Revisiting 90s Joshi #45

Lioness Asuka, Eagle Sawai & Shark Tsuchiya v Yasha Kurenai, Mikiko Futagami & Carol Midori (LLPW, 8/15/97)

This was wild as hell. I'd never seen Carol Midori before but her first mistake was thinking she could go at Eagle Sawai head on. She made several more mistakes of that ilk throughout the match and we applaud her dedication to the PUGNACITY. They all pretty quickly found themselves in a pier-sixer around Korakuen Hall and as joshi crowd brawling goes this was pretty good. It was probably the weakest stretch of the match, but that was down to how good everything else was. If nothing else that brawling segment established the hierarchal gap and how little regard the Eagle/Shark/Asuka trio had for their opponents. Asuka must've chucked Midori head-first through twenty chairs, walked away to find someone else to beat on, then changed her mind and went back to inflict more misery on Midori. Yasha Kurenai was amazing here. The first time I ever saw her she was tagging with Kandori against a team from AJW and I thought she played a really fun Great Kabuki to Kandori's Tenryu. This was her in a different role, like the world's greatest Masao Orihara. The legends beat the unholy hell out of her and Kurenai's face in peril performance was legitimately exceptional. Shark carved her up with the sickle and this was some gruesome sickle work, but if you were worried it would be one of THOSE Shark Tsuchiya performances then you needn't have been as after that she focused more on stiffing Kurenai with elbows and lariats to the back of the head. Her and Asuka were amazing shit-talking bullies, the way they'd drag Kurenai's limp carcass over to her corner and hold her hand out, goading Futagami and Midori into reaching out for the tag, only to pull the hand back right at the last second and stomp her in the kidneys. There was one bit where Shark grabbed Kurenai by the hair and it looked like she was going to chuck her into the corner herself, tired of playing with Kurenai and looking for a new toy to chew. I was a wee bit disappointed because they were building serious heat and I wanted Kurenai to earn that comeback, to give us the satisfaction of seeing her retaliate and make the tag on her own terms. It would've meant more. Luckily Shark knew it too because it was all a fake-out and she immediately dragged Kurenai away again by the hair, Futagami and Midori cursing her to hell and back. Eventually she does earn the comeback and I loved how she made a return a few minutes later by whacking people with a stick. They played up the gulf in stature again by how the skinny girls would go for quick double- and triple-teams, really do everything with a sense of urgency, try to isolate one person while walking that tightrope of keeping her partners out the way at the same time. Asuka was almost dismissive of it at first and there was one part where Midori strung off a few moves, only for Asuka to shut her down and look at the crowd like "come on, really??" Eventually they manage to jump Sawai and Eagle was pretty great as a hefty bump machine. Every move they hit on her felt like a mountain climbed, then they tried a triple powerbomb off the turnbuckles only for one of Asuka's lackies to stop it with a kendo stick. It was such a deflating moment because you felt like they were THIS close, but then they come back to that later on and actually hit it for an awesome payoff. Speaking of deflating, Shark casually walking over and breaking up what looked like the winning pinfall with a stomp to the back was a perfect bitch move. You felt like that was it for the underdogs, they'd come close but just missed their chance, all because they took their eye off the ball and let this ghoul waltz over and ruin everything. That the match went another few minutes after that and they just kept adding layers onto the finishing stretch really speaks to how well everything came together. What a sensational bit of madness. 

Revisiting 90s Joshi #44

Megumi Kudo v Combat Toyoda (No Rope Exploding Barbed Wire Deathmatch) (FMW, 5/5/96)

I'm repeating what folk have been saying about this for years, repeating what I've said about it myself in the past, but this really is all about the way they build anticipation for the big barbed wire spots. I'm not shitting on your crazy deathmatches with gallons of blood and light tubes and psychotic barbed wire bumps or whatever. I don't think the great sport of professional wrestling is above such grody shenanigans and there have been plenty of those piss-and-guts deathmatches that I've gotten a kick out of. But this was less about the gratuitous violence and more about the THREAT of it; the obvious and inherent peril of wrestling a match surrounded by barbed wire, that threat always lurking in the background. The ambience from the start is quite remarkable, with the open air arena, Kudo's hair blowing in the wind like a slow-motion shot before a big battle scene, Toyoda just as menacing in the last match of her career as she was in her prime. They work this more like the Lawler/Mantel barbed wire match, or those early FMW matches with Onita and Goto against a pair of karatekas. Even being in proximity of the wire felt dangerous here, obviously because of how they sold it and brought that danger to life. Engaging in a collar-and-elbow tie-up close to the wire had the woman with her back to it wary. They made those tie-ups feel extra meaningful, gave jockeying for position a sense of GRAVITY and whatnot. I loved the way Kudo would immediately drop to the mat when Toyoda whipped her towards the wire. She was like a quarterback who's forced out the pocket having to slide before getting obliterated by a pass rusher, or in this case exploding barbed wire. They took hitting the ropes, something they'd do probably every day in training, something they'd do in every regular wrestling match, something almost second nature, and made of it a thing that had to be avoided at all costs. The way they sold the process of acclimatising to that was really cool, at one point with Kudo turning to gather momentum for a big strike only to realise she couldn't use the ropes to do it, the crowd responding with a gasp followed by a sense of relief. There were some other cool moments of hesitancy as well, like when Toyoda would drop Kudo with a slam or elbow but wouldn't really follow up because Kudo was so close to the ring edge, and by extension the barbed wire. To be honest a couple of those examples looked like they came from the wrestlers not being completely on the same page and it led to a brief pause, but intentional STORYTELLING~ or otherwise it worked. Then of course came the big exploding wire bumps themselves. The three individual bumps came off huge, even Kudo's second one despite the explosion not actually going off, the way she remained stuck to it for a few seconds longer, really letting the visual sink in. The shots of Onita in the crowd are all brilliant and then we get the double wire bump - which looked fucking insane - and Onita has his head in his hands completely beside himself. Even as they run through those final few powerbombs and suplexes they sell the toll of what the wire has done to them, and there's one close-up of Toyoda's arm with a nasty, nasty gash down her biceps. And then even after literal explosions, the craziest thing to happen is Kudo powerbombing Toyoda square on her head.

Building to Estrada v Satanico!

Jerry Estrada, Pirata Morgan & Emilio Charles Jr. v Satanico, Atlantis & Villano III (CMLL, 3/16/90)

This was here to set up the Jerry Estrada/Satanico hair match, and to that end it fairly did the trick. I hadn't forgotten how good Satanico was, but if I had then this would've been a timely reminder. One thing about Satanico is that he'll never let you forget you're watching a contest, or in this case a fight. He always captures a sense of struggle. The primera here was a rudo domination, but Satanico was never content to just let them get their licks in with impunity. I've seen even the best luchadores go through the motions in trios matches, content to let the heat build until it was their turn to make the tecnico comeback or start the rudo beatdown. Satanico makes you earn everything. He's always firing back and if you hang around too long gloating or playing to the crowd or messing about setting up a double team he will punch you in the neck. He threw a number of punches to the neck in that first fall, even dragging Estrada to the mat by the throat before Morgan and Emilio swarmed him. When the tecnicos do make their comeback they fight fire with fire, but before long they drag things back on track and actually turn it into a wrestling match. It works, and so the tercera begins with the rudos trying to instigate another brawl. Estrada throws Satanico head-first into the turnbuckle bolt and the camera shot really captures how wildly Satanico hits this thing, just no hands totally unprotected. There were some awesome exchanges in that third caida, particularly when things settled down a bit. Villano hits Emilio with an AMAZING punch flurry, Atlantis reels off a sort of flip powerbomb on Pirata Morgan before following up a dropkick and springboard moonsault, then Emilio takes a running corner bump that was somewhere between a Jerry Estrada special and a missed bronco buster. It always comes back to Estrada and Satanico though, usually with Estrada backing away until he knows his teammates are there to bail him out when Satanico - inevitably - turns up the aggression. Satanico hits two bulldogs in this that are as good as any bulldogs you'll ever see, like he's trying to ram Estrada's face through the canvas. Pirata Morgan was more of a background piece here but he showed how valuable that could be in a match like this. He didn't take up much of the spotlight, yet when he did he made the tecnicos, especially Atlantis, look dynamite. He'd never hesitate to cheapshot or throw pot shots when they couldn't see it coming, he'd beg off and plead for a reprieve when they'd retaliate, and obviously he'd bump big because he's still Pirata Morgan in any situation. 

1990 CMLL Project

Revisiting 90s Joshi #43

Manami Toyota v Yumiko Hotta (AJW, 9/3/95)

I don't know if I preferred this to Toyota/Hokuto from the previous day, but they're right about the same level and if nothing else the Hokuto match accentuates Toyota's performance here. I thought she was pretty awesome in this. I don't even want to beat the dead horse that is Manami Toyota's in-ring stylistic preferences -- she is who she is and you know what you're getting. But there were very few of her hallmarks from an offensive standpoint present in this, largely because she spent the majority of the match selling. I guess the other dead horse is her refusal to bother with long-term selling and I won't be going near that either, but one thing I've always thought Toyota was good at is the selling of damage in the moment. She's mad as a brush and will take absurd amounts of punishment and she makes all of it look devastating as it's actually happening. She did all of that here and that was probably 90% of her performance. Her in-the-moment selling was basically one and the same as her long-term selling because Hotta just spent the whole match kicking the living shit out of her. She never had a chance to blow off any selling in favour of running around doing a dozen springboards. Toyota's offensive bursts were explosive as always, but they were few and far between and, regardless of whether it was a conscious decision on her part or not (I'd imagine it was), it felt like the war with Hokuto had taken a major toll. Obviously Hotta was a wrecking ball. In a role reversal from Toyota/Hokuto it was Hotta who jumped Toyota at the bell, blitzed her with kicks, and after about 30 seconds Toyota was crumpled in the corner. The match dynamic wasn't even all that different from the Hokuto match, at least not in the first 10 minutes. In a mirror from the previous night the first bit of Toyota offence was a missile dropkick to the floor, but Hotta looked the fresher - probably because she was coming off a 15-minute match with Reggie Bennett and not 25 minutes of hell with the Dangerous Queen - and she was back rifling kicks before long. Even if you knew Toyota could turn a simple Irish whip into a counter attack she never had the same opportunity to do it as she did against Hokuto, again because Hotta never really bothered throwing her into the ropes. I mean, why would she? She didn't need to when Toyota spent half the time on the mat ripe for the kicking. There was one point where Toyota stood up groggy and Hotta just thumped her in the kneecap with a wholly unnecessary roundhouse. When Toyota could muster something in return she got extra belligerent, even tying Hotta up in the ropes and kicking her repeatedly in the face. I can generally do without the table spots, but I did like how Hotta stuffed Toyota dead on the splash attempt. Hotta also didn't share Hokuto's compulsion to pay Toyota in kind and I like how she immediately rolled her back in the ring and went back to business. I thought the build to Toyota hitting the Ocean Cyclone was really good, first with Hotta escaping each attempt, then the first one not landing perfectly (whether it was intentional or not I don't know), before finally hitting the second one after a bit of quick thinking. Down the stretch you got the sense she absolutely needed to hit that or she was done, because as desperate as she was in going for covers after every move it didn't look like Hotta was for staying down. I guess there was some excess towards the end and Hotta feeding Toyota her arms on the final pin was goofy, but they're minor quibbles. This is probably one of the career matches for both women. 

Revisiting 90s Joshi #42

Manami Toyota v Akira Hokuto (AJW, 9/2/95)

The first 10 minutes of this are as good as anything I've seen in ages. Even the entrances are great, with Hokuto coming out in a black wedding dress and veil, while Toyota is kitted out in her white robe. Maybe a little on the nose, but it felt pretty obvious what they were going for. Initially I thought it was Hokuto who jumped Toyota before the bell, but upon closer inspection she never tried to start a thing. It was Toyota who flung off the robe, turned and ran over to blindside Hokuto with a dropkick. Hokuto moving and Toyota basically taking a Hamrick bump to the floor before eating a somersault senton, with Hokuto still in the black dress, was a great way to start. It pretty much set the table for the next 20+ minutes. Toyota is certifiable and her whole strategy was built around flinging herself at Hokuto with as much force as possible from as great a height as possible. Springboards, dropkicks, moonsaults, everything. Hokuto responding by stretching her to hell and basically savaging her was the perfect response. Toyota popping up from that first backdrop probably would've annoyed me ten years ago, but I think at this point I better understand Manami Toyota; the character, the person. Her style and approach will probably never be my favourite, but I can at least appreciate that her pain threshold is ridiculous. She landed flat on her back off that missile dropkick to the floor and got right back up, so if she's willing to put HERSELF through that sort of shit then I can buy an opponent having to go above and beyond against her. I thought the transitions during those first 10 minutes were basically all great, from Toyota hitting her first in-ring springboard and following up with one of the nastiest dropkicks ever, to Hokuto putting Toyota clean on her head with this ugly reverse powerslam thing. With Toyota you almost have to be wary of even whipping her into the ropes, such is her desire to propel herself off of them and back into your face. So Hokuto grounding her with a disgusting bow-and-arrow and Sharpshooter ruled. Everything had a real sense of enmity, even the way Toyota would twist a handful of Hokuto's hair - it was like an arm-wringer to the ponytail - before chucking her across the ring. They didn't exactly lose me around the midpoint but I thought the match took a bit of a dip when they went into trading finishers for a minute or two. Considering the transitions and build had been A+ up to that point it was a noticeable drop off. They moved past that quickly enough though, and the build to the actual finish from there was really good. The escalation worked for me and I was surprised to find that so did the stuff with the table. It felt like it happened fairly organically, at least in that, as we've established, Toyota is a fucking nutcase. If I buy anybody resorting to putting someone through an unbreakable table because nothing else works, I buy Toyota. Not a chance Hokuto was taking that and not dishing out a receipt so I had no issue with her retaliating. Plus the actual spots themselves looked brutal. I know some folk think this is a spotty match, or even an outright spotfest. I don't really see it that way, but the pro wrestling is a matter of perspective and I don't feel strongly enough to argue. What I absolutely disagree with is that there was no selling towards the end, or that Toyota in particular wasn't selling. I suppose you could question how she was the first one to hit any offence after the last table spot when she's the one who was actually on table, but Hokuto clearly sold it like the senton nearly crippled her as well. They both crawl in the ring and Toyota, in her physical prime with inhuman resilience, happened to get up half a second earlier than Hokuto. So she spikes her because that's about all she has left. I mean, the last couple minutes of the match were basically all selling with two moves. I have no real personal attachment to either of these women so I'm not going to bat for favourites or whatever. If anything I've seen enough Toyota where I wish she'd sell more that this didn't feel like it was even in the same ballpark. Either way this was pretty awesome. 

Lawler & Dutch v Bill & Buddy!

Jerry Lawler & Dutch Mantel v Bill Dundee & Buddy Landell (Memphis, 3/10/86)

This is another Memphis match I hadn't watched since the DVDVR project. I had it as the 11th best Memphis match of the 80s back then and I'm wondering if even that was lowballing it, because this is some premium Memphis insanity. Dundee was a fucking wildman, running around irate, picking fights with Lance Russell and Randy Hales and fans and everyone else. Clearly Lawler being back in town didn't sit well with him. People are obviously going nuts and Dundee shouts at Lance to tell them to shut up and Lance responds with "how am I gonna tell them to be quiet, Bill?!" He'll also randomly drop off the apron and shout something down the house mic or pick up a chair and fling it in the ring, flip a table, grab one of those metal rods and start swinging it. The word I'd use is unpredictable and unpredictable men can be the most dangerous. The call-backs to the Lawler/Dundee Loser Leaves Town from December were great, with Lawler making a point of punching Bill right in the eye and ramming him into posts and tables. Initially it was more traditional babyface shine and Dundee and Landell were stooging and pinballing everywhere. That was great because they're awesome pinballs and who's going to provide better punches to pinball off of than Lawler and Mantel? But then Dundee gets cut open above the eye and there's nothing light-hearted about Lawler exacting this particular brand of revenge. He was even biting the cut at one point and I don't remember too many occasions where the King resorted to that. Dundee taking over by just punting Lawler in the balls and nailing him with a chain-wrapped fist was the perfect sort of desperate transition for what had come before. Dundee somehow gets even more maniacal after that and chokes Lawler with the safety rope, and I loved how when Mantel came around to stop it Dundee just booted him in the balls as well! Lance was mid-sentence about Dundee ripping Lawler with a punch and Dundee spun around, flipped the table causing Lance to scatter, and then he flung Lawler face-first into it, an amazing payback from when Lawler did the exact same thing to him back in December. I loved the way they worked the big comeback. Usually you'd get the tried and true hot tag with Mantel coming in to clean house, but this was all about Lawler and Dundee. Lawler is bleeding and absorbing shots, clearly ready to drop the strap and go bonkers, so Landell comes in and grabs him. Mantel jumps in to even things up but Calhoun puts him back out, and while this is happening Dundee wraps a chain around his fist again, goes for the big home run shot on Lawler, but Lawler ducks and Bill cracks Buddy. Landell is covered in blood and from there it's basically one long festival of babyface punches until Calhoun calls for the blood stoppage. Dundee was so great down that last stretch, repeatedly getting clocked by Mantel or thrown out the ring just to get back up, run face first into another punch, get chucked out, bounce up, go again, fully driven by instinct. Memphis was the very best. 

Some VINTAGE Pirata Morgan

Pirata Morgan v Volador (Monterrey, 1991)

Another blood-soaked Pirata Morgan classic. This wasn't an apuestas match, it was mano a mano, but it was worked like an apuestas and I'm convinced that just about any Pirata Morgan apuestas from around this period is worth watching. One of the knocks on Morgan is that his peak was fairly short and he kind of fell off a cliff after '92, with only smatterings of top drawer stuff after that. I don't know if I'd even disagree with that to be honest, but I've watched a goodly amount of our one-eyed Pirate recently and I'll tell you one thing, Pirata Morgan from about 1988 to 1992 is one of the best wrestlers on earth. He was a total savage in this, jumping Volador at the bell and ramming him into the post, ripping open his mask and lapping up the freely-flowing blood. People were losing their minds for Will Ospreay licking Omega's blood off his arm last weekend and that was very nice and all, but Pirata Morgan licking a handful of Volador's blood before guzzling it straight from the wound and spraying it in the air is really the peak of disgusting ghoul behaviour. Some of the ref' intervention in the primera was a little overbearing, but this is Monterrey and heel ref' shtick is par for the course. I thought Morgan was great at pouncing on Volador's indecision though, often by punching and booting him in the kidneys. And to be fair, Morgan outright cracking the ref' with an accidental punch to set up the Volador comeback made for an awesome payoff. And the longer it goes the more walls come crashing down around Morgan. First it was that shot to the ref', then Misterioso, Morgan's second, tries to interject, only to get clocked by Pirata himself. Volador's blood loss selling was really great and by the end of the tercera you've got him stumbling around with half a mask and Pirata Morgan spewing blood from his scarred eye socket like a freak. The big Volador dive is a real corker, and in very un-Monterrey fashion we actually get a clean, satisfying finish with no horse shit. This was awesome. 

Lawler v Dundee - an eye for a...haircut???

Jerry Lawler v Bill Dundee (Lawler's Title v Dundee's Hair, Loser Leaves Town) (Memphis, 12/30/85)

I actually hadn't watched this since the DVDVR Memphis project, which was a whole ass 15 fucking years ago now. It was my #1 during the vote for that and at one point I would've called it the best match to ever happen in the US. I've watched a whole lot of a whole lot these last 15 years and sometimes a re-watch will bump a match down a peg, the lustre of that first watch worn away, the participants no longer the new discoveries they were in 2008. 

Or, you know, sometimes I should just shut the fuck up. Because this really is the pro wrestling.

What a pair on unbelievable performances, possibly (probably?) the career best from both, and the bar on that is HIGH. Dundee's onslaught in the first half is absolutely incredible stuff. Maybe the best punches ever, but everything else he did looked sensational as well. The way he fuckin headbutted Lawler in the face as a cut-off was amazing, he was throwing sharp elbows, booting him right in the face, hitting top rope fist drops, and all of it was zeroed in on Lawler's eye. He was ducking and dodging, circling a half-blind Lawler, peppering him over and over, the perfect shark smelling blood in the water. Then he'd showboat and strut and at one point made the finger gun gesture and pulled the "trigger" as Lawler was lying flat on his back. It might be the greatest heat segment ever and it almost resembled the first fall of a bloody lucha apestas match, where the tecnico essentially gets nothing. Lawler's selling was of course spectacular. It might not just be HIS greatest sell job, but the greatest sell job of anyone ever. The way he was staggering around throwing wild misses, absorbing shots from the literal blind side, taking punches while falling, trying and failing miserably to get a foothold, it was basically perfect. I think he got two punches in during that first 10 minutes and one was an absolute corker from a kneeling position, but not nearly enough to swing the tide. 

Obviously the clip in the middle is infuriating, but the saving grace is the TV highlight package they play at the end, which allows us to fill in some of the blanks and at least piece together where they went narratively. We see Dundee getting more and more frustrated, even going for the top rope whoopie cushion. Then we see how Lawler managed to drag himself back into the fight, fittingly with the piledriver. Plus, while it sucks that we missed a Lawler comeback, when we join the action again he still has the strap up, so we sleep well in the knowledge that we never missed THE Lawler comeback. Dundee getting yeeted face-first into that table was fucking amazing and then they end up on the stairs after Dundee tries to hightail it with his wife. He sensed that he'd missed his chance to put Lawler away, so rather than risk losing his AND his wife's hair he'd just get in the car and drive until Tennessee was in the rear view. Lawler taking that bump over the rail was total Puerto Rico, the sort of thing where you're thinking "he won't actually take a bump off that" and then he fucking does take a bump off it! Dundee basically pleading with Calhoun to count Lawler out while Lawler stumbles back to the ring was a great moment, and I love Dundee hitting a desperation baseball slide dropkick just as Lawler is crawling back in the ring. Then they build to the comeback of all comebacks and the last couple minutes are off the charts. Lance, as he very often does, puts it perfectly on commentary, saying that they're just trying to annihilate each other. Even if you think the finish is a bit of an anti-climax given everything else they'd unleashed on each other, I still love the idea that Dundee brought it home by throwing something in that bad eye. 

I remember watching all of this stuff for the first time during the Memphis project. Going through that footage is maybe the most fun I've ever had watching wrestling, properly deep-diving a new territory and seeing how great people like Lawler, Dundee and Mantel were, listening to Lance Russell narrate it all and knowing after a disc and a half that he was the greatest to ever do it. With that comes a sort of nostalgia and sometimes with the nostalgia comes rose-tinted memories. Unless you count the blood in Lawler's eye there was nothing rose-tinted about my memories of this. It holds up as one of the best matches there's ever been, and a real strong contender for match of the decade. 

RINGS Maelstrom: 2nd (4/26/96)

Jacob Hamilton v Michael Stam 

At six minutes long you could argue this was mercifully short. You could also argue it was still about four minutes too long. I think both cases could be compelling. It was inoffensive, to be fair. I've never seen either guy before but apparently Hamilton is a mixed martial artist from Australia. He pretty much did nothing well and really just got smothered by Stam before tapping to a scarf hold. Stam is a hefty American fellow with very heavy breathing - almost disconcertingly so - who made this one and only appearance on the Fighting Network. At least he went out with a 100% record. 

Wataru Sakata v Todor Todorov 

What a fun wee seven minutes. Todorov is usually game for a spirited contest and this was no different. Some of the throws were a bit easily come by, but they looked pretty enough and Todorov has some really explosive hips, which is a thing I'll always be impressed by as an S&C coach. That finish is one of the coolest armbars ever too. I'm not sure I've even seen Han pull that one out. 

Mitsuya Nagai v Glenn Brown

I don't know if this was a shoot or not because it lasted all of exactly 40 seconds. Brown I have never seen before, but he looks like a wealthy anime villain who condescends to the main protagonist in an obnoxious British accent, slicked back hair with a very visibly taped up nipple. Just the one nipple. Which you could possibly argue is not pertinent information. Brown comes out in a quirky crane stance and throws a couple kicks that I think drew a laugh from the crowd. Nagai threw kicks that were no laughing matter and Brown immediately started backing up like "ew this is not what I was expecting please behave" and feebly tried to reach the ropes after Nagai took him down. Feebly quickly turned to unsuccessfully and there's yer choke inside one minute. I actually don't think this was a shoot. Gun to my head I'm saying work. Brown's kicks were quite frankly too terrible. Sorry, Glenn. At least you are by far the least cretinous white man named Glenn to wrestle in a Japanese shoot style promotion in the mid-1990s. 

Willie Williams v Bitsadze Tariel 

Willie by god Williams! I had no clue that feller was still doing the shoot style in 1996. There's a sort of endearing quality to Williams, a giant lummox with a heart of gold (prolly), and while this was a lumbering nonsense of a thing there have been worse uses of 12 minutes in RINGS. Both guys are quite tentative, though it seemed that tentativeness was more a result of them not wanting to look stupid throwing ropey strikes than them not wanting to be struck. Tariel has at least a couple really good bouts in RINGS, one against Tamura the following year that I remember being great, but he looked very not good here and Tamura was outrageous in '97 so who knows. I did not buy that finish, however I was also not the one being kneed in the guts by a big giant hairy bastard Georgian karateka. So who knows. 

Dick Vrij v Maurice Smith 

Well damn, I didn't know Mo Smith fought in RINGS. I don't think I've actually seen a single worked fight that Smith was in, even though he's done some stuff in UWF and PWFG (and Pancrase, but I have no clue if those were worked or not). And apparently he fought both Kohsaka and Tamura in RINGS! What the hell? How do I not remember that? Anyhow, this was like four minutes and I'm guessing it was a work. They mostly traded some tentative stand-up before Vrij went for a takedown that in actual fact was more of a falling down while grabbing the other person, and it was pretty amusing seeing Smith take Vrij's back with ease and attempt a choke while wearing boxing gloves. Nice knockout finish. Is it any wonder Smith would take the UFC heavyweight title a year later? Not at all. 

Volk Han v Nikolai Zouev

How about this for a PRIME cut of the Fighting Network? Han comes out like a whirlwind at the start, throwing a flurry of palms and knees that didn't all land the cleanest, but when you throw about a dozen of them then you'd expect at least one to hit flush. Sure enough a knee caught Zouev and down he went. That set us up for the next few minutes, with Han taking a comfortable lead in points, forcing Zouev into using a few rope breaks after that early knockdown. It's been a hot minutes since I've watched any Zouev but he was looking very much like a Dallas Mavericks second round draft pick out of Slovenia. I'll tell you what though, he can hold his own with the master and some of the grappling was excellent. The overhead camera really gave us an awesome look at the way they shifted for position, grabbing one limb to create an opening for another, sometimes snatching two appendages at once. Zouev hitting a shoot style DDT was amazing and when he grabbed that cross armbreaker he had Han scrambling for the ropes. Even if Han was way out in front on points, there was always a sense that Zouev was capable of catching him and finish things. After Zouev uses up his last rope break he has no choice but to go for the throat and the ridiculous armbar at the end was a fitting way to cap off a fight between these two. This was pretty great. 

Tsuyoshi Kohsaka v Yoshihisa Yamamoto 

This was also pretty great. There have been better fights up to this point in RINGS history, but this one almost felt like a precursor of what would come in the next 2-3 years. You still had Han and a few of the other Eastern Europeans doing their thing right until the end (or at least until the promotion went full MMA in 2000), but what peak RINGS had that the earlier years didn't was that holy trinity of Tamura, Kohsaka and Yamamoto, all of whom were at THEIR peak. Even if Maeda was the centrepiece of the promotion before, he had half a working knee from basically the very beginning and missed stretches of time as a result. A lot of the earlier shows were loaded with random Bulgarians or Dutchmen who were way more interesting than the natives; bland guys like Nobuaki Kakuta and Masaaki Satake who couldn't really do much. Nagai was fine enough but he was nothing on UWFi Tamura never mind peak Tamura. Most of the best RINGS stuff of those years had foreign talent involved and this was a departure from that. Stylistically it was also very reminiscent of some of the top tier RINGS bouts, things like Tamura/Yamamoto, Tamura/Kohsaka, the later Yamamoto/Kohsaka fights, Han against all three. A less spectacular version of those fights, but a glimpse of that particular, wonderful future. Obviously the matwork was exceptional. Yamamoto was on one and raced out to an early lead, forcing Kohsaka into a few quick rope breaks. Then he'd unload with strikes and drilled Kohsaka with an overhand slap for a knockdown. It felt like Yamamoto had an answer for everything Kohsaka threw at him, like when Kohsaka ripped him to the mat with a gorgeous takedown, rolling into a calf slicer, only for Yamamoto to reverse even that. When Yamamoto is finally pushed into using a rope break, losing his first point of the fight, Kohsaka is visibly fired up and it feels like HE feels like the comeback is on. Can he pull something out the bag before the points gap kills him? 

Complete & Accurate RINGS

Meiko and Kana hit each other very hard

Meiko Satomura v Kana (Triple Tails, 2/13/11)

This might be as close to joshi FUTEN as I've ever seen. I don't just mean the stiffness or how they worked it stylistically -- I'm talking right down to the presentation with the smaller crowd, the tightly-packed environment, even the dodgy close-up camera shots. You could hear eeeeeverything in this and it gave the very obvious brutality an even more visceral edge. There have been outright stiffer matches in joshi, things like Hotta/Aja coming to mind, but where this was remarkable was how CLEAN the striking was. I think there was one strike that looked a bit whiffed and it was a running shining wizard from Kana. Other than that, if they threw, I don't know, 50 strikes in total, 47 of them were a 9 or 10 out of 10 on the execution scale. It was absolute god tier striking. And of course they laid it in something fierce. Kana was throwing roundhouse variations and spin kicking Meiko in the lungs, winging urakens that about made Satomura's eardrum explode, full force Wanderlei punting her in the dish. While Kana doing this to people is nothing new, Meiko isn't someone I'm used to seeing work as Ikeda, at least not to this extent. But she was absolutely drilling Kana with shots and that cartwheel knee to the back of the head was an absurdity of a thing. There was one strike exchange towards the end that nearly veered into your rote "you hit me and I'll hit you and we'll show everyone how tough we are" nonsense, but even in the moment it felt like it was rooted in Kana operating with a chip on her shoulder. The way she celebrated at the finish reinforced that as well, how it came across like this was an actual combat sport contest and she'd just beaten one of the very best, someone that maybe nobody expected her to beat. Plus the strikes themselves looking amazing will make something like that a little more tolerable anyway. The grappling wasn't necessarily flashy and you've seen better Battlarts/FUTEN matwork, but it was undoubtedly aggressive and competitive, everything being fought over and when they locked something in it always looked like they were going for the tap. Nothing felt like it was applied merely to further the match or to bridge from one series of strikes to the next. And the chicken wing choke at the end really did look killer. 

Tamura and the Super Vader!

Kiyoshi Tamura v Super Vader (UWFi, 6/10/94)

Yeah, this is one of the best sub-10-minute matches ever. It had been so long since I'd seen it that I remembered nothing about it other than the result, so I found myself getting roped into the moment by those early leg kicks just like every person in that building. Tamura slapping Vader before the bell was amazing as well, Vader then flinging off the mask and kind of tilting his head like "oh, son...I really wish you hadn't." Tamura sticking and moving felt like the obvious strategy from a shoot standpoint, but it's not always easy to make the obvious strategy come off as convincingly as this. I thought he was incredible as this undersized demon with rapid fire strikes and determination from here to the moon and back. There was this palpable sense of dread when he got backed into the corner for the first time, then Vader took a massive swing at him and JUST before it took his head off Tamura ducked and shot out into the middle of the ring. When it happens a second time Vader manages to tag him and you're thinking THIS time he's fucked for sure, but he fires back and catches Vader with a shot to the mouth and the place goes ballistic. Still, this only works as well as it does because of Vader and how he sold the progressive toll of those leg kicks. He went from being irritated by them to showing that they were actively stinging and something he wanted to avoid, and by halfway he was damn near crippled by them. His howling like a plains bear after every shot was spectacular. It's one of my favourite performances from the big man and it really shows his versatility, even if he was still very much Vader being Vader when you get right down to it. I think it shows Tamura's versatility as well, in that he'd never done anything quite like this in his career, which was still in its early stages if we're going by actual matches wrestled. Just an amazingly smart bit of work. 

Santo and Parka! Bleed everywhere!

El Hijo del Santo v La Parka (Monterrey, 12/23/01)

Well shit son, how about this for one of the all-time great lucha brawls. I'm sure I've said this here before, but for a guy we associate with graceful dives and gorgeous wrestling sequences, the son of El Santo is a fucking animal when it comes to brawling. He went at Parka with a vengeance in that first fall, just a relentless force that wouldn't let up. He was an absolute pitbull. The way he then blended the beauty and the savagery with that tope was absolutely top drawer. Parka ripping rows of fixed seats off the ground with his body didn't hurt either. It was a total domination of an opening fall and Santo's viciousness was something to behold. After his comeback Parka maybe could've sprinkled in a little more selling of the beatdown he'd just received, at least in the early stages, but you forget that as soon as he starts yeeting Santo face-first into rows of seats. Santo's gusher is a horror of a thing and he BLEEDS EVERYWHERE and leaves literal trails of blood wherever he goes. There were pools of blood on the seats he'd been thrown into! He got hung upside down in the corner at one point and that part of the ring looked like a murder scene. By the tercera Santo's silver tights are half red, his silver mask is full red, and Parka's swank white bodysuit is covered in patches of blood with very little of it being his own. Parka ramming the back of Santo's head into the ring post is also legitimately one of the nasties post shots I've ever seen. Where Santo is on an island almost of his own is the way he sells blood loss. He was incredible in the deciding fall here, putting across the toll of what he'd sustained, even in how he'd climb the turnbuckles like that alone was an arduous process. Of course the dives were spectacular and there are very few things more lucha libre than spectators fleeing for their lives, scrambling to remove their children from harm's way, praying for the elderly in the front row too slow or frail to withdraw, as a wrestler ends up out in front of them as another wrestler runs the opposite ring ropes. And all of those people were right to retreat because Santo fucking obliterated Parka with that tope. I had no memory of what the actual finish was even though I knew it was something ropey, so I was preparing myself for it. To be honest though, I didn't think this was even in the top two or three tiers of horse shit Monterrey finishes. Santo needed to just be RID of Parka and the way he volleyed him in the balls was at least a hell of a spot on its own. A real Monterrey classic. 

The art of the hair match

El Dandy v Pirata Morgan (Hair v Hair) (EMLL, 9/23/88)

What a sensational bloodthirsty masterpiece. One of the highlights of any Pirata Morgan apeustas match is him lapping up someone's blood straight from their forehead and spraying it in the air like a demented vampire, and he did that within about a minute and a half here so we got an early indicator of how good this was going to be. He wiped the floor with Dandy in that first caida and while Dandy maybe over-milked the ref' preventing him from throwing retaliatory punches, I at least appreciated how quickly Morgan pounced on the advantage that presented itself. There was no quick second fall to tie things up here either; Morgan kept going at Dandy with a vengeance, then when Dandy made his comeback they stretched it out a little longer than usual. Of course Pirata Morgan does what he always does in wagers matches and bleeds like a psychopath. I love Dandy getting some payback from earlier by biting Morgan's open wound and spraying the blood in the air, albeit with less grizzly proficiency than his opponent. The tercera might genuinely be my favourite deciding fall in an apuestas match ever. I had no recollection of it being this great but jeez louise these two were fucking incredible in this. The blood-loss selling, the desperation, the PUNCHES, the bumps, the big dive, everything. Dandy tries a falling headbutt at one point and Morgan mule kicks him right in the face and it was the best counter to a falling headbutt I've ever seen. Some of the moves off the top looked not one bit graceful and they were all the better for it, especially Morgan's attempt at a senton where he barely mustered the energy to flip himself over, only to crash on the mat like he'd been flung out a catapult after Dandy rolled out the way. I was so wrapped up in the moment that it didn't even register that they hadn't yet hit a dive, so when Dandy flipped Morgan to the floor and hit the ropes I got legitimately giddy. And of course Dandy's tope over the top hit like a fucking torpedo. Morgan's determination to put the figure-four on Dandy after Dandy won the second fall with it was always going to be his downfall and sometimes the most obvious payoffs are the best ones. Holy fuck this was tremendous. 

DUMP running riot

Dump Matsumoto v Yukari Ohmori (Hair v Hair) (AJW, 3/20/86)

Well this was...a lot! I'm not really sure what to do with it, honestly. I mean on the one hand it's not really my cup of tea, but on the other hand maybe it is? And then on the third hand it's absolutely one of the wildest spectacles in wrestling history. The whole thing was six shades of bonkers and some of it was sort of jaw-dropping. Dump's entrance with the shogun uniform was godly and then the madness started immediately, with some of the most satisfying *THUNK*s you'll ever hear off of microphone shots. She was absolutely clonking Ohmori with that thing and I've not got a clue what Dump was shouting in between strikes but it felt like people were perhaps aggravated by it ever so slightly. I think where I sometimes struggle with the Dump and Co stuff is the extent to which they run the interference spots. I've seen enough 80s AJW to know that no match is getting thrown out for some good old fashioned chicanery. Referees will routinely be flung about by the wrestlers and once or twice they'll end up getting stabbed by scissors as well, so it's not that I can't suspend my disbelief that the ref' hasn't stopped the match or whatever. I think it's more the frequency of the interference that wears me down. To be fair though, it's the kind of thing I imagine I'd get used to before long, which I guess is true of any tropes associated with a particular wrestling style. If nothing else this crowd lived and died on allll of it and it's hard not to appreciate wrestlers working an audience into such a frenzy that people are literally in tears. The mid-match pull apart lost me a little, but it was certainly frantic and Chigusa walloping Dump with a metal container was amazing. People lost their mind during every second of this in case you were wondering, and the pop for Chigusa and Ohmori hitting the double dropkick was one of the loudest you'll ever hear.

My favourite part of the match came right after the restart (or when they'd cleared everyone else out the ring), with Dump trying to look as amiable as possible for a disgusting psychopath in demonic face paint who'd just tried to choke the life out of someone with a chain, offering a handshake with her most beatific smile. People were shrieking themselves hoarse and pleading with Ohmori not to fall for it and then Dump just grabs her anyway. I never knew she'd hid the scissors in her singlet so I flipped when she produced the things from nowhere and stabbed Ohmori in the face. Honestly, I don't think Dump is really for me, but all things considered her performance here was one of the most extraordinary I've ever seen in a match. Obviously she was a complete maniac and the point that's often made about her being a cartoon villain come to life is true. She has no boundaries and while the constant interference grates a little, there's no doubt that it builds heat and anticipation for comeuppance, because you know that for as disgusting and terrifying as she is, she needs her cronies to bail her out time and again. And even if she DOESN'T need them we're never really given the chance to find out, because they almost always come to her rescue within seconds anyway. The beauty of her performance here, even more than the wanton savagery, was that brief stretch where she actually got to show some vulnerability, when the cronies were held at bay for a minute or two. The way she sold being in danger, how rocked she was by Ohmori finally stringing together some offence, her sell of Ohmori's piledriver, it was pretty phenomenal. I guess that's the double-edged sword -- I might not love watching all the bits of interference, but they make something like that all the more special, how they delay that gratification, really allowing the fleeting comeuppance to resonate. Dump going fully off the rails after that and literally stabbing Ohmori in the arm with scissors was fucking absurd. A pair of bastard scissors just hanging out her arm! And you know what, it tells you Dump was desperate enough to go that far.

A day for Los Bucaneros

Pirata Morgan, Jerry Estrada & Hombre Bala v Rayo De Jalisco Jr, Atlantis & Alfonso Dantes (EMLL, February 1987)

The original Bucaneros! I almost forgot about Jerry Estrada running around wearing an eye patch. I've watched a couple amazing Pirata Morgan/Jerry Estrada rudo shows in the last week and this was another one, with Hombre Bala matching them every step, especially in the tercera. They mugged the tecnicos in the primera and Morgan was directing the whole thing, a lunatic Tarantino with a fetish for blading his own eye socket rather than putting other people's feet in his mouth. In the second caida we got a taste of how ridiculous the rudos were going to be in the tercera - some comedy, some clowning, the tecnico comeback with Rayo running circles around everyone. Alfonso Dantes looks old even by lucha standards here but still has amazing whip on his arm wringer takedowns, and of course Atlantis hitting his running moonsault out the corner looks amazing by any standard. And then there's the tercera, which was basically one extended reel of rudo horse shit and miscommunication spots. Sequences where one, two, sometimes all three of them are made to look foolish, some where they end up running face-first into each other, some where one will dropkick the other into the third man who will then be accidentally be speared by the first. There was one sequence that ended with Estrada taking a Fuerza bump to the floor and dropkicking both of his partners in the face, and I wish I could do the whole thing justice but it would be impossible with mere words. There's an unfortunate jump in the tape, or maybe a commercial break, but we miss what seemed to be the start of Los Bucaneros making their comeback. When they wrestle back control they hit stereo running dropkicks to a kneeling Atlantis, and right at the very second the move connects two people in the crowd fire off a fucking cap gun! Pirata Morgan is top 30 ever. Jerry Estrada might be top 3.

Murdoch and Adonis! Hogan and Snuka!

Dick Murdoch & Adrian Adonis v Jack & Gerry Brisco (WWF, 1/12/85)

I should re-watch the North-South/Briscos match from late '84 that everyone loved for a minute then decided it wasn't actually that good after all. I last watched it 15 years ago and loved it and if this is anything to go by I'll probably still like it today. When the crowd are sort of lukewarm towards participants in a match at the outset, only to be fully invested in them by the end, you know everyone involved did something right. You never had to worry about Murdoch and Adonis; they'd been in the WWF for about a year already and they were getting heat everywhere - Boston, the Meadowlands, St. Louis, the Garden, here in Philly, pretty much wherever they worked. Jack Brisco was a former NWA World Champ so he's hardly a no-name scrub rocking into town, but I'm not sure how often he'd have wrestled in Philly before coming to the WWF a few months earlier. The Spectrum was a WWF venue throughout the 70s and 80s. Honestly I don't know shit about Gerry's career and I can't be bothered checking, but either way the Briscos weren't big WWF names in the grand scheme of things. The crowd weren't cold on them as such, but they weren't behind them the same way they'd be behind a team of, say, Ivan Putski and Tony Garea, folk they'd seen countless times over the years. By the end everyone was molten for them winning the belts though, chucking garbage into the ring after Murdoch pulls a fast one and sneaks a chair shot on Jack while the ref' is distracted. As Tracy Smothers would say: "That's called WORKIN', motherfucker!" Murdoch and Adonis were of course a pair of awesome bumping stooge idiots. Murdoch got smacked in the mouth and did one of his all-time greatest punch drunk walks where he's swinging wildly at thin air. Adonis started the match by taking four armdrags and two scoop slams one after another. Then when they took over they were choking the life out of Gerry, yanking his head back by the hair so they could measure point-of-the-elbow shots right to the nose, cutting the ring off while building the heat. They really feel like one of the best teams ever when you consider how effective they are at both taking a beating and dishing one out, flipping that switch and going from stooges to killers in an instant. Yeah, I should re-watch the '84 match. 

Hulk Hogan & Jimmy Snuka v Bob Orton Jr. & Don Muraco (WWF, 5/18/85)

Totally out of nowhere awesome match. I'd never seen this talked up before, then last week our good man Elliott on the GME discord said it was great and wouldn't you know it but he was not wrong. Hogan was a whirlwind here and it might be one of my favourite performances of his. He was off the charts charismatic, off the charts energetic, brought simple offence that was sold like it mattered and then sold the effects of a beatdown like that mattered even more. The early segment was Hogan on a heater, going after Orton's cast arm and firing back when it looked like the heels had him cornered. The problem is that the hot streak always comes to an end and this time he got cornered once too often. There was no big transition spot as such, no single move or double team or even any overt cheating - Orton and Muraco just swarmed him, got him in the corner and put as many boots to him as they could before the ref' counted to five. After the hot tag to Snuka, Hogan doesn't just step out onto the apron and wait in the corner. He sells the beating by lying on the floor, trying to climb back up to the apron only for Orton or Muraco to kick him down again. This is also happening after the heels have taken over on Snuka, so the heat is double nuclear. The actual transition to Snuka in peril is one of the best of the decade. Snuka comes flying off the top with a cross body on Muraco, who catches him and staggers back. He's about to go down, but Fuji has the referee distracted and just as Muraco topples backwards Orton comes in from the blind side and cracks Snuka in the head with the cast. Snuka is lifeless for like a minute and comes up GUSHING blood, and before long Orton's white cast is about 50% red with blood. With every shot Hogan takes trying to climb onto the apron the more desperate he gets, and I think Hogan as an apron worker is something he probably deserves more credit for. He's great at it. His timing in general has always been wonderful, but the way he milks the heat for everything it's worth, still selling from when he was being worked over before, you kind of wonder why more people don't do it because the crowd are rabid for him to finally get back into things. And then when he does the roof comes off, Orton and Muraco backing away like they knew they'd fucked up. The finish is maybe a bit of a letdown, but the post-match is wild as they brawl around ringside and chuck each other over barricades and police are running around trying to keep the crowd in check. 

Hart Foundation v British Bulldogs (part 1?)

A few years back, during the first lockdown in 2020, I went through a ton of WWF Golden Age tags. You know, that rough period of 1985-1989 with the fun tag division. Most of what I watched was Rockers and Islanders and a bit of Demolition, but all of them against a decent variety of other teams. One match up I did not re-visit was the Hart Foundation v British Bulldogs. I watched all of THOSE some time back in the 2000s and it was never my favourite pairing anyway, and the Bulldogs are kind of whatever and I'd rather watch a dozen Hart Foundation v Islanders matches if I'm going to watch a dozen Hart Foundation matches. But I got the itch to watch at least one Harts v Bulldogs match for the first time in forever, and perhaps that one will turn into two or three or maybe even more but probably not more than three. We'll see how it goes.  

Hart Foundation v British Bulldogs (WWF, 9/23/85)

Gorilla notes at the outset that "this match literally REEKS of connotations." Certainly one of his better lines. He's talking about title shot connotations and really what he means is ramifications rather than connotations, as the winners here might get themselves a shot at Valentine and Beefcake in the near future. At least I assume that's what he's meaning. You can never really tell with Gorilla and that is why we love him dearly. I guess absence in wrestling makes the heart grow fonder because I thought this was pretty great and really didn't have any of the issues I usually think of with the Bulldogs. It had a nice early shine segment, a short Davey in peril segment followed by a longer spell with Dynamite in peril, and then in the last couple minutes I thought they were building towards a time limit draw before they came through with a clean finish. Not everything came off perfectly, but the majority of it did, structurally it landed great, and they nailed the big notes as well as the more minute things that really make a match pop. It was pretty fun seeing Dynamite and Bret have a top this contest at a few points, maybe something they started in Stampede and kept it running all the way down the road. First it was the spot where Dynamite grabs a seated Bret by the hair and yanks him into the air, which Bret paid him back for later. Then Dynamite took the sternum bump in the corner like a maniac, flipping backwards damn near into the middle of the ring, and later Bret took one of his own that was every bit as nasty. Bret is maybe still a bit vanilla at this stage, maybe isn't comfortable projecting his character yet, but he's definitely a great mechanic and solid in all of the ways you'd expect. He was also fun complaining about nothing hair pulls early on, really screaming at the referee to have a word with Dynamite. Dynamite is absolutely yoked to the moon and back, all intensity all the time. He even backs Bret into the ropes with enough force that he nearly flips Bret over them. His heat segment was excellent and I guess it's easy to forget how good Dynamite could be when he wasn't doing stupid shit or dominating 90% of matches against folks he probably shouldn't be dominating. He took a slam on the concrete that looked disgusting and eventually Davey couldn't take any more, ran in and chased Bret all the way around the ring twice, Jimmy Hart scrambling for safety with the megaphone waving like a white flag. Neidhart was mostly about the front facelocks and choking, but his timing was decent enough and he at least has fun bully charisma. With a less useless ref' some of the distraction spots might've been better, although to be fair it doesn't look like the Hart Foundation REALLY know how to maximise those moments with interesting stuff yet. A couple times they basically just did a blind tag, which is fine and all but there was a little more scope to be creative if they had it in the holster. The last couple minutes sort of meander and there was one ropey bit of selling where Bret just went back on offence after getting hit with a huge gorilla press slam (and this was post-hot tag, so Davey was the fresh man), but the finish itself was great. Very good start for what is a somewhat maligned pairing in 2023. 

More Dandy v Azteca (featuring Chavo Classic)!

El Dandy, El Texano & Chavo Guerrero v Angel Azteca, Javier Cruz & Americo Rocca (CMLL, 3/9/90)

The Dandy/Azteca feud rolls on. That was the centrepiece here and it ruled, not just in what they actually did together but how it progressed over the course of the match. Azteca comes in with a chip on his shoulder after being SLIGHTED by Dandy and Texano the previous week. At the end of that match Azteca and Dandy were at each other's throat and YOU knew that AZTECA knew Dandy didn't see him as being on his level. Azteca took umbrage and wanted to show Dandy and everyone else how wrong he was. He had the whole primera to do it, the entire fall one extended Dandy/Azteca exchange, but maybe the moment was too big for him because in the end he was soundly dispatched. You'll sometimes hear sprint coaches talking about athletes getting out their own head, focusing on staying loose and maintaining stride rhythm, rather than thinking about running as fast as humanly possible. You don't want to try SO hard that you tense up and movement patterns stiffen and the run suffers. That's what the primera looked like for Azteca. He had a point to prove and in his head that was all that mattered, but it crippled his rhythm and he couldn't focus on the moment and you can't get away with that against Roberto Gutierrez El Dandy. The matwork had a real intensity to it and it always felt like it could break down, then Azteca grabbed a hammerlock and Dandy, with one arm, slammed him on his neck. It was brutal and immediately after that he submitted Azteca with headscissors. As soon as the fall ended everyone else jumped in the ring, conscious of the fact the match was on a knife edge and that tensions could spill over, each guy prepared to let it fly should it come to that. Then as the match went on Azteca started to loosen up, started to find his rhythm and settle into a groove. That wasn't always against Dandy and it took Chavo Guerrero cracking his jaw with an uppercut along the way, but regardless of how he got there he'd peaked by the tercera. The match finished with them going at it and every roll-up felt like it could be the finish, which is the kind of thing that can sound hyperbolic but I really mean it. The crowd felt the same and bit on every count. Everyone else brought the goods in their supporting roles and each exchange kept pace with Dandy/Azteca, the struggle always present and that intensity was there for everything. Chavo hitting his amazing northern lights suplex on Americo Rocca was a thing of beauty and Rocca sold it by locking his leg out and quivering like he was going into shock. Cruz and Rocca also obliterated Dandy with a doomsday device dropkick even the Road Warriors would wince at. I am ready for every instalment of Dandy v Azteca. 

1990 CMLL Project

Complete & Accurate Guerrero Brothers

Revisiting 00s US Indies #41

CM Punk & Ace Steel v BJ Whitmer & Dan Maff (Chicago Street Fight) (ROH Death Before Dishonour II - Night 2, 7/24/04)

Choosing to watch the blow off to a blood feud - any blood feud - after having watched three Buzz Sawyer v Hacksaw Duggan matches the previous week might've been a poor decision on my part. I live around the corner from an exceptional Italian restaurant and I would never eat there on a Friday and then go to Pizza Hut on the Tuesday (or one could argue any day). To be fair this was always going to be more about the big spots and crazy looking shit. It's 2004 and that was the done thing then and is largely still the done thing now. When they brought the barbed wire board out though, it felt like the point of it was to maim rather than pop the crowd, so they captured the sense of hatred well enough. Even the goofier moments like the duelling chair shots were at least carried out with plenty of violence. The chair shot bit also led to everyone in the crowd hucking chairs into the ring while the referee covered up in the corner, then all four guys proceeded to wrestle on a canvas fulla folding chairs for the next few minutes. Punk and Whitmer doing a fighting spirit exploder sequence on the chairs was dumb as hell but still sort of amusing, I guess? All four guys tasted the blade and Whitmer leaned fully into his Dusty Rhodes side by blading his head and arm. Unfortunately his Dusty Rhodes side lies almost entirely in the shadow of his other side which isn't nearly as interesting. He and Maff are the heels and they stall early, flipping off fans and cussing people out rather than getting in the ring and giving this Chicago crowd the mutilation they want. Whitmer just always feels like a guy playing pro wrestler and not even an interesting one, zero conviction behind anything, hollow personality, no presence. He tries like a bastard and of course he'll bump wildly, but it's all in service of putting on the wrestling match that was mapped out beforehand. Nothing is immersive beyond the crazy shit he might do but three seconds later I'm back to not caring anyway. I could not have bought anything less than I bought Whitmer giving someone the finger and telling them to fuck off. Dan Maff isn't someone I've ever really cared about either but he was pretty fun as a stocky Bob Orton Jr. Some of his bumping was right out the Dick Murdoch playbook and once or twice it maybe never matched the tone of what they were aiming for, but I'd be completely full of shit if I sat here and said I wouldn't have loved it if the actual Dick Murdoch had done the exact same thing. The commentary was very bad. Holy moly Sapolsky is the most terrible and his partner on the night wasn't much better. If I can't buy anything Whitmer is doing in the ring then I'm buying even less of what Gabe is selling on commentary. Not for a second does it feel like HE buys what he's selling and everything just sounds like a shill. He's a car salesman who really does like that Skoda Octavia, but he's not convincing anyone that it's everything you'd get from an Audi Q8. You can tell me that this is one of the most savage things you've ever seen, but when you're using the sort of lingo you'd see on a wrestling message board to do it I can't possibly shake the sense that you're trying desperately to convince me. Then you get over the top nonsense like when Punk and Steel set up some mad shit they're about to unleash on Whitmer and Gabe says "oh god, they're gonna try and take his life!" And the actual spot was insane, as they prop Whitmer in the corner with a table jammed into his throat before Punk skites a ladder across it into Whitmer's face, but I couldn't appreciate it because I was too busy laughing. And then Steel tombstones Whitmer off the middle rope through a table and Gabe shouts "DANGEROUSSSSS" and whoever told him it was a good idea to ever do that should be shot point blank in the face. 

On the Road Again, off of Highway 10. In a Cabin on a Rural Route, Piper's Gonna Figure out the Hard Way how Fast He Can Wear His Welcome Out

Roddy Piper, Paul Orndorff & David Schultz v Rocky Johnson, Tony Atlas & Ivan Putski (WWF, 4/24/84) - GREAT

We get a pre-match interview segment with Okerlund and the heel team and as soon as Schultz said "Tony Atlas, where I'm from..." I knew it was going to be followed with something racist, if not overtly then at least covertly. Sure enough he says they're going to tie Atlas up and whip him, then they'll tie up Johnson and whip him too, and they'll make Putski watch. Overt rather than covert, then. Once they got in the ring they gave us an electric six minutes. I thought Piper was incredible here and it's one of his most fun WWF performances, certainly as a heel. At the intros Atlas tries to peek under his kilt to see if Piper is a TRUE Scotsman. I've never personally worn a kilt in America but I know the look of a man - even a Canadian one - who's endured his share of kilt-related japery, and I would guess Piper already had to spend half the day listening to Schultz making skirt jokes so he was about ready for a fight. He whips off the kilt and goes right at Atlas, no hesitancy at all, no stalling, no fear. The first couple minutes are a pure Roddy showcase. Atlas clonks him with a jumping headbutt and Piper is so dazed he asks the referee for a tag, then takes an atomic drop and flies into the babyface corner, realises where he is and frantically begs off before Johnson decks him. Putski comes in and does the machine gun punches while Piper is headlocked and Piper's jelly-legged sell is indescribable. Even Patterson on commentary was chuckling. Johnson comes in and does his own rapid fire punches, Piper stares dead-eyed into space, Johnson clocks him with a couple more shots and Piper does the greatest slow-motion face-first timber bump you've ever seen. When Piper gets the chance he rakes Johnson's eyes and immediately drags him to the heel corner to tag Orndorff, but in an awesome touch Piper falls to his knees right after the tag, still selling the effects of the beating he took. Another cool touch is him grabbing Johnson's leg so Orndorff can lay into him, Piper just lying on the canvas. As the ref' is distracted by Atlas running in Schultz starts beating on Johnson as well, but rather than joining in with this beating Piper keeps selling by lying on the apron grabbing hold of Johnson's trunks instead. A play-by-play rundown doesn't really do it justice, but it was a great showcase for some of the things Piper does well. Orndorff has some vicious stomps, a nice top rope forearm and a killer looking back suplex that about folded Johnson like an acordian. Piper hits a great falling fist drop and an AMAZING punch flurry, which he follows up by looking out at the crowd in open disgust, remembering the face of every jeering New Yorker. Even when Johnson tries to make his comeback Piper grabs him right away and drags him straight back to the heel corner to cut him off. I thought the desperation of that really put over the idea that Johnson could mount some serious offence and that the heels needed to swarm him. Great finish as well with Putski coming in hot, a melee breaking out, Piper pulling a foreign object from his tights in the commotion, and reversing a back suplex by hitting Putski with three quick shots to the head. This looked better than the usual single foreign object shot - it felt desperate and came across as really nasty, just a rapid flurry from a guy with nothing but bad intentions. His scurry out the ring on all fours after the pin was the cherry on top, that little extra to wring out every bit of hatred the crowd had to offer. Absurdly fun match and a stone cold epic Roddy Piper performance. 

Roddy Piper v Randy Savage (WWF, 1/22/90) - GOOD

Six years later and people are still prodding Piper about this fucking kilt. Savage just sits on the top turnbuckle while Sherri does his bidding, lifting the kilt up, giggling like Piper's the "entertainment" at a hen party. Piper slaps her on the arse and I guess slapping someone on the arse was all still very whimsical in 1990, but the Macho King took about as kindly to his Queen being sullied as Piper took to having his kilt lifted. As a match this wasn't as great as that house show one from '86 that someone recorded from 30 rows away, but it was still very fun. Sherri might be my favourite ringside menace ever and she was amazing here, landing a couple cheapshots including a whole fucking enziguri to Piper's neck! Piper does what is very possibly the greatest airplane spin ever and naturally sells some dizziness upon dropping Savage, then Savage responds with his own and goes STUPID fast and actually it's this one that's possibly the greatest airplane spin ever. I'm honestly shocked Savage managed to stay upright the whole time. He was dead centre in the ring doing this, making at least a dozen rotations, and not once did his balance waver. I would love to have seen what sort of proprioception training he was doing around this time. Of course he drops Piper and immediately falls on his butt for the comedy pop, then he tries climbing the turnbuckles and we all expect him to fall off and then he does! Sometimes the simplest payoffs are the best. 

Complete & Accurate Hot Rod

The Pirate versus the Farm Boy (ft. Jerry Estrada and Satanico)

Pirata Morgan, Jerry Estrada & Emilio Charles Jr. v El Satanico, Super Astro & Solomon Grundy (CMLL, 3/9/90)

What a rudo show. All three brought a little of everything here, some comedy, some nastiness, some technical proficiency, charisma levels through the roof. This was really all about their assault on Solomon Grundy. At times they went about it in a goofy way, which led to amusing moments like Pirata and Emilio trying to slam him only to get squashed beneath the ampleness of Grundy's frame. At other times they were downright vicious though, like when all three cornered the big fella and put the boots to him. They were a group of bullies wailing on a fat kid in dungarees. Grundy is basically Jerry Blackwell if Blackwell ate Hillbilly Jim. When he can defend himself he's fine and his partners have his back, one of his partners being Satanico and there's no one you'd rather have at your back than Satanico (although Grundy accidentally squashes Satanico in the corner and I half expected him to turn on Grundy right there). Lots of amusing stuff built around Grundy's size and the rudos not wanting to go at him one on one, like when Pirata Morgan was in there with Super Astro, the latter then tagged Grundy and Morgan nope'd the fuck out of there immediately. This was also a tremendous Jerry Estrada performance. He was determined to look like a fool and all of his horse shit had the perfect timing. It can be hard to do comedy right in wrestling, but this worked as well as it did because Estrada was so good at making himself look effortlessly stupid. He'd add a bunch of great little touches to accentuate the main stuff happening at the time, walking across the apron obliviously as Grundy is running the ropes and getting bounced into the second row, trying to grab someone's foot from the floor only to miss and fall over. It's the sort of peripheral stuff that kept people engaged even in the quieter moments, without trying to make things all about him. There's a great bit where Emilio grabs Super Astro so Estrada can smack him, but before it Jerry turns around and shit-talks Satanico and walks right into a pump kick to the face. Later the rudos get triple squashed in the corner off a running splash and Estrada crumples in a heap claiming he was kicked in the nuts. His timing, positioning, stooging, reactions, just a ridiculously fun Jerry Estrada highlight reel. 

1990 CMLL Project

Dandy and Azteca EXPLODE (slightly)!

El Dandy, El Texano & Angel Azteca v Jerry Estrada, Fuerza Guerrera & Pierroth Jr. (CMLL, 3/2/90)

I pretty much loved the primera here, or at least everything in the primera leading up to the the moment where Pierroth just about cripples himself. It was a sporting contest with no sportsmanship. Everyone worked clean, but they brought the personality and you knew who were the rudos and who were the tecnicos. It was tetchy and it gave the matwork a nice edge. Each of the first three exchanges ended with the rudo doing something untoward. Pierroth threw a strop when Azteca got the better of him, Estrada spat on Dandy, and after Texano and Fuerza took turns slapping each other in the face Estrada threw a cheapshot from the floor, which incensed both Texano and Dandy. Texano then matched up with Estrada on the next go, had Jerry chasing his tail before hitting him with a spectacular left hook, and Estrada took one of his greatest Estrada bumps to the floor, slithering away face down in shame. It was really fun stuff and then Pierroth hit the ropes and nearly broke his neck. It was a regular whip across the ring, nothing they wouldn't have done every day of their professional lives, but this time the top rope snapped and Pierroth tumbled backwards, whacking the back of his head and neck off the ring apron. I feel like there's no way this could've been planned. It was a ludicrous "bump" and not the sort of thing you could really control in any way. So I'm going to say the audible the other five guys called after it is one of the best ever, as the next two falls basically set up the Dandy/Azteca feud that would run for the next few months. Were they going to set that up in the first place and circumstances forced them to change how they did it? Maybe. Were they going to set it up like THIS? If they were then that's fucking bonkers and Pierroth is a mad man. Either way, the rudos aren't willing to continue playing unless someone on the other team takes a walk. Dandy and Texano are cousins and regular tag partners so they decide that Angel Azteca is getting the rest of the night off. Azteca must be on one of those pay as you play contracts and isn't interested in sitting out and I can relate to that as someone who's been self-employed at various stages of his adult life. I felt a little sorry for Azteca here as he reminded me of my little brother when my friends and I wouldn't let him play football with us so he'd just hang around making a nuisance of himself. The best part was that Azteca might've been halfway vindicated when the match continued and it was Dandy who let his side down. The bickering between those three did kind of lower the ceiling on what the match could ultimately be, though. For storyline purposes I guess it needed to happen, but it was a strange sort of dynamic with the tecnicos wrestling 3 v 2 against the rudos, even if you'd be hard pressed to feel sympathy for Fuerza Guerrera and Jerry Estrada. Fuerza was a gem and wanted nothing to do with the ropes for the rest of the match. Estrada probably didn't know what was going on anyway and he also about spiked himself on his head falling over them, although I think this was an intentional bump. Overall it wasn't a great match, but I haven't watched the Dandy/Azteca title match in probably 14 years and it was a nice way to get me hyped for that again. 

1990 CMLL Project

Hacksaw and the Mad Dog!

Buzz Sawyer v Hacksaw Duggan (Coal Miner's Glove Match) (Houston Wrestling, 12/13/85)

I think this was a new piece of footage we got from the NWA Houston drop. Or maybe we always had it and it just never made the Mid-South 80s set. Either way I'd never seen it before and shockingly enough it was another fun entry in the Duggan/Sawyer feud. We get a nice start with Sawyer playing chikenshit, begging off right as Duggan leaves his feet for a big double punch. Sawyer's begging off and pleading for mercy is always something to be wary of because you know he could turn around and bite you in the leg if you hesitate for more than a second. Sure enough Duggan tries to climb for the glove early and Sawyer bites him in the leg. They brawl to the floor and Sawyer rams Duggan into the barricade, then whacks him a few times with a chair. To be honest the chair shots didn't look great, but the IDEA is right, Duggan sells them like they mattered, and I guess not erasing someone's brain cells with reckless chair shots is something to be commended, not scoffed at? Probably? These matches in Mid-South and Houston where something was hanging up a pole were always a fucking ordeal because the wrestlers had to climb the thing military style and any item attached was UP there, which became more difficult to reach the sweatier they got. They definitely captured the sense of desperation and how much that glove could swing the tide though, especially Sawyer who was just about pulling Duggan's trunks off every time Duggan climbed the thing. There was one point where Duggan almost reached it and Sawyer grabbed a leg, Duggan wound up spun around facing inside the ring while still scaling the pole, then when he tried to kick Sawyer away Sawyer yanked Duggan's leg into the pole for a crotch shot. I mean it was pretty innovative as far as crotch shots go. Sawyer biting Duggan's head to create his own climbing opening was such an awesome Buzz Sawyer thing to do. More people need to incorporate biting into their offence today. I loved the finish. Duggan finally manages to climb up and retrieve the glove, but Dick Slater has come down and chucks Sawyer his dog collar chain. Sawyer tries to whip Duggan with it while Duggan struggles to actually get the glove on properly, then finally he does, catches the chain as Sawyer swings it at him, and yanks Sawyer into a big gloved punch. The post-match with Sawyer and Slater wrapping the chain around Duggan's throat was like a Pacho Herrera-orchestrated cartel hit. I bet I still think the dog collar match is amazing. 

Buzzards They Circle Old Crosses on Hills, The Heart of Mid-South Pounds Under My Heels

Jake Roberts v Lord Humongous (Cage Match) (11/29/85) 

I thought this was a really cool Jake performance. Part of it reminded me a little of babyface Dustin Rhodes, where he's a tall guy working smaller than he is to project a sense of underdog. To begin with he worked bigger, even for a tall guy, which maybe he needed to do when going against Humongous, who's bigger still, more imposing, and possibly indestructible. Making a shift like that mid-match could've come across as jarring or maybe not all that credible, but I thought he nailed it. All of the stuff around Jake wearing his own hockey mask was great. Humongous may not be Jushin Liger when it comes to masked wrestlers communicating through body language, but I did like the way he sold bemusement at how nothing was getting through Jake's mask. Humongous would headbutt Jake and rather than it splitting his head like a coconut, Jake would fire back immediately, unfazed, his mask doing what it was supposed to do. They brawled onto the floor between apron and cage, Jake rammed Humongous' head into the cage and it did nothing, then when Humongous paid him in kind Roberts was similarly unaffected. Jake really worked that opening stretch with the swagger of a man who knew he had his opponent rattled. Of course he was never lasting the whole match like that and as soon as Humongous rips the mask off him Jake was up against it. The transition was great, with Jake going for the big kneelift and taking his high-angled bump in the corner. Humongous threw him head-first into the cage right after that and about 30 seconds later Jake is bleeding profusely. Humongous has some pretty cumbersome strikes, some awkward stomps to a nearly upright Roberts and generally looks a bit clunky, but his scoop slam looks decent and he has a nice legdrop. He's also about as jacked up as the original Mad Max character he's based on and Boesch opines that a body like Humongous' wasn't attained through mere weightlifting. In order to get built like that he must've done it "away from the world of scheduled athletics," so I guess Boesch is implying that Humongous is on the gear? Or that he is in fact a serial killer and got yoked like that from burying bodies in the wilderness or maybe just from lugging furniture around perhaps. It's impossible to truly understand the mind of Paul Boesch. The big Humongous kick out of the DDT is met with an almost stunned silence from the crowd and it might actually have been the first time anyone had kicked out of Jake's DDT. Then Jake gets tangled in the ropes and Humongous goes to smash him with a chair, but Roberts manages to kick free and hit another DDT on the chair. Even the hockey mask isn't saving the big fella from that.

Mid-South Project

He's a Bad One Him, Always Breaking the Law. If You See Tenryu, Better Give Me a Call

Genichiro Tenryu & The Great Kabuki v Michael Hayes & Steve Olsonoski (All Japan, 1/18/84) - SKIPPABLE

I feel like this would've been better in Texas. Heel Michael Hayes in Japan is still by and large the heel Michael Hayes we'd get if this was the Sportatorium, but the crowd obviously aren't as rabid and so his shtick doesn't land the same. He never really tried to rip anyone's eyes out either so that was a shame. Kabuki had been appearing in World Class for a minute by now, and even if he'd been heel the entire time you can guarantee putting him up against a Freebird would've babyface'd him quick enough. Tenryu was still a year away from being *Tenryu* so there were no instances of him looking at Steve O like he's a cockroach and kicking him in the throat. 

Genichiro Tenryu & Stan Hansen v Toshiaki Kawada & Ricky Fuyuki (All Japan, 7/16/89) - GOOD

It's always a wee bit strange watching Fuyuki and especially Kawada work as plucky underdog juniors stepping to the big dogs. Fuyuki would slowly morph into a disgusting pot-bellied shrieking goblin as the influence of WAR got its claws in him, while Kawada was only a few years away from being one of the surliest wrestlers in Japan. At this point all they could do is swarm Tenryu or Hansen and hope the numbers advantage would pay off. It really didn't, but they were gamers and they at least laid a few gloves on their opponents. There was one sequence early where Footloose were hitting enziguris, one after the other, each shot sending Tenryu into the next, Tenryu taking a swing and missing just to get hit with another enziguri. When Tenryu shut them down you half expected him to slaughter his little buddies, but he didn't and merely threw a couple chops to the throat, just enough to keep them in line. They were his men after all, part of his revolution, and I guess Tenryu realised that with leadership comes responsibility. The responsibility to not kill too many of your men, because then who are you going to lead? Hansen didn't care about any of that shit and really thumped the hell out of them. It was a nice contrast and Hansen punting people in the spine will always rule. Cool finish too. 

Complete & Accurate Tenryu