton try to crush Tama's throat with a chair and Snuka intervenes and I could honest to god count on one hand the number of MSG crowds I've seen hotter for a post-match brawl. They couldn't have built up a future tag match any better than this and that sort of wrestling match is worth its weight in gold. Just a perfect bit of the pro wrestling. 

Complete & Accurate Hot Rod

Andre v Patera! Sort of

Andre the Giant & Pat Patterson v Ken Patera & Bobby Duncam (WWF, 3/24/80)

"From Grenoble in the French Alps." I haven't really thought about this until now, but that has to be as perfect a place of origin for a pro wrestler as you can get. Not so much the Grenoble part as I assume Grenoble is a very normal city all things considered, but the French Alps part makes it sound like Andre's this giant who's come down from a mountaintop to wreak havoc amongst the mortals. This was a total blast, and fittingly a lot of that is down to Andre wreaking havoc amongst the mortals. It's mostly a babyface showcase and in that sense I wish we'd gotten a structural tweak or two, maybe a few more minutes for a proper heat segment, but for what it was going for we'd be foolish to complain. We got a whole bunch of fun double teams and general nonsense from Andre and Patterson, with Patera getting to excel in his role as stooge and Bobby Duncam Sr bringing the stooging AND the surliness. Andre grabs Duncam in a kind of straight-arm full nelson so Duncam straddles both legs across the top rope, Andre holds on, then after the ref' puts on the count Andre releases and Duncam takes a splat on his back. Andre backs Duncam into the corner, ready to pounce as Duncam looks for an escape route, then Patterson comes sliding under Andre's legs and pops Duncam in the ribs. My favourite double team was when Andre squashed Duncam by sitting on his chest, Patterson got up on Andre's shoulders and both of them sat there for a few seconds, then when Patera made to come in Andre stood up like fucking Frankenstein with Patterson still on his shoulders and chased Patera out the ring! I loved Patera running into Andre's CABOOSE and bouncing halfway to Mars. I loved Patera running the ropes and skipping over a prone Patterson, stopping dead with a big exaggerated "whooooooa" as Andre sticks his tree trunk leg through the ropes, Patera turning around into a Patterson armdrag. I loved basically everything. Honestly it felt like a perfect touring Andre performance. He was super animated in the ring and on the apron, working from above and then briefly from below. He sold a nerve hold about as well as you could want, the way he was trying to get back to his base, flailing his huge legs, swatting air with his huge hands, punching Duncam in the thigh just to break free. Duncam catches him with a running knee and Andre's spill to the floor was amazing, breaking three chairs as he flies through the ropes. It didn't look like a pro wrestling bump, it was pretty much exactly what you'd expect from a man that size being kneed in the head by another very large man running at speed, where the gigantic man tried to stop himself from crashing but ultimately fell victim to gravity and physics. On the apron he stood up on the bottom rope, then grabbed the tag rope and used it to steady himself as he leaned allllll the way forward for the tag, and no joke his arm was practically in the middle of the fucking ring! When he did come in roaring he chased Duncam and Patera around the place and Patera just hopped out of there when he realised Andre wasn't playing. A sensational Andre show. Throw in the awesome figure-four/big splash combo finish and you've got a killer 11 minutes. 

Bruno in MSG!

Bruno Sammartino v Ken Patera (WWWF, 3/7/77)

This was badass. It's their second match from '77 that we have on tape, the first being from January 17th, which so happened to be my old da's 18th birthday! I do not imagine he was in attendance, however. In that match Patera won the opening exchanges and revelled in doing so, his confidence growing every time he got to show the strength advantage of an honest to goodness Olympian. This time the bell rings, they briefly circle each other, then Bruno gives a knowing look to the crowd, boots Patera in the guts and tries to punch the jaw off him. The place went bananas and the match never really looked back from there. There were so many cool little touches in this, usually as a result of Bruno's scrappiness and/or Patera's willingness to stooge. I've always loved Bruno's mule kick but I don't remember him doing it from his back as a cut-off. He did it here as Patera went to jump on him and I don't think Patera was expecting it either, because it essentially became a mule kick to the balls. Patera's wide-eyed backpedalling sell was pretty much immaculate. The first half of this was pretty back and forth, but every momentum shift was earned and made sense and I love that Monsoon was actually really fun as the guest ref'. Somehow I wouldn't have guessed that from his later commentary, derisory as he often was to the men in the white shirts. There was almost a running theme of both guys kicking out of pin attempts as forcefully as possible and every time it happened one of them would land on Monsoon. Gorilla took it all in his stride, then Patera would get frustrated, not just at Bruno kicking out but at Gorilla trying to maintain some distance between the wrestlers if Bruno wound up on the floor. Patera obviously wanted to press the advantage and when Gorilla pushed him back to continue the count Patera cocked his fist like he was about to smack him. Of course like a total stooge he made sure Monsoon never saw it. Later on, after another one of Bruno's emphatic kick-outs, Patera landed right across Monsoon's shoulders. Patera got up raging, Monsoon looked at him like "are you sure you want to pull on that thread?" and Patera backed away with his ego stung. Patera eventually takes over with a couple huge bodyslams before going to the bearhug, and these were some great bodyslams and Patera always has a quality bearhug. Bruno always makes it look like he's actively trying to escape as well, plus he has bucket loads of charisma so if nothing else the crowd are going to be engaged. From there they end up on the mat and sort of roll around trading pin attempts, all while Patera still has the bearhug applied. They roll into the ropes and when Patera releases it, Bruno, from the mount position, starts blasting him with fists. Bruno standing up and immediately collapsing holding his lower back was a fucking amazing little bit of selling and Patera's running elbow drop while Bruno tries to crawl to the corner was honestly one of the best elbow drops I've ever seen. He just murdered Bruno with this thing and left him in a heap in the corner. Bruno dropping about a dozen knees to Patera's lower back later while the crowd heat goes from molten to fully nuclear was unbelievable and I've never bought someone breaking a man's spine with CLUBBERING more than I bought Bruno doing it to Patera here. The revenge bearhug was about as perfect as you could get and obviously the roof gets blown off the place when it happens. Blood stoppages can sometimes be a downer and I knew we were headed that way as soon as Monsoon made a fuss about checking the cut, but Patera being rammed into the buckle as a Full Nelson reversal and his subsequence posting were amazing moments, so it's hard to really complain. Plus you need to give them points for Patera going buck wild with the blade and Monsoon doing his part by getting his crisp white shirt covered in blood. One of the best WWF matches of the decade.

ARSION Zion Tournament 1998 (8/31/98)

Not Williamson.

This is now the third time I've written about this particular tournament. It was a long tournament, I guess. At some point during it Michiko Ohmukai wound up with a busted shoulder. I don't remember how it happened but ARSION were always great at playing off injuries from show to show (or within the same show), so naturally it led to some good stuff. ARSION really was the best. 

Mikiko Futagami v Ayako Hamada

Neat five minutes that ended with one of the better roll-up sequences you'll see. Hamada is a literal teenager and Futagami has run the likes of Yoshida to the wire, so for the most part Hamada works from underneath. They blew one spot pretty badly but other than that all of Futagami's offence landed nicely. The start was pretty fun as well, with both of them trading derisory slaps after sitting the other on the top rope like a child on a time out. Hamada looked resourceful at the end and I bought Futagami being caught by surprise after she'd started properly gaining the upper hard. Sometimes a roll-up sequence is actually okay, maybe? 

Mariko Yoshida v Michiko Ohmukai 

This was Ohmukai with a kicker's chance against Yoshida who will tie her up and rip her limbs off if given half a chance. Both of them worked this with a sense of urgency, but Ohmukai almost felt desperate at points given her busted up shoulder. You knew that if Yoshida got a hold of it then it would probably be curtains, and Ohmukai knew that as well, so she swung for the fences straight away. There wasn't a ton of variety to what she did, I guess other than which type of kick she was throwing. The kicks looked mean though, most of them landing with a thud, a handful catching Yoshida flush. One in particular caught her right under the chin as Yoshida came back off the ropes. It wasn't a long match, but the longer it did go the more Ohmukai needed to push things and that left open doors for Yoshida, who will happily walk through a door and submit you. Even something fairly standard can look spectacular when Yoshida does it and this time it was the way she dropped to a knee for a rear waistlock as a counter to a simple arm wringer. Other than that she was hooking things from all angles, sprawling and rolling through and generally being relentless. She wasn't even all that bothered about targeting the shoulder. When the opportunity presented itself she went for it, but she wasn't perturbed when Ohmukai managed to escape. When she caught one of Ohmukai's high kicks and yanked her into a sick ankle lock you kind of knew it was inevitable. The only question was what Ohmukai would tap to. Because in the end they all tap. 

Hiromi Yagi v Tiger Dream 

This felt like a bit of a Tiger Dream showcase. I have no recollection of Tiger Dream but I guess she was being pushed as the female version of Tiger Mask. I'm guessing the idea didn't last very long. She had an extremely cool mask - a Tiger Mask mask, only pink - and rolled out some of the trademark Tiger Mask spots. Those spots looked decent, the twisting hammerlock into drop toe hold being super quick, but they kind of felt like they were being inserted specifically for the purposes of showing people that she could actually do them and it wasn't always the most compelling. Maybe a waste of Hiromi Yagi. Apparently it was also Candy Okutsu under the mask and I'd have preferred a regular Yagi/Okutsu match, tbh. 

Mariko Yoshida v Ayako Hamada

The final! Hamada came into it having bested - or perhaps upset - Futagami and Mary Apache and maybe figured she'd have an outside chance of dethroning the queen in waiting. She was clearly a fool as this was basically an extended squash. What an extended squash though, with Yoshida twisting her into knots and never giving her a second's peace. She was relentless and any time Hamada looked like putting a run together she would be stopped emphatically. Yoshida is spectacular as always, just ripping off armbars and leglocks while this kid wonders what she's gotten herself into. There was one brilliant nearfall off a backslide where Yoshida managed to get a toe on the rope, then she got up and Hamada never got close again. In the end the poor lass is carried out like a pit fighter that Yoshida made an end of. The queen of ARSION. 

When Something's Dark, Let Tenryu Shed a Little Light on it. When Something's Cold, Let Tenryu put a Little Fire on It

Genichiro Tenryu v Jumbo Tsuruta (All Japan, 10/6/87) - GREAT

I figured I'd seen every Jumbo/Tenryu singles match available so this was a pleasant surprise. I didn't even know it existed. If you're breaking it into thirds I thought the first third was awesome, the middle third good, and the final third something that I could be convinced was one or the other. All of it was compelling, though. Going back and watching these two match up a few times in tags and singles over the last week has been fun. It's an incredible feud that built and built over a three-year period until we hit a point where Jumbo almost became a mirror of the man across from him, the sort of man he hated, though maybe ironically the sort of man who lit a fire under him in the first place back when Choshu rocked up. Our man Matt D has written some amazing stuff about the dichotomy between Jumbo and Tenryu in 1989, how Tenryu knew what he was and was comfortable in that knowledge, how he wanted to burn this world to the ground in the name of revolution, while Jumbo still saw himself as the hero even though at times he was channelling the same violence of his old partner, looking to the crowd for the support they'd always given him, oblivious to the fact his makeup was about as black as the pad he wore around his elbow. It's easy to say with the benefit of hindsight and the fact I've gone through most of this stuff before, but that dichotomy seems no less pronounced in '87. Forgetting all of the stuff around narrative progression and how they communicate it in the ring, the reason I want to watch Jumbo against Tenryu more than anyone else in the 80s - and maybe ever - is that Tenryu really does bring out a level of violence in Jumbo that nobody else did; not Choshu, not even Misawa. Old man grumpy Jumbo where he's chasing the new kids off his lawn is still my favourite Jumbo, but this Jumbo was still on the right side of his prime and with it brought an even greater layer of legitimacy to everything. Call it aura, call it basic human physiology (you know, he was younger), call it just deciding to work stiffer, call it whatever you want -- when Jumbo wrestled Tenryu he upped his game to another level and it was routinely electric. This started with Jumbo on a rager and he didn't need Tenryu to push him to violence. The big man was already there. He tried to maul Tenryu early and blasted him with one of the meanest slaps you've ever seen, Tenryu selling it like his eardrum exploded. Tenryu going to the headlock felt like pure containment and made sense, and the fact he worked the thing like it was a vice grip didn't hurt either. This is the sort of headlock Dustin Rhodes should be sending to dummies like Bryan Alvarez when they say headlocks suck. Long live the headlocks, or at least the good ones! Middle third takes a bit of a dip even if it's still good, then they bring it back up after Tenryu hits a hotshot across the top rope. I don't know when that move became Jumbo's kryptonite, if it already was at this point or they were still establishing it as such, but either way it gave Tenryu the upper hand for the first time all match. Everything he'd tried before that just led back to Jumbo going apeshit and taking over with the high knee or a lariat or a flurry of slaps and elbows. This one led to the first real extended run of Tenryu offence and he damn near unloaded the full clip. You're so used to seeing overacted hammy melodrama when someone kicks out of a move in 2022 that Tenryu showing some subtle doubt feels Oscar-worthy. Jumbo doesn't regain control with one move this time either, first it was a backslide attempt and then hitting the backdrop as a reversal, and I liked as well that he sold the damage of Tenryu's recent barrage by being too slow and banged up to make a proper cover. The finishing stretch is sort of weird, really. I liked it in theory as they managed to sell the attrition of it all, how every bit of offence felt hard to come by, like any move could be the match-ender. It was bit rough though, and some of the selling for one or two of the moves that didn't come off was maybe a little disproportionate. I mean I don't mind them working two failed powerbomb attempts, I didn't think they were botches and if you're not going to hit the move then I'd rather it was because your opponent properly struggled to get out of it. This felt like a struggle, but Tenryu just sort of rolling out the ring after it was strange. What I did like was the way he dragged the referee into Jumbo's high knee attempt, while hitting Jumbo with a lariat at the same time. It was the sort of dick move that, no matter how far gone Jumbo would be, no matter how much he'd be infected by the violence, he'd never do something like that. Or at least HE believed that, which only highlighted his hypocrisy even more because a minute later he's completely flipped his lid and slamming the referee in the middle of the ring, lost to the rage completely. And then there's a Brody run-in and I'm not actually sure what the official decision was, if there even was one. 

Complete & Accurate Tenryu

Command Bolshoi! Kana! Other people!

I'm going in on the joshi this month, I guess. My good man Elliot from PWO and the GME board has been recommending me some 2010s stuff and I can't say 2010s joshi was ever something I wanted to jump into, but who am I to argue with him? I am also jumping into some Command Bolshoi, who's the girl in the clown costume that Yumiko Hotta punted up and down the place like a football that one time. Apparently she was a really fun mat worker and she has her own youtube channel where she's uploading new matches all the time. So it would be rude not to check her out. 

We'll see where this takes me. 

Command Bolshoi v Carlos Amano (Submission Match) (JWP, 9/23/02)

This was a real blast. Amano I already knew was a fun mat worker, but I wasn't quite sure what to expect from Bolshoi working holds and grappling. Based on this I guess she kind of fucking ruled? There was a bunch of neat and tricked out matwork here, really slick, often coming in warp speed bursts where they'd fight over a hold. They never lost that sense of struggle though. It felt gritty and uncooperative enough that the prettiness of those holds didn't make it teeter all the way into exhibition territory. In fact early on there was a real IWRG/lucha maestros vibe to this, where they'd work exchanges, reset, talk a little shit and then get back to it. As the match went on those exchanges grew longer and soon enough the resets were done away with completely, a real sense of escalation with them going for more unique and audacious stuff the deeper it went. I don't even know what my favourite parts were now but Bolshoi dropping out of a rolling armbar and spinning around on the mat like a Beyblade to give herself an opening was awesome. At one point Amano had Bolshoi in this chickenwing scarf hold thing, then later they came to a stalemate with Amano applying a standing cross armbreaker while Bolshoi used her own free arm to twist Amano's free arm into a modified choke. I love how they'd use the ropes as well, often as a launchpad into more rapid fast takedowns or counters. Give me all of the Bolshoi like this. 

Kana v Arisa Nakajima (JWP, 8/18/13)

So this is the first time I've watched Arisa Nakajima. I think. Even as someone not particularly well-versed in whatever's been happening in joshi over the last 10-15 years I know she's one of the more heralded workers of the modern style. I already knew how good Kana is/was. With that said, I can't actually remember the last time I watched anything she'd done in Japan. She hits like a bastard, in case you were wondering. I don't really know what the story was coming into this, but from the pre-match package and the way they needed to be pulled apart in interview segments I can guess there was some ANIMOSITY. Kana was pretty much the Terminator here and she was great continually moving forward, unrelenting, cutting off Nakajima when the latter tried to match strikes. When Nakajima did create openings I thought Kana was really good at selling vulnerability and then she'd get more violent in response and that was the best part. She clonked Nakajima with a headbutt at one point and took the jaw off her with a backfist and then headbutted her again. Those parts were the best, basically. I have no real stance on Nakajima yet. She seemed fine, one goofy fighting spirit bit aside, but it's hard to draw conclusions from one match and this one felt like Kana's show anyway. Their rematch was recommended to me and it's been talked up by folks I'll listen to as being great, so I guess I'll watch that this week or...at some point in my mortal existence. Prolly. 

Yumi and the Ripper!

Yumi Ikeshita & Monster Ripper v Rimi Yokota & Ayumi Hori (AJW, 7/80)

Crazy fun showcase for Ikeshita and Monster Ripper as the best big and little 1-2 bruiser combo we never got on a consistent basis. They were like Nappa and Vegeta, for those of you who also grew up watching Dragonball Z on Cartoon Network. Ikeshita was at the mauling straight out the gate, slamming Hori face-first into the mat and then dragging her around by the hair while grinding her face across the canvas. She would also slam Hori and Yokota down to the mat, her own leg outstretched, the toe of her boot being driven into the throat of whoever was unfortunate enough to be taking it. Which quite frankly is fucking incredible and I don't know if it's possible for me to think any more highly of her than I already do at this point. Ripper was using her GIRTH and just bumping her skinny opponents all over the place. She'd engage in a knuckle-lock with Hori and immediately yank her into a Vader-style body block and then later she was just obliterating them with THICKBOI hip attacks. Yokota and Hori had to bust their tail for absolutely everything and it made every bit of offence feel like a triumph, especially when they locked on stereo figure-fours and Ripper and Ikeshita sold genuine terror. Of course you cannot stop the inexorable advance of Yumi Ikeshita and Monster Ripper but especially Yumi Ikeshita as she immediately grabs a bucket and motherfucking whomps everyone, including the referee. When the bucket is removed Ikeshita and Ripper drag the babyfaces to the floor and chuck them around, then upon re-entry Ikeshita produces the oldest can of beer you've ever seen and smashes it over Hori's head and I don't know what else there is to say about that woman. Ripper takes an ungodly missed legdrop bump from the top rope and I love that Ikeshita came through in the clutch for her team not by clonking someone with a piece of metal or a tin of beans but rather by whipping out a perfectly executed inside cradle.

How we have missed the Yumi Ikeshita

Yumi Ikeshita v Rimi Yokota (AJW, 8/80)

It's been entirely too long since I've watched any Yumi Ikeshita. How is something like this happening in 1980, btw? It starts hot with Yokota handspringing across the ring, Ikeshita blocking a strike flurry and hitting a quick hurricanrana like this is 2022 Dragon Gate and not nineteen-fucking-eighty. Ikeshita immediately going to the throat was great because nobody works as vicious as Yumi Ikeshita. This might be reactionary on my part but I'm telling you now, if she had a career half as long as someone like an Aja or Ozaki then we're proclaiming her the GOAT running away. I love how she jabs the throat with her thumb, really pulls Yokota's head back by the chin so she has easier access for squeezing the windpipe, drops the shin on the throat, just a bunch of awesome, nasty stuff. She even does the bit where she has the knee across the throat while arguing with the ref' and these early 80s AJW refs let everything go anyway so you sort of worry that Yokota might actually be choked to death. Yokota takes over with the wrist lock and these were some sensational wrist lock takedowns. Ikeshita kips up out of them every time before getting yanked back down, having the wrist twisted and bent at gross angles, it all ruled. I still need to deep dive Yokota and she was pretty great here as the scrappy technical babyface fighting the odds; those odds being long in the first place because of Yumi Ikeshita, but also because of Devil being a plague at ringside with constant interference. In the end this was a bit of a Yumi Ikeshita buffet, where we got a bit of everything from her. We got nasty underhanded Ikeshita with the choking and throat-punching, we got fully out in the open savage Ikeshita with headbutts to make the Fujiwaras weep, we got vicious grappler Ikeshita with these mean looking kneebars, then finally we got chains off psycho Ikeshita when she'd had enough of Yokota and took to stabbing her in the head with a fork. At one point a fan was vocally complaining so Ikeshita stood up on the ropes and threatened to stab him too! Yokota eventually snapping and stabbing both Ikeshita and the ref' with the fork was incredible and I figured that was our DQ ending, but no, the AJW referees are a lenient company so she lets it continue and the last couple minutes were frantic with them trying to score the win before time expires. On the one hand this was an awesome 15-minute draw, but on the other hand it's wildly disappointing because I wanted these two to wrestle for like 45 minutes and I pretty much never want to watch a wrestling match go 45 minutes. So really, my fullest marks possible. In a just world this would've led to a cage match to circumvent the Devil interference. Or there would be at least one more singles match between them because shockingly enough they're great together. 

Up a Creek ain't no Doubt Tenryu's Gonna Paddle with You, go to Bat, go to Church, go to Battle with You

Genichiro Tenryu & Jumbo Tsuruta v Nick Bockwinkel & Curt Hennig (All Japan, 11/23/85) - GOOD

The Real World Tag League sure threw out some of the cooler match ups in wrestling. Maybe less so in the 90s as the promotion became more insular, but throughout the 80s you'd get all sorts of guys rolling through for a tour. I never knew this existed, yet on paper there's at least some low key dream match potential I hadn't considered before. Every match up here is at least interesting, whether that be a new one or the revisiting of an old one. Jumbo v Bockwinkel going another few rounds? Could be decent. Bockwinkel and Tenryu squaring off? Sign me up! How about Tenryu vs a young mutton-chopped Curt Hennig? Sure, why the hell not! I figured we'd get Hennig being worked over as young foreigner in a strange land, but they flip my expectations and he and Bock work as subtle heels. Bock is great from the apron, using his foot to push Hennig's head for extra leverage on a Boston crab, and a couple times he pulled Hennig to the ropes by his trunks when it looked like he was in trouble. Maybe that started to rub off on Curt a little because he was getting in on it more as the match went on. They weren't taking shortcuts as such, not like they would have if they were working actual heel in America, where they'd have milked those spots until someone maybe threw a battery them, but as a tempered version of that it was pretty fun and gave the bout a bit of an edge. Rather than a young Curt going face in peril it was mostly Tenryu being worked over. It was split over two semi-lengthy spells and for the second run it was his leg that was the focus. And Bockwinkel going after a body part will always be worth the price of admission. 

Genichiro Tenryu, Ashura Hara & Toshiaki Kawada v Jumbo Tsuruta, Great Kabuki & Samson Fuyuki (All Japan, 8/21/87) - GREAT

This is the lead-in to the first big Jumbo v Tenryu singles match in the wake of their SCHISM after Choshu's exit. It was supposed to be a regular tag until Kabuki decided to mist Tenryu before the bell, and I guess selling being misted in the face is another thing Tenryu might be the GOAT at. He took this like it was acid and sold the shock of it in a way that's hard to describe beyond "that's about exactly how I'd imagine someone would react to unexpectedly having goo spat in their eyes and face." After that Kawada jumps in for a fight and a young barefoot Fuyuki does the same, so the regular tag becomes a six-man. This was a crazy fun eight minutes, super spirited with tons of intensity and everyone bringing the hate. Fuyuki was fearless here and ran around taking it to his elders, even planting Tenryu with a huge German suplex. Kawada was all over the place but in a good way (prolly) and also fought with the vigour of youth, sometimes foolishly so but in a good way (prolly). His exchanges with Jumbo were great. There was one moment where he whipped Jumbo into the ropes and went for a spin kick, but Jumbo held on and Kawada did about three pirouettes like a man who did not think he was missing that spin kick. Then Jumbo clobbered him, which he did a lot of during this. Hara was sensational as a pissed off lariat-throwing bastard. All of those lariats were first class and landed like a canoe paddle across the chest. Tenryu sold that initial misting for the first few minutes like he wasn't quite right, giving Fuyuki a bunch and making him look like a prodigy. He also ate one AMAZING Kabuki thrust kick and that pairing is right up there with the best. It was a really unselfish Tenryu performance, one where he let some of the other participants shine, but the exchanges with Jumbo still made you want to buy a ticket for their singles match in 10 days. The double teams with Hara looked great, even the front-back double lariat that can sometimes be ropey, and only one double enziguri came off whiffed. Loved the bit where Hara had Jumbo set for the backdrop but Jumbo wasn't budging, so Tenryu hit an enziguri to the back of the head and next thing Jumbo knew he was getting spiked. Impromptu matches is a pro wrestling trope the stodgy All Japan didn't use very often. Maybe they should have because this was a great segment overall. 

Complete & Accurate Tenryu

This was a Tape Piper wasn't Supposed to Break, He was Supposed to Wait but Let's Motivate

Roddy Piper v Jimmy Snuka (No DQ) (WWF, 5/25/84) - GOOD

Did Vince or any of the bookers ever tell the commentators about no DQ stipulations in the WWF? Was it a running gag that the commentators would just slander the refs for letting things slide even though the matches had no disqualifications? Because I seem to remember it happening a bunch and this time Okerlund goes in on our man for not throwing the match out after Piper wellies Snuka with a chair. I was surprised to see Lou Thesz as the guest ref' here (so it's not even a ham n egger Gene is caning) as I figured he hated McMahon and never took anything to do with him or his circus of a company. I'll tell you one thing about Thesz - I wouldn't want to pick a fight with the man. I've drank in enough rough Glasgow pubs and nearly been stabbed by enough regular drinkers in those pubs to know the sort you don't want to fuck around and find out with. Piper does an amazing eyepoke in this, but not his regular one; it was less measured yet more forceful which made it look even nastier than usual. Most of what Snuka does feels like it's building towards the double leapfrog and karate thrust spot, although to be fair it's a cool spot and the people love it. I liked the Piper low blow as a cut off and then him following up with the inverted atomic drop, which isn't a low blow but still looks like something that would hurt down there. I guess there's an IMPLICATION of it being low. Prolly. Snuka's revenge chair shot feels huge and I'm being dead serious when I say Thesz's ref' bump in this makes me want to check out a bunch of NWA champ Lou Thesz. I'm also interested in checking out the Fijian strap match between Piper and Snuka. I have no clue which of those threads I'll pull on first.

Roddy Piper v Hulk Hogan (WWF Wrestling Classic, 11/7/85) - FUN

What's the best Hogan v Piper match? I feel like those two had to have had an amazing spectacle match in them but I couldn't tell you the last time I watched them in a singles match. This is a fun 7-8 minutes. Both guys have charisma, in case you weren't sure. Hogan with the white tights! When did he stop wearing those because they were always cool as a one-off. There's nothing hugely special here overall, but it's a rabid crowd and that'll never hurt. If nothing else you know you're getting energy. Hogan catching Piper coming off the middle turnbuckles and locking him in the bearhug was cool. Piper's sleeper gets a nice nearfall and I think Hogan in general is great at milking a sleeper. Piper using the chair after the ref' bump (which looked good) leads to the big revenge spot later with Hogan also applying his own sleeper and yes, I did in fact like that too. Schmozz finish because of course. There are much worse ways to kill eight minutes. 

Roddy Piper v Randy Savage (WWF, 12/13/86) - GREAT

This was an absolute hoot and if you like these guys even a little then you should watch it. You could call the crowd somewhat hot. Blisteringly so, perhaps. Maybe not surprising as this is in Canada and I guess some people were hip to the fact that Piper was merely a Canadian man PORTRAYING a Scotsman and not ACTUALLY a Scotsman - though we will claim him as one of our own, or at least I will on behalf of our great nation - and I fucking love how there's one guy in the vicinity of our cameraperson (or he and our cameraperson are one and the same?) who is perhaps the biggest Piper fan ever. Piper is over like a bastard and this was mostly him playing the badass, which he's great at. Savage obviously rules as pinball, all of the bumps where he's still wearing his cape looking extra special. It's disappointing that we only have this faraway camera footage when you'd really want multiple TV angles to capture all of the facial expressions and little touches they're great at, but at the same time it's hard to complain when they're playing ALL the way to the back row like this. Savage tries to hide behind Liz at the start and Piper has none of it, reaching around and grabbing Savage by the headband, landing an absolutely fucking incredible punch flurry and then casually holding the ropes open for Liz to step out. Effortlessly cool and it's almost sickening how charismatic that guy was. Great non-finish with perfect timing, which is about all you can ask for considering there was very little chance we were getting a clean finish for the belt on a house show. Piper decking the ref' afterwards got just about the biggest pop of the whole thing too. This might be their best match together but maybe I'll watch that one from 1990 that I haven't seen. They're two of my 10 favourite wrestlers ever so naturally I want everything they did together.

Complete & Accurate Hot Rod