Mantopoulos v Rouxel!

Vasilios Mantopoulos v Jaques Rouxel (French Catch, 6/29/67)

Mantopoulos is one of my favourite guys in all of the French footage. I guess the easy comparison would be Le Petit Prince and some of that is probably warranted, but Mantopoulos has a little more shtick to his game, a little more Johnny Saint than Rey Jr. Still absolutely spectacular, still as graceful as just about anyone you'll ever see, but WHIMSICAL in a way those other guys aren't. Right away he was twisting and spinning out of headlocks and yoinking Rouxel into a headscissors, rolling through on snapmares before planting Rouxel with his own. You knew after about 40 seconds that Rouxel wouldn't be able to stomach it for long and pretty soon he started using his size to take liberties. When he cut loose he tried to stomp Mantopoulos into the mat, these big exaggerated stomps to the chest and neck and head. They were great, great stomps. Then when that wasn't enough he clobbered Mantopoulos onto the apron and then clobbered him again and Mantopoulos went flying into the crowd! Mantopoulos never lost his cool though, and instead would sort of goad Rouxel into attempting a hammerlock before getting spun around and armdragged all over the place. Just like you knew Rouxel would eventually play dirty, you knew that sooner or later Mantopoulos would use enough of the speed and trickery that Rouxel wouldn't be able to shithouse his way to a viable response. When they started running the ropes and Mantopoulos was leapfrogging and pirouetting away from every charge I figured it was only a matter of time before Rouxel ran himself into a wall. In the end it wasn't Rouxel's own momentum that Mantopoulos used against him; instead it was his size as he waited until Rouxel had to pause and just tied his arms to his legs. 

The Rock 'n' Rolls v The Andersons!

Rock 'n' Roll Express v Arn & Ole Anderson (World Championship Wrestling, 7/17/86)

I will take this every day of the week, thank you. Southern style tag wrestling in front of an absolutely bonkers crowd? With four awesome wrestlers? Every single day, please. I'm being dead serious, the Rock 'n' Rolls were about as over as any act in wrestling history here. Give me any crowd going nuts for the Crush Gals, the Omni or the Garden or the Astrodome losing its mind for Piper or Bruno or Austin - this crowd on this night in this auditorium in Columbia, South Carolina didn't take a backseat to any of them. There was no question about who they were rooting for. I get that 1986 is a different time than 2006 or 2024, but you'd be hard pressed to pick out a single person rooting for the heels. The Andersons tried to hem Gibson into the corner so Gibson smartly scooted through the ropes to the floor, asking Arn if he wanted to come out after him. At that point someone in a baggy polo and trucker hat rushed the guard rail and if this was MSG, with a teeny bopper heartthrob babyface bailing out the ring rather than going blow for blow, I'd have bet money on that fella in the trucker hat calling Robert Gibson at least half a dozen slurs. But this guy came roaring to the rail with both middle fingers in the air and they were for Arn and Ole and nobody else. He wasn't the only one flipping them birds either. The Rock 'n' Rolls were gods in this arena. It was a perfect crowd for this sort of match. It starts like you'd expect, with the RnRs running the Andersons ragged. Morton and Arn have some stellar exchanges, including Moron sliding under Arn's legs and tripping him from behind with the smoothest version of that move ever committed to tape. Morton must've only recently stopped wearing his protective face covering and makes a point of reminding Arn what the Horsemen did to him, then punches Arn in the nose and drops him with a face-first DDT! The RnRs give Arn a rolling wishbone and keep rolling through to the opposite corner, just close enough where they can both pop Ole in the face with a punch. They were working a longer match than usual for TV here so the formula deviated a little. Instead of the singular FIP segment we got a chance to see both Express members get worked over, first with Gibson having his arm taken apart by the masters of it, then after a brief but molten comeback it was Morton's turn. If Morton got some satisfaction out of throwing those shots to the face earlier then Arn and Ole made him regret it tenfold. Arn was ripping at Morton's nose while twisting his neck with an ugly chinlock and Ole was trying to stomp his face into the ring ropes. We got all of the Anderson cutoffs and tag work they're famous for, always making a point to trap Morton in their corner, never allowing him to crawl more than a few inches as they tag between each other. The momentum breaks down a bit towards the end as they're building to the time limit, and we get a rare Tommy Young clanger when Gibson comes in without tagging and Tommy just kind of...lets him stay in, which was of course still nuclear in the moment but deprived us of the surface-of-the-sun level pop we would've gotten had Morton actually tagged him properly. It's hard to complain too loudly when we're getting ~25 minutes of these four, though. It was about as great as you would expect. 

Ohtani v Sammy - a Juniors Classic! Prolly

Shinjiro Ohtani v El Samurai (New Japan, 1/21/96)

As I've mentioned probably a hundred and four dozen times on this idiot blog, the 90s New Japan juniors will always have a special little place in my black and decrepit heart. That stuff was what I first started diving into when Scotland discovered the internet some time in the early 2000s and I ventured outside my WWF bubble. As I imagine was the case for many in my boat, going through John Williams' (or jdw to his friends and those who called him names on the internet for liking wrestling that you didn't) DVDVR best of the 90s rundowns was a gift from heaven and the perfect starting point for trying to figure out what to get. At that point you still had to fork out cash for someone to send you tapes or DVDs rather than just hopping on the youtube or whatever, so you had to be picky. When he voted this match his #1 New Japan match of the decade I figured sure, why the hell not lay down 40 quid for a tape that might get here in five weeks. 

It's been over a decade now since I last watched it, but it still holds up as being pretty great, just like it did the last two or three times. The jdw talking point back then was that New Japan should've used this match as a stylistic blueprint for the juniors division going forward, rather than the bomb-heavy formula it eventually adopted. I tend to think Ohtani had the REAL right idea two years earlier when he and Orihara tried to put each other in the morgue, but I guess that match wasn't as readily available at the turn of the 00s so I understand this being the thing someone might latch onto. And to be fair, as far as match blueprints go, this wouldn't have been the worst new normal. 

It's probably one of the best examples of a duelling limb work match you'll get. Ohtani was on the ascendancy in 1996, his real breakout year, a year in which he developed the attitude of someone who figured it was his time to be The Man. He had this match, the March title match with Liger and the J Crown match in August against Ultimo Dragon, each of them heralded for one reason or another. The thread that ran through all of them was Ohtani's emotions and how they drove him forward, made him a force - or at least gave him the potential to be one - but at the same time held him back in key moments. He was on the cusp of breaking into that true upper tier, but at every turn those emotions were a double-edged sword and often the deepest cut was to himself. He went after Samurai's leg early here, first taking him down with a mean ankle pick and from there he was a dog with a bone. Tenacious, intense, relentless, all of that shit. Without re-treading old ground, 90s juniors matwork can be a slog and there are plenty of times where you get the sense they're going through the motions until the taped-for-TV light goes on, but this was far from meandering and everything they did was gritty and nasty, Ohtani in working that leg and Samurai in trying to shake him. Ohtani had a point to prove and he did everything with a scowl. Samurai is one of those guys who either flies under the radar or just isn't all that interesting depending on who you ask, but even knowing his backstory already, having seen about all there is to see from him, he just felt like a veteran here, a calm and steady presence who wouldn't be fazed by adversity or allow his emotions steer him off track. With Samurai, the tail wasn't wagging the dog. Eventually he zeroed in on Ohtani's arm and the rest of the match was about whose point of attack would win out first. 

What I really liked about the dives here were how they played directly into each man's strategy. Ohtani was hitting his swan dive dropkicks right to Samurai's kneecap, really brutal looking things that about snapped his leg in half. Samurai waited until late in the match before he fought that fire with his own, but when he did it was decisive and there haven't been many matches where those moves off the top felt as important, at least not within the context of 90s New Japan juniors. The longer it went the more desperate Ohtani got, at one point biting Samurai in the calf to break out of a cross armbreaker. Which fucking ruled, obviously. In the end I wouldn't say Ohtani veered too far off course necessarily. I guess he deviated from the leg work in favour of the springboard, but when you launch yourself 10 feet in the air and dropkick someone in the temple it's hard to ding him for following up with his finisher. His undoing was how he reacted after Samurai kicked out of the dragon suplex. Ohtani's weepy incredulous face is damn near meme material, maybe/definitely a wee bit hammy, but it absolutely ties into the story of him not being able to keep his emotions in check. Rather than cling to the ref' in disbelief, maybe dropkick him in the face again or something. Instead, after he spends precious time composing himself, he tries to go even bigger and props Samurai on the top turnbuckle. Of course it backfires and Samurai hits a flying kneedrop to the arm as Ohtani pulls himself up with the ropes. Samurai going straight to the cross armbreaker is the sort of move you see from a guy who's been around the block a time or two. He kept himself tethered in the moment when Ohtani got lost in it. Not for the first time either, and probably not for the last. 

The Great American Bash 1986 (July 5th)

Denny Brown v Steve Regal

"Very meat and potatoes," as your great grandpappy would say. I don't see either of these guys being much for seasoning beyond salt and ketchup and that was somewhat reflected in the work. Starting off a big show with a 15-minute draw isn't necessarily a terrible idea, but this one didn't really have the urgency you'd want from an opener. The beginning was actually pretty good, with Regal hitting a couple nice slams and armdrags and really basking in his wrestling prowess. He doesn't quite live up to the Mr Electricity moniker, but there was at least a spark there. Brown comes back with some armdrags and slams of his own and thus we establish that he is a tenacious champion who, when knocked down, will get back up again. Then they worked a long headlock and/or armbar segment and those eight minutes didn't fly by. Regal would grab Brown by the hair and smash his face into the mat and Hebner would just lose his marbles every time, and Regal would look at him sort of perplexed and go "I'm just trying to beat the man," as if what he was doing was perfectly legal. As someone who coached 10-year-olds for many years I can understand Hebner's exasperation, but repeatedly shouting at someone for kicking a volleyball at other peoples' faces while they're trying to eat their Dairylea Dunkers isn't going to work. Our man Earl really needs to be explaining WHY that carry on won't fly. Eventually they get into a shoving match and I can tell you right now Earl would not have lasted a day in a central Scotland primary school but while this is happening Denny Brown rises from the ashes, grabs Regal by the hair and slams his face into the mat. It became obvious pretty quickly that this was going to a draw, which is always going to be a bit of a drag. We get the five minutes remining call, then another at four minutes, then at three, and again at two, but there's never any escalation. Regal never kicks anything into gear like he's short on time. They work at the same pace in minute 13 as they did in minute three. And strangely we don't get the call with one minute left, so if the wrestlers were waiting for that before jumping into an exhilarating final 60 seconds we were robbed blind. 

Robert Gibson v Black Bart

This was a fun big fella performance from Bart. He looked like a Louisiana swamp rat meth cook and anything that reminds me of McConaughey-season True Detective will go down well. There was some cool use of strategy early as he backs Gibson into the corner, tries to waylay him with a big overhand, but Gibson dodges with some HASTE, no interest in being clubbed about the head by such a large man. Next time Bart backs him in he changes it up and goes midsection instead, which Gibson can't block. Our man Black Bart is no mere lummox, you see. Gibson works a headscissors and as headscissors segments go it was fine. I loved how they put over Bart's big boi athleticism as he eventually popped out of the headscissors and mowed down Gibson with a clothesline. Bart pretty much works over Gibson's throat after that, throwing some great throat punches, hotshots over the ropes and even one outside on the barricade. There was one awesome cut-off where he smashed Gibson with a clothesline-shoulder tackle combo thing, like something Vader would do. Finish might be a wee bit abrupt and I wish we got a little more from the Gibson comeback, but this was perfectly solid stuff. 

Ole & Arn Anderson v Sam Houston & Nelson Royal

A very serviceable southern style tag. Arn and Ole could probably work it in their sleep but that does not detract from the nutritional value of the meat and potatoes we were served. They take over first on Sam Houston, who has been very fun in just about everything in 1986 and I feel like they were expecting him to go nuclear and become a Crockett version of a Von Erich or something. 10 years earlier he might've, but by 1986 I'm not altogether sure the world (or the south) wanted that as their Top Guy. Too clean cut even then. Maybe if he boxed David Crockett's ears he'd have been a megastar. Nelson Royal was in the role of rugged uncle who'd been around the block a time or two. Arn and Ole gave him a decent amount of respect before they tried to rip his shoulder out. In truth it wasn't the best arm work you'll see from an Anderson, but the hammerlock slam will always rule and sometimes there's a kick to be gotten out of someone grabbing a guy's deltoid and squeezing it really hard. 

Manny Fernandez v Baron von Raschke (Bunkhouse Match)

Big fan of the Baron wrestling this in his best thrift store rodeo gear. They probably bought him that t-shirt from a gas station. I moved to the American south six months ago so I know a thing or two about t-shirts and gas stations. I wonder if Von Raschke ever walked into a Buc-ee's. Paul Jones is dressed like Kamala's WWF handler Kim Chee without the mask. I thought this was perfectly fine, maybe even more than that, with a really fun Ragin' Bull performance. He bled and got fired up at the right times, threw some nice looking comeback shots and took one spectacular bump off a missed flying forearm. The Baron took his belt off at one point and wrapped it around Manny's mouth, pulling back on it like he was trying to make Fernandez eat his own teeth. That belt was clearly doing a lot of literal heavy lifting and before long Von Raschke's jeans were fully down past his butt (he was at least wearing underpants). Jeans are hard enough to do any sort of athletic endeavour in today so with those rough 1986 Levi's I'm shocked he was even able to run the ropes. When Manny whipped him into them I actually thought the Baron was for tripping, but he never did and we must all tip our hat to the man. The visual of him with his jeans down around mid-thigh level, the legs of them all floppy with his feet swallowed up by them, t-shirt pulled up over his head while Manny wallops him with a cowboy boot...well it was very excellent. 

Wahoo McDaniel v Jimmy Garvin (Indian Strap Match)

Garvin and Precious horseshittin' it up early here was a hoot. Garvin was all about the stalling and just walking out the ring only to finally get yoinked back in again after Wahoo had enough of it. Wahoo whipping Garvin while the latter and Precious have a smooch is a fun little moment that the crowd loved. Garvin is a civilised man and tries to work a wrestling match with a headlock and front facelock, but Wahoo has had more Indian strap matches than Garvin has had warm dinners so he yanks the strap into Garvin's willy and whips him across the shoulder. I liked Garvin using some smarts by coaxing Wahoo outside then bolting back in, starting a tug o' war before releasing tension and sending Wahoo flying back into the guardrail (and a cameraman). Wahoo is bleeding after mere seconds to the surprise of zero people in attendance or those who have watched this match on tape in the 38 years since. When he comes back he whips Garvin in the head with the strap, throws strapped up punches and wouldn't you know it but we've got double juice! Precious is no Sensational Sherri but she's a fun nuisance and trips Wahoo just as he's about to touch one of the corners, so Wahoo spits on her and if that was Sherri I can tell you for a fact she'd have stabbed him. It looks like Garvin might capitalise on the distraction only to be yanked off the top with the strap. They played a good number of the strap match hits here, basically. Wahoo then ties up Garvin's wrists and drags him to all four corners, stopping before the last one to soak in Precious' rage. After the bell Garvin jumps him with a purse. This was exactly what you wanted it to be.

Tully Blanchard v Ron Garvin (Taped Fist)

This is such a good match-up. In lots of ways Garvin is the perfect opponent for Tully because Tully is one of the best ever at getting punched up and down the place, and what is 1986 Ron Garvin if not someone who'll punch you up and down the place? And this match, by the very rules under which it operated, was all about the punches. In fact nothing else was actually legal. It was effectively a taped-knuckle boxing match held in a 23,000-seater stadium in North Carolina and not a 14-family caravan park in Dundee. So 75% of this was basically Ron Garvin punching the absolute fucking dog piss out of Tully Blanchard. Tully tries to jump him before the bell and Garvin backdrops him and flattens him with a punch. Tully is just magnificent with his KO sell as JJ frantically waves a towel in his face, finally waking him up with smelling salts as the bell rings and Tommy Young puts on the count. The match is worked in rounds of three minutes and the first two rounds are almost entirely comprised of Garvin punching Tully and Tully staggering around not knowing where he is, sometimes trying to grab Garvin in a dazed clinch, sometimes swinging wildly at nothing. Tully is just phenomenal at taking shots and dropping like a ton of bricks, like a puppet having its strings cut, falling lifeless into the ropes and whipping his neck as it clips every rope on the way down. At the end of the first round he backs into the corner with his hands up waiting for the bell, ducking halfway out the ring for some reprieve, then when Garvin turns back to his own corner Tully tries to blindside him. We all knew this would happen and so did Garvin because once again he levels Tully with a punch. JJ stands over him with one hand in his pocket, the other on top of his head, like he was starting to recognise the mess they'd gotten themselves into. I lost track of how many times I said to myself "I can't believe how good Tully Blanchard is at getting punched in the head." I loved how eventually Tully turned to the actual wrestling by hitting a bodyslam, probably half out of instinct, half of out desperation. Tommy Young is the best ref' ever and tells him they can't be wrestling in this thing and I guess even in moments where Tully decides to wrestle clean he's still a cheating wee bastard. They did a backdrop into a bridge sequence at one point, waited for Tommy to count only for him to reiterate - exasperated - that he can't, and when Garvin bridged up out of it into a backslide position I so very dearly wanted him to flip Tully over and punch him in the face and then he did and I fell out the bed. By the end they're both bleeding and we get a double KO spot, with Tully coming off the top with a punch as Garvin throws one of his own. So Tommy Young declares that the first man back to his feet wins and obviously the place is going nuts. JJ is apoplectic when Wahoo throws his water bucket over Garvin and Ron gets up first, but if you looked at the state of everyone involved you could've given Tully until next week and he wasn't getting to his feet unassisted. If you REALLY want to talk about foreshadowing and comeuppance and whatever, JJ had used Tully's own water bucket throughout the match, a little here, a bit more there, throwing it in Tully's face when it looked like he wasn't for waking up. That happened at about half a dozen points and by the end that bucket was as good as empty. In comparison, Wahoo had been a conservative cornerman and kept Garvin's bucket full, unloading the whole thing to get him over the line at the very end. A bit of the expert pro wrestling storytelling, I'd say. JJ even gets on the house mic afterwards and says that the next person who shouts "I quit" at Tully will be thrown out, Tully stumbling around bewildered and bloodied and beaten, so you can guess how that particular demand went down. You know I loved every single second of this. 

Road Warriors v Ivan & Nikita Koloff (Russian Chain Match) 

A very acceptable six minutes of big roided up monsters and their Canadian-Russian uncle throwing a chain around. Nobody did anything particularly unique for a chain match, but in a situation like this did they really need to? When you're a Road Warrior do you need to get creative with that literal weapon attached to your wrist, or do you just whip it across someone's neck or wrap it around your huge fist and punch someone? You know it's the latter and the crowd sure didn't need the former to buy it. There wasn't a ton of subtlety about anything, not a lot of long-term selling, but the shots with the chain ranged from believable to brutal. The Russians' double chain-assisted clothesline on Hawk looked it about took his head off and I think Nikita whipped Animal in the willy with the chain. You could audibly hear Animal shout "aw, SHIT" and if you've ever been hit down there then you get a sense of what's selling and what isn't. The babyface Road Warriors winning due to Ellering throwing Ivan off the top rope is a strange way to go. Don't get me wrong, Ivan took a screwball crotching on the top rope, but do the Road Warriors really need folk interfering on their behalf in a fight? Hawk spent the whole year talking about how they were born on the streets of Chicago and they were going to bring hell down upon the Russians. Having their manager effectively win the thing for them was certainly a choice. Nikita walloping everyone post-match with the Sickle was pretty great, though. If you're going to get your heat back then that's about as effective a way to do it. I was looking forward to these teams getting to finally lay a beating on each other and for the most part it gave me what I wanted. 

Jimmy Valiant v Shaska Whatley (Hair vs Hair)

Every roster needs a Boogie Woogie Man and every big show needs a Boogie Woogie Man match. Indeed, every big Crockett show I've watched over the last few years has had a Jimmy Valiant match that probably lasts eight minutes and has the crowd going bananas the whole time. Like, I know the Valiant/Paul Jones' Army feud was criticised way back by the SMARKS~ because it lasted for literal years, but if you've got people responding to it like this the whole time you can see why they were reluctant to move past it. Squeeze every bitta juice from that particular orange, as my great, great grandmother used to say. Valiant is constant motion, always moving, tapping a foot, shaking a leg, pumping a fist, waving for the crowd to get behind him, never content to let them forget they're supposed to be involved. He looks like a washed up drifter who lives under a bridge and eats pigeons but these people live and die with him. Whatley doesn't have the crowd behind him but he absolutely does have his headbutts and he uses them several times to cut off Valiant. At least twice I thought for sure it was time for the big comeback, but I can only guess Valiant wasn't yet satisfied with the heat and eventually got shut down with one of those headbutts, the noise dialled up a bit for the next attempt. There was a great moment where he fired back and rammed Whatley's head into the turnbuckle, turning to amp the crowd up a little more, but of course he forgot about the sturdiness of a black man's head and when he turned around again Whatley cracked him with a headbutt (with Whatley shouting "SUCKAAAAAS" at nobody and everybody in particular). With every cut-off Valiant has less and less of that stored up energy to draw on, ground down to a low hum whereas earlier he was practically pulsating. When he did get over the hump you can imagine the reaction. Fuck it, this feud probably had another six years left in it. 

Dusty Rhodes, Magnum TA & Baby Doll v Midnight Express & Jim Cornette (Cage Match)

Any match where Jim Cornette is running around in his giant patchwork babygrow has a relatively high floor, so it was impossible for this to not be at least pretty fun. He was hyperactive from the very start, putting his dukes up like he wanted a fight when everyone knew he didn't. For a second it looked like he was actually about to, shuffling closer to the babyface corner with fists clenched, although it was of course a RUSE for Eaton to charge Baby Doll. Eaton getting armdragged by Baby Doll is undoubtedly the greatest armdrag in the history of our sport up to that point, and perhaps would've remained top of the mountain had Dennis Rodman not armdragged Lex Luger without even taking his shades off. The early babyface control ruled and Cornette was a cowardly wretch any time the action came remotely close to his corner, slinking down on the apron and clinging to the bottom rope for dear life. Magnum stared at him in disgust several times but I love how he never even bothered trying to lay hands on him. It was beneath him, even if he probably wanted to throttle the idiot. When Cornette did venture in he immediately U-turned at the sight of Dusty and practically threw himself into the cage to get away. Condrey was begging off on both knees only to get clonked by bionic elbows and big Magnum punches and Eaton was bleeding after maybe three minutes? Four at a push? I've watched this show in segments over the past 14 months so I don't remember exactly now, but by the end of this match I think the total number of blade jobs on this card was sitting at 12 and they still had the main event to go. There was an awesome spot where Condrey tried to piledrive Magnum, hoisted him up and got ready to drop down on it, but Magnum popped out of it and landed on his feet as Condrey landed on his butt, Magnum staring him down unfazed as Condrey backed up bug-eyed. Magnum was really great in this, actually. He gets to unload and walk tall early, then when he's isolated he garners sympathy with the best of them. I've watched a bunch of Magnum over the past five years or so now and I have no doubt he'd have been an absolute megastar had the car accident not happened. An awesome pro wrestler. I do wish we got a little more Baby Doll/Cornette stuff, but Baby Doll rushing him at the end and dropping fists while Cornette curled into a ball was pretty great. Post-match the Midnights and Big Bubba demolish Dusty at ringside and Bubba gets wellied with a cup fulla whatever, and at that point Cornette knew it wouldn't do to get himself stabbed while wearing pyjamas so he just grabbed everyone and ran for the hills. 

Ric Flair v Ricky Morton (Cage Match)

So this is the very best Flair match, right? Even better than the Funk matches, better than the Steamboat matches, better than the Garvin matches. Better than all of them. This one is the best. As a feud it's always been my favourite, partly for the absurdity of it, partly for what it brought out in Flair. I mean Flair as Evil Queen Grimhilde who can't stomach the fact there might be a younger, better looking blond fella running around the Carolinas is perfect. Envy is an emotion I'm sure we can all relate to and Flair wears it on his sleeve like nobody else, so a feud with that as its crux really puts him a role that fits like a glove. 

The initial run of Morton on top is basically one extended revenge segment. It rules. Flair wants no part of it because he knows Morton wants more than the title. Morton wants to make Flair UGLY and he'll do it by splattering his nose across his face. The first thing Morton does is drag Flair to the ropes and rakes his face across it, then he'll grab Flair by the nose, measure his shot and punch him straight in the hooter. We've seen Flair beg off a million times but this was some of his best, a little more frenzied than usual, where he'll almost turn and make a run for it only to realise he's stuck in there. He doesn't get much in the way of offence, but when they tease him taking over it's Morton's face he goes for. At one point he actually rips Morton's mask off and it goes flying across the ring, but his mistake was going to pick it up because it just allowed Morton to get back at him. It was a nice bit of foreshadowing. There was a great bit where Morton had him in a headlock and was ripping at the nose, throwing little rabbit punches to the face, and you could see Flair working to set up the shinbreaker. The first time he grabbed it Morton shut him down with a punch, then the second time Flair kept hold, hoisted Morton up, and just as he dropped him across the knee Morton hit him with another punch. What I thought was cool from both guys was how they each sold what had happened. The camera was all the way in there so you could see Morton grimacing, then he dropped to his butt to relieve some pressure on the leg, while keeping hold of the headlock. Flair verbally sold the punch like he sold every other instance of Morton punching him in the face, and he also only hit the shinbreaker partially, kind of side on, that punch throwing off his execution. Ultimately it was an inconsequential moment in the match, but it's the little touches like those that elevate something from great to transcendent.

Then Flair does what we all knew he'd do. If I've said it once I've said it a thousand times, but vicious animal Flair is the best Flair and this was a fucking unbelievable bastard Flair performance. Honestly I think it's my favourite stretch of work I've ever seen from him in a match. As soon as he flung Morton into the cage that first time you knew he'd flicked the switch, and for about 10 minutes he was everything he ever told you he was. He looked like a man who took real pleasure in trying to disfigure someone, the way he'd rake Morton's face across the cage while shit-talking those teeny boppers whose attention he wanted everyone to believe he didn't actually want. When he yanks the mask off Morton he even puts it on himself, adding a little insult to the very obvious injury. He took his time and savoured the moment and even the way he interacted with Tommy Young was different. Earlier on he got into his favourite shoving match with Tommy and Flair wound up on his keister. After Flair took over Tommy was just about pleading with him to take it easy on Morton. Flair's only acknowledgment was to raise a hand to him and as soon as he did Tommy got the fuck out his road. Not a chance was he going to retaliate to Flair when he was in that mood and he didn't even protest whenever Flair would shove him out the way with one hand. Flair was a man on a grizzly mission, cold and callous, and the way he blended the cruelty with that champion's arrogance was truly sublime, drying himself off with Morton's headband before raining down punches to the forehead, almost admiring the blood coating his knuckles before giving the most condescending thumbs up to someone in the crowd. We often compare him to guys like Bockwinkel and Rose, and the comparison makes sense for plenty of reasons and I'm absolutely in the camp of those other two guys being better than Flair. But I don't know if I've ever seen Bockwinkel or Rose work a segment quite like this. Not *like this*. Just perfect stuff.

I could quibble and say I'd have liked for them to work one or two more teased comebacks before the actual comeback, but either way when that comeback arrives it leads to the awesome final stretch. They almost role-reverse as Morton turns into a maniac, while all of Flair's confidence is shattered and he reverts to type, shocked back into the real world. Morton bloodies him back, hurls him face-first into the cage, rips the forehead open, and if Flair was a LITTLE more frenzied before he was absolutely hysterical now. There was one point where he tried to crawl away shrieking as he looked at the blood covering his hands, knowing it was his own, knowing what he and the Horsemen had done to Morton, knowing that those chickens were coming home to roost, knowing that Morton wasn't just there to take his belt. Morton was trying to mutilate him and how much kiss-stealin' wheelin'-dealin' could he do then? Flair backing into the corner after Morton had yet again rammed him into the cage and Morton stalking him down shouting "I told you not to FUCK with me" was biblical. Then we get a Flair Flop off the top rope after he tries to jump out the cage, and I really do not remember seeing a top rope Flair Flop in however many thousand Ric Flair matches I've seen. A sensational wrestling match. 

Shawn v Virgil! In the Garden!

Shawn Michaels v Virgil (WWF, 3/23/92)

Any match where someone spends several minutes actively working over their opponent's face is going to sit well with me. I don't even remember the reason Virgil was wearing a face mask around this point but Michaels saw it and wanted to get rid of it. "Early heel Shawn was never particularly dynamic offensively." Well you can cue up the Stephen A. Smith we don't care meme because if he's punching folk in their broken nose I'm sure I can make peace with any offensive shortcomings Michaels had. I thought he was pretty awesome in this. Right out the gate he tries to jab Virgil in the face and immediately sells his own hand when it connects with the mask, Sherri getting up on the apron to kiss his knuckles. After that he slaps Virgil instead, so Virgil bumps him around the ring and uses Michaels' hair to keep hold of a headlock. Michaels is obviously a huge and visceral bumper, everything done with ridiculous snap and speed, but his comedy stooging is super fun and it's not really something that gets brought up about him very often. Maybe it's because the bumping is so obvious and in your face that you don't notice the stooging, maybe it's because that bumping could verge too far towards cartoonish that you're already annoyed enough not to care, but as a stooge I could see this Michaels dropped into 1982 Memphis with Jimmy Hart as his manager and making magic. By 1992 we will absolutely settle for the Sensational Sherri, who distracts the referee long enough for Michaels to finally lift that mask and punch Virgil in the nose. If we're talking Memphis then this wasn't a Bill Dundee shot, but Michaels measured it perfectly and it looked like it stung and Virgil sold it like it did more than that. Michaels will choke Virgil, grab him in a headlock and turn him away from the ref' so he can jab him in the face, outright grab a handful of nose and start pulling, nothing fancy but mean and nasty. He even rams Virgil into the turnbuckle with so much force that the mask goes flying out the ring! MSG really responds for the Virgil comeback, sympathetic as they are towards the man having his broken face punched and twisted, which is a pretty stark contract to the beginning of the match when they were neither here nor there on either guy. I really liked the finish as well, with Virgil picking up steam and going for a high knee in the corner, only for Michaels to move and spike him with the teardrop suplex. This early heel Michaels run has been way better than I remembered. If there's any of that 1993 USWA run out there I should watch it this instant prolly. 

The Final Conflict - Slaughter & Kernodle v Steamboat & Youngblood! In the cage!

Sgt Slaughter & Don Kernodle v Ricky Steamboat & Jay Youngblood (Cage Match) (Mid-Atlantic, 3/12/83)

It's been about 15 years since I last watched this and I couldn't have told you a thing about it before yesterday. I know I liked it back whenever, back when I went through the awesome Ricky Steamboat comp put together by our man goodhelmet, but that's about the extent of my recollection. "A legendary match that I liked for...many reasons, I'm sure." There you go. One of the fun things about being a stupid godforsaken wrestling nerd is going back and re-watching stuff after a decade and a half as if it's brand new again, and on the freshest of fresh re-watches this felt like one of the best US tag matches ever. 

It's interesting comparing it to other tag team cage matches of the era. Around this time you had Jerry Blackwell getting head-first launched into all four sides of the cage practically from the bell, whereas this was a much slower burn and a lengthier affair into the bargain. It didn't start out anywhere near as wild and chaotic. For about half the match it was essentially a regular tag match that just happened to be taking place inside a steel cage. It worked though, even for a rabid bloodthirsty degenerate like me, and I loved how they put across how dangerous the cage itself is. It was kind of like one of those early FMW barbed wire matches, or even something like Kudo/Toyoda, where there was a sense of danger just via proximity. There was a hesitancy to engage or lock up near the ropes, because being close to the ropes meant being close to the cage and that was where you didn't want to be. 

The early shine segment was great and I liked how Steamboat and Youngblood worked everything clean. They dominated through technique and skill, the mark of a true babyface. That was in stark contrast to later when Slaughter and Kernodle would use the cage liberally and throw pot shots with impunity, jabs to the throat, blatant chokes, eye rakes; all it missed was some biting of the forehead. Either way the work to isolate Kernodle was strong. The leaping headlock takeover is always a favourite of mine and they did it often enough here where you knew Kernodle would find a way to counter it at some point. When he did you figured he'd make the tag to Slaughter and maybe they'd be able to isolate Youngblood in turn, but in a nice twist Youngblood had already made the tag to Steamboat, and the camera shot of the latter flying into view with a top rope forearm to cut off Kernodle again was awesome. Slaughter getting irate on the apron was also fantastic and he was basically incredible in this from start to finish. At one point he gets distracted by Youngblood and runs across the apron to shit-talk him, misses Kernodle reaching for the tag, but of course as soon as he gets back to his corner Steamboat has dragged Kernodle away again and Slaughter is left fuming. I actually thought the set up to Kernodle finally tagging out was a little weak - it was pretty much just a punch - but I forgot about that the instant Slaughter came in and got chucked into the cage. He sold this by writhing around like someone had poured scalding water on his back, which again only served to highlight how much you do not want to be thrown into that steel. There was a cool moment earlier on the babyface side as well where Kernodle tried to throw Youngblood into it but Steamboat came across and blocked it; just a simple thing but clearly effective. When Slaughter tried to ram Youngblood's head into it there was an extended struggle with Jay fighting against it by putting his foot on the cage, Slaughter then trying to grate face across steel the closer it got, only for Youngblood to finally fight him off. The way they built that first half of the match was tremendous and they milked everything to perfection. 

The tables turning with Youngblood finally getting thrown into the cage was the obvious and perfect way to finally transition into the face in peril. From there on out it was less of the wrestling match it had been and steadily became the fight you knew it would. They went for the double heat segment as well, with Steamboat coming in off the hot tag, going for the flying cross body, but eating nothing but steel after Slaughter shoved Kernodle out the way at the last second, a great little reverse of Steamboat saving Youngblood from earlier. By the end everyone was bleeding but for a change it wasn't Slaughter who went wildest with the blade, it was his partner and Kernodle was a fucking mess. This is some of the best blood-loss selling you'll see. All of them were doing it but Slaughter was phenomenal, staggering all over the place, falling through the ropes, flying into the cage like he had no control over his body, everything feeling properly last ditch, life or death. Even his slow climb up the cage looked laboured and then he went and missed the fucking splash just for another bit of madness. The closing stretch felt epic and in some ways ahead of its time, because most tag matches weren't doing this with the callbacks and partner saves and big nearfalls in 1983. This was like 6/9/95 if Kobashi was bleeding buckets and Taue's finisher was a cobra clutch. The tape jumping right at the finish is annoying, but I think we get the idea of how it went down and someone letting their film reel get dusty is hardly the wrestlers' fault. Well I guess technically it is, since it was Don Kernodle who kept the tape all those years when it had been thought lost to time. So thank you, Don. Just do better next time. 

1983 was a hell of a year for good wrestling. This is up there amongst the very best of it, and in a world where Greg Valentine didn't whip Roddy Piper in the face with a chain it would probably be #1. 

They Know Piper's Name in Every Rodeo Town, but that Fame is Fleeting so He Chases it Down

Roddy Piper v Dick Slater (Mid-Atlantic, 3/12/83) - GREAT

This and the Final Conflict tag on the same show is a heck of a 1-2 punch. They wisely saved the plasma for the main event so this wasn't a bloodbath, but even if it was for the TV title they sure didn't start it like a sporting contest. Right at the bell Slater tries to strangle Piper with a towel, then Piper turns it around and strangles Slater and there weren't many people in the country as red hot as Piper at this point in time. Slater was all about selling huge here and his over-the-top stooging and mannerisms really played off Piper's lunatic charisma. Over-the-top stooging in a literal sense as well, because a couple times he basically launched himself over the top rope to create some distance from Roddy. This threatened to break out into a street brawl more than once but it was always reined in before it went that far. Piper would work the arm so Slater would headbutt him in the face, then Slater would go to the spinning toe hold so Piper would punch him in the eye. They'll trade punches in between bouts of trying to actually wrestle, then at other points the madness will take them and Piper will step on Slater's face like he's trying to put out a cigarette or Slater will throw a headbutt to the willy. Slater's falling headbutts are great, like the best Harley Race headbutts only quicker, like he's throwing himself into those falls rather than simply letting gravity do its thing. Slater also damn near hits a gutwrench powerbomb, which I would guess was supposed to be a suplex version but Piper kicking and flailing forced Slater to improvise. Piper's dropkick is not a beautiful thing in the slightest but I'd be lying if I said I don't love it with Hot Rod busts out something fancy and it looks as reckless and sloppy as it might if someone did it in a drunken pub scrap. 

Complete & Accurate Hot Rod

Call the Sheriff Cause Piper's Been Drinking and He's Been Driving. Maybe He'll Give Him Three Hots and a Cot so He can Live Another Day Dying

Roddy Piper v Luke Williams (Hair v Hair) (Portland, 3/1/80) - FUN

This was a red hot five minutes, surrounded by an awesome angle with a payoff that they'd been building to for a while, that in turn continued building to an even bigger payoff that I'm pretty sure would come in the next few weeks. Rose and Butch Miller are both handcuffed to the post at ringside and there are a couple times where each of them try and take a swipe at Piper's feet. Piper is always great at putting across the danger of their presence, how getting too close to that corner could swing the tide. Sandy Barr gets fucking obliterated by a missed Piper cross body and when Williams brings a chair in you think Piper's walking out of there bald. But he goes and dropkicks the chair into Williams' face and Sandy counts the 3 from down on the floor! The post-match head-shaving is an amazing scene with George Wells and Dutch Savage coming out to hold Williams in place, Sandy Barr taking the clippers to his head as Williams rails against the lot of them. It wouldn't even be the only haircut delivered to the Army that year...

Roddy Piper & Rick Martel v The Sheepherders (Portland, 3/15/80) - GREAT

This was almost a bridge between the previous hair match and the potential sequel of Piper v Miller. The Sheepherders were FUMIN' about how Piper/Williams went down a couple weeks prior and I fucking loved how they both spent a chunk of the first fall trying to rip Piper's hair out his scalp with their bare hands. Miller was an animal, grabbing Piper by the hair and slamming his face into the mat. Piper might be the GOAT at selling an ear injury so it perhaps isn't shocking that he also completely rules at selling how much it must suck having someone tearing your hear out. Martel was red hot and wanted to get at the Sheepherders in the worst way, and neither Miller nor Williams wanted anything to do with it. For as vicious as they were with Piper they were equally craven when it came to dealing with Martel and at one point Williams practically chucked himself over the top rope to get away. The second fall settles into an extended babyface control segment with Piper and Martel working over Williams' arm. They pull off multiple phantom tags, Piper being the one to instigate it and clap loudly while Sandy Barr was busy dealing with an apoplectic Miller. Piper never was able to shed that questionable past of his and you knew he'd never be above taking a shortcut if one was available. I loved how Barr turned around prematurely on one attempt and made Piper get back out, so Roddy dragged Williams over to the corner, tagged Martel and stepped out as amicably as possible, turning to grin at the crowd who were a hundred million percent his. Miller rules at getting more and more irate through all of this and Martel uses that RAGE to distract him as Williams crawls over to his own corner, Miller sprinting back along the apron and leaping for the tag just as Piper yanks Williams away by the arm at the last second. The transition to Martel in peril wasn't particularly big but it did look brutal, with Williams jabbing him in the throat, then tagging in Miller who absolutely smashes him with an elbow, again to the throat. When Piper comes in off the hot tag I don't have to tell you how quickly the roof comes off, but the Sheepherders manage to stifle him in short order and hit this awesome rope-assisted splash to even up the falls. The third fall gets thrown out pretty quickly when Rose gets involved and they try to cut Piper's hair, and you wonder how someone doesn't get stabbed after Piper steals the scissors and starts throwing punches. The post-match scene at the desk with Rose trying to collar Piper into another hair match with him as the referee is very Portland, thus very great. 

Complete & Accurate Hot Rod

We're watching a bit of early heel Shawn Michaels...and the best Bret Hart v Undertaker match???

Our boy elliott from the PWO/GME board has been running through a metric ton of 90s WWF on his twitter recently and I've started cherry-picking some of it. There's a second Jake/Martel blindfold match out there! 

Shawn Michaels v Jimmy Snuka (MSG, 1/31/92)

Really fun early heel Michaels performance. He wasn't as obnoxious and adept at heat-garnering as he'd be in '97, but it's fun seeing him sort of find his feet as a heel on a big stage. This is Madison Square Garden after all, where about a decade ago his opponent was as over as anyone on the planet. You knew he'd bump around admirably for Snuka and within about a minute he was getting kicked over the turnbuckle to the floor. His stalling was amusing if basic and you bought Snuka wanting to throttle him, a bit like when Dick Slater tried to ragdoll Sting because he got a little FLIRTATIOUS with Dark Journey. These young guys are too fulla themselves, says Snuka. I assume. There was nothing especially ambitious about anything they did here. Structurally it was as simple as you can get - Snuka ran up the score early, Michaels eventually took over, Snuka fought his way back into it and they briefly went back and forth before the finish. The transitions weren't spectacular and there was no unique story hook. It was just really solid stuff and sometimes that's all you need. Michaels rammed Snuka into the ring apron and started throwing shots at his kidneys and midsection, nasty little pot shots that, as Gorilla might put it, contained Snuka's flowing Fijian fluids. Heenan hadn't a clue either. Snuka is kind of a desiccated husk by 1992 but he really didn't need to do much here anyway. It was a canvas for Michaels more than anything else, although whether Snuka liked it or not he got drilled with a running knee and took himself a nasty spill to the floor. Michaels was using the back suplex as a finisher at this point and it's not the flashiest thing in the world, but the thrust kick to set it up did look great. Maybe he'd use that more often going forward.

The Undertaker v Bret Hart (MSG, 1/31/92)

I don't want to sound like I've gone full hipster here, although I know that I will, but I swear to god I think this is my favourite Bret v Undertaker match. I don't care about best, I don't even know what that would be at this point, but if I had to pick only one Bret Hart v Undertaker match that I could ever watch again then I think this is the one I would pick. I thought it ruled like crazy and it was a brilliant Bret performance AND a brilliant Undertaker one. Look, I'll level with you, I am not an Undertaker fan. I think he's been damn near hopeless for large stretches of his career and those Helmsley matches at Wrestlemania a decade ago were so bad they turned me off wrestling for most of the year afterwards. His renaissance as a workrate zombie in the mid-to-late-2000s had some good stuff, but in general even that run, the one I imagine most people would point to if making a case for him as a great worker, mostly falls flat for me. I honestly think this period, the one where his gimmick is probably least conducive to what would normally be considered good work, is my favourite stretch of his career. The unkillable zombie stuff obviously has a ceiling, but by and large I think he plays it well. In fact, if we're talking about playing all the way to a character then I think he maybe kind of knocks it out the park? The slow sit up, the gradual, tiniest show of vulnerability, the stalking down of opponents, the weird eye-rolling. It's goofy at times but fair play to yer man for leaning all the way into it and owning it for about six years. He's also very athletic and can get major hops on a clothesline, so when he rips one of those off it's actually jarring. You've got this shambling cadaver with his slow walk towards you and then blam, he'll just fucking soar through the air and smash his forearm off your neck. The one he hit in this was captured perfectly by the camera person and it looked amazing. He has incredible balance as well, like when he took a clothesline over the top on the announce desk side and managed to course correct on the way over, balancing almost horizontally across the top rope for a second so Heenan could clear out the way, before flipping over and landing on his feet anyway, staring dead-eyed up at Hart. The first Old School (I would assume it wasn't called that then) made him look like a terror, the way he towered over Bret before crashing down. Heenan says he's 20 feet in the air and then Monsoon tells us, aghast, that he "nailed him on the external occipital protuberance!" Heenan - "he waffled him in the back'a the neck!" When he tried it again later you knew it would be reversed, and it was and Undertaker fuckin yeeted himself the whole bastard way across the ring and it looked spectacular. Really other than one down period where he applied some kind of face claw thing he was just about always doing something interesting. I thought it was a great performance all told. Bret ruled as well, of course. He had to stick and move and whenever he got to take shots he made the most of them. His punches looked great, he hit one super crisp atomic drop, absolutely heaved himself like a bullet at Undertaker with a plancha, hit maybe the best Russian leg sweep he's ever done, at times he'd even flat out jump on top of Undertaker when the latter tried to sit up, like he knew he had to stay on the offensive or the big ghoul would just keep coming. I loved the bit too where he went for the middle rope elbow but of course Undertaker sat up, so instead Bret just flew at him with a cross body. Actually it feels like half of Bret's offence here was him chucking his body at Taker like a projectile and that's pretty awesome when you think about it. Like you would expect he also made Undertaker's stuff look killer. The sternum bump in the corner was lunacy and you maybe buy it when Heenan says the ring moved six inches. That Undertaker had to resort to fully wellying him in the face with the urn to finish him puts Bret over about as strongly as possible in defeat. What a shockingly awesome match. 

Tenryu Cuts the Grass to See the Snakes 'Cause He's got Enemies, Casamigos Bottle Empty, He Bought Hennessy

Genichiro Tenryu, Toshiaki Kawada & Hiromichi Fuyuki v Jumbo Tsuruta, Great Kabuki & Tiger Mask II (All Japan, 1/11/90)  - GREAT

I don't remember the exact point where I learned to truly, fully, unequivocally love the Great Kabuki. Or the point where I realised that I already DID truly, fully, unequivocally love the Great Kabuki. I mean, why would I remember that, you might ask? It probably wasn't an especially revelatory experience in my life. Might've just been a case of, "for a guy I always heard kind of wasn't good, I'm beginning to wonder if the Great Kabuki wasn't actually awesome." Probably a conclusion I happened upon one afternoon before continuing about the rest of my day. But none of that should lessen how much, in the here and now, with full commitment, I really do love the Great Kabuki. He was tremendous in this, mostly against Tenryu - who was also tremendous - but really against everyone and anyone. Kabuki is one of the best under-the-radar punchers of all time, especially those uppercuts to the ear. He threw many of them here and nobody sells taking a Kabuki uppercut to the ear better than Tenryu so you can imagine how good a lot of this was. Early on things threatened to break down and all six guys ended up in the ring, Jumbo somehow finding himself with a chair in his hand. The ref' managed to wrest the thing from his grasp before forcing Jumbo back onto the apron, but while this was happening Tenryu took the same chair and smashed Kabuki clean in the face with it. Kabuki was bleeding instantly and took a stomping from all three of his opponents. I love the way he sells and garners sympathy. To look at him, a stocky little menace with a face painted like a demon who punches people in the throat, you would not necessarily think people would be quick to sympathise with him. But he's a 25-year veteran at this stage (though only a couple years older than the guy across the ring who's kicking him in the spine repeatedly) and so he gets some of that love you only get from having been around the block a time or two. Even better than the way he sold vulnerability was the way he made his comeback. After Tenryu had grown tired of laying into him he tagged in Fuyuki, who went up top and flew at Kabuki with a cross body. Kabuki misting him in the face was out of nowhere spectacular and in that moment we one and all were fully behind the face-painted little gremlin who spits green liquid on people. The rest of the match was littered with the things that made the Jumbo v Tenryu feud amazing. The exchanges between those two were of course wonderful. The more they threw at each other the more they both seemed to know nothing between them would be settled on the night, which only made them more and more surly as the match went on, which meant there were very many instances of Kawada getting his teeth rattled or Tiger Mask having the bandage ripped off his shoulder and kicked in that same shoulder. The secondary players got to have their moments as well though, like when Kawada ran the ropes and managed not to fall over for once and about took someone out their boots with a lariat, or Tiger Mask absolutely clobbering Tenryu with a spin kick. If the last few minutes were a little bigger and they spent a bit longer building to the finish this could've been spectacular, but in the end it's hard to complain about getting a regular old awesome iteration of a Jumbo/Tenryu six-man. 

Complete & Accurate Tenryu

June Bugs Chirping in the Summer Heat, with a Window Fan Humming Tenryu to Sleep

Genichiro Tenryu v Manabu Nakanishi (New Japan, 1/4/04) - GOOD

This was Tenryu working a mid-2000s approximation of chest-puffed roid boy macho chop-a-thon. It's most definitely not my favourite environment for Tenryu, but I'm not ashamed to admit that I'll be less bothered by him engaging in some of those rote exchanges than I will be by just about anybody else. Moments like popping up from a powerbomb to block Nakanishi coming off the top rope to hit a powerbomb of his own. You make exceptions for you favourites. "Tenryu's only playing to his audience, it's smart!" For a chop-a-thon the chops were certainly meaty, perhaps even MANLY. We also still get several moments where Tenryu sells like a man who knows he's letting his pride drive him when he'd most definitely be better served not trading chops with a slab of granite like Nakanishi. The grimaces and little staggers really put over the effort of each exchange, as opposed to going for the routine and yelling and squeezing his fists really hard. Now and then he'll remember that once upon a time HE was the guy forcing the old guard to reconcile their age, that 15 years ago HE was the one coming for the scalps of legends, where he'd give Nakanishi a proper look of indignation, like "who do you think you are?" only to five seconds later look like a man who himself was beginning to reconcile that it's not 1989 anymore. One thing he's not, however, is an idiot, so the moment he drops the chops in favour of punching Nakanishi in the eye socket is exactly why we buy a ticket to this particular dance. Tenryu reversing a torture rack into a bulldog in 2004 is also a very awesome thing to happen. 

Complete & Accurate Tenryu

Rhea v Liv! For the belt! And maybe Dirty Dom!

Liv Morgan v Rhea Ripley (Summerslam, 8/3/24)

Look, cards on the table, I kind of love this stupid storyline. I wasn't paying much attention to WWE at all and then last month my brother and best friend flew over from Scotland to visit me in Texas and for three Mondays on the trot we drank beers and watched RAW. I haven't watched full episodes of RAW on three consecutive, uninterrupted weeks since probably 2009 and there's still a bunch of nothingness on every episode and they last about six hours, but either way I just really got a kick out of the Liv/Dom stuff. Then Rhea came back and the next week my brother and friend flew home again and I haven't watched a minute of RAW since then. But Rhea is really fun and they were obviously going to turn Dom so I threw on the Summerslam. I also should point out that the aesthetic here was magnificent. And by that, before anyone labels me a pervert, I mean the clear sky and the outdoor arena and the ramp and general setup. It was very Summerslam 1992, which was the first one I saw as a young lad and thus we all remember the simpler times. I thought as a full package this was great stuff. Obviously the Dom thing was always lingering in the background, but they never made a huge deal of it until pretty much the very end, and even then it was fairly subtle for WWE. Rhea and Liv were both awesome in their roles. Ripley is a juggernaut and out to wring Liv's neck for several reasons, and I loved how Morgan would just outright refuse to engage at the start. She was channelling Jamie Dundee in how she'd scoot in or out the ring depending on how Rhea went about chasing her down. Eventually Rhea would catch her though, because you can only run for so long, and when they did the staredown as Rhea slithered towards her, Liv going wide-eyed knowing she'd been turned in enough of a circle that she'd swallowed her own tail, the palpable sense of "okay now someone is getting GOT" was really cool. You knew Liv would go to the shoulder at some point and in a lot of ways that felt like the one chance she had, but when she did go there it didn't come off as flukey as opposed to resourceful. She's half the size of Rhea, of course she's going to use any advantage she can muster, but it was fair game and it wasn't a shortcut. The spot where the shoulder got rammed into the post looked brutal as fuck too. I bought that she'd actually torn the thing out legit at first and her shoulder joint looking wonky in the first place (maybe from the surgery?) added to the illusion. I thought her selling from that point on was superb and Liv was a terror going after it. Rhea voluntarily throwing herself into the announce desk before popping the shoulder back in might've been a wee bit hokey, but I still kind of loved it, the crowd bought it fully and Liv backing up going "oh fuck" made it even better. I also liked how it was Dom taking Liv's tope that made Rhea take matters into her own hands. I've dislocated my shoulder before and thinking I was badass enough to put it back in myself is one of the stupidest things I've ever done in a life full of stupid things. When Rhea saw her man get decked it didn't matter, she was walking through hell and back and she was for dragging Liv with her for the journey. The stuff with the chair came off great and when Dom stopped Rhea from going bonkers with it initially I thought they might actually NOT be pulling the trigger on him turning. I mean, he was right, wasn't he? Swing the chair and Rhea gets disqualified, clearly he's using common sense. In the end it was out of preservation for the other woman but in the moment it was hard to fault him. I bit a thousand percent on the Oblivion onto the chair and I think everyone else did too. It was a phenomenal nearfall and when she kicked out I thought she'd go on and win it from there. Of course the chair came back into play anyway and they did pull the trigger on that heel turn, Dom cheating on Mami, stealing away her slice of revenge. Maybe he really is the son of Eddie Guerrero. 

Piper Said it Ain't that Hard Singing 'Bout a Bar; Jukebox, Jack, Jim and Broken Hearts

Roddy Piper v Mr Perfect (WWF, 2/18/91) - GREAT

Back a few years ago I watched a handful of Piper v Mr Perfect matches from this period. They wrestled a bunch around the horn from late 1990 to early 1991 and basically every match I watched was a blast. They were all very similar. But a few years is a long time to yer old man here and I pretty much do not remember anything about those matches now, so this felt fresh and awesome as a standalone thing. Piper was sensational in this. Perfect slaps him and pie-faces him before the bell and Piper remains unflinching, taking his shirt off with the quick whip over the head lest Perfect tries to waylay him. When Piper does retaliate he hits Perfect with the jab combo and lands the finishing blow by spitting his gum in Perfect's face. Perfect is sort of an obnoxious bumper at times in the WWF, getting hit with a left hand and taking his inside-out bump to his own right, a wanton mockery of physics, but Piper is such a huge personality that you roll with it. Piper's presence and charisma almost trump the fact that he's a relatively normal-sized human being in a land of muscled up mutants, so when he levels someone I don't even question that the outcome is similar to when Hogan or Warrior does it. There was a stretch here where Piper literally beat Perfect out of his singlet, little by little, first by one strap, then a second, then the whole thing was off. At one point Piper had hold of the front of it, both straps down, using it to keep Perfect upright after every punch. When Piper grabbed the back of it and Perfect's bare arse was exposed for a second you can absolutely imagine the lightbulb going off in the head of an up-and-coming Shawn Michaels for how he wants a future heel run to go. I think the finish to every match in this series was a Piper win by either count out or DQ so there maybe isn't a ton of suspense in the end, but Piper goes on the rampage after the bell and that's always a good time. Heenan also took himself a bump from his 10-years-younger self and that too is always a good time.

Complete & Accurate Hot Rod

Piper's Got Plates for Purple Gas; 'Bout the Only Break He'll Catch, but He's Not the Kind of Man to Blame the Dealer on a Losing Hand

Roddy Piper v Jimmy Snuka (WWF, 7/28/84) - GOOD

This was really similar to their match from the Meadowlands a couple weeks earlier, just less heated and didn't have an insane Snuka dive. But the layout was basically identical and if I remember right so was the finish. That's what you get with having a chunk of footage from a feud that was worked around the horn - sometimes you get the same match in different markets depending on that particular stage of the feud. It's not the worst thing in the world. Sunka got absolutely clobbered with a couple chair shots and opened himself up nicely, then Piper spent a few minutes ramming him into the post and scurrying away again. The Snuka comeback was the same as it was in the Meadowlands match. Eventually he takes one too many shots and the sight of his own blood snaps him back to life, unflinching as Piper punches him in the face and even bites the cut. He roars and goes at Piper like a demon or at least a very peeved individual and then the referee gets clonked with a headbutt, such are the perils of trying to keep these men in check. Piper sneaking in three or four cheapshots after the bell as half a dozen people restrain Snuka was sublime. It's hard to go wrong with this feud, really. You just wish Snuka was as good as the Tonga Kid.

Roddy Piper v Ric Flair (WWF, 10/28/91) - GREAT

If you'd asked me for my perfect idea of Roddy Piper v Ric Flair in 1991, this would've been pretty close to what I could've drummed up in my head. Flair in MSG for the first time in 15 years? Coming into the WWF's home turf after spending the last 10 years as The Guy for the enemy? In the Garden against Rowdy Roddy Piper?? Where a whole shit load of those fans would know the history between the two? Come on. I'm all about spectacle and that screams spectacle and sure enough this was a fuckin spectacle, carried by personality from two of the biggest personalities ever. The early parts were all about the heat-building. Piper would clock Flair and Flair would hit the deck staring up at Piper aghast. He's the real world's champ and this skirt-wearing idiot couldn't care less. The disrespect. Flair backs Piper into the corner and levels him with a chop, so Piper reels off a seven-punch combo and Flair is on his back again. Even something like Piper spitting his gum at Flair and Flair's disgusted stare, the people were on strings for all of it. Piper's a really fun Flair opponent in the same sort of ways that Savage is a really fun Flair opponent. At times Flair will do something that he might do in every match, but Piper will throw a bit of chaos in there and force things off the beaten path a little. Here it was when Flair chucked him to the floor and in a burst of adrenaline Piper rushed back in and charged. Flair rolled with it and threw him out again, so Piper immediately got back and ran at him. On the third go Piper didn't get back up and there was one fan in the front row who reached through the guardrail and grabbed Piper by the hand to check on him. I wish they'd left a bit more on the table here even with the cheap win, but the chair shot nearfall before that was amazing and everything else pretty much ruled. 

Complete & Accurate Hot Rod

Bret v Perfect...for the crown! (almost)

Bret Hart v Mr. Perfect (WWF King of the Ring, 6/13/93)

Really fun Curt Hennig performance, upping the surliness and playing subtle heel in what's probably my second-favourite WWF performance of his. He wasn't down for the sportsmanship at all and had no compunction about pulling hair or throwing pot shots, all with a scowl on his face. He was getting yoinked into those headlock takeovers almost side on at points and made it look like Bret was just snapping him over. The more frustrated Perfect got the quicker he tried to run at him after each takedown, but Bret was ready every time and just used that momentum to corral him with another headlock, a man entirely unperturbed, at the peak of his powers, who knew he could weather any storm even if he only had 30 minutes to do it. The first transition effectively being a knee to the gut maybe never had the impact behind it that you'd want, but the fact it was a cheapshot meant it at least progressed the story of Perfect being willing to take a shortcut or two. They progressed that again in a few cool ways, the first being when Perfect held the ropes open for Bret to get back in the ring only to kick him in the guts when he was halfway through. They upped that another step later on when Bret wound up on the apron so Perfect just smashed him off and into the barricade (where Bret cracked his knee on a crate that apparently wasn't supposed to be there). The work on Perfect's leg after the comeback doesn't last too long, but it let him take his bumps on the top of his head after every leg kick and then they rolled out the figure-four, which plays on a bit of history between Perfect and Flair (which Heenan sort of touches on on commentary). The stretch run is really good, nothing elaborate but tight and focused and very much in line with the best Bret Hart matches. Perfect tries to rip Bret's head off with a nasty looking sleeper hold and then Bret seems to realise he should stop playing nice and about uppercuts Perfect into another dimension. There are some neat subtle selling moments from Perfect as well, like when he trips as if his leg gave out after Bret breaks the sleeper, then of course we get the finger-bending as Bret tries to apply the Sharpshooter. And any match with finger-bending is at least worth three and a half stars prolly. I thought overall Bret was just the right sort of foil, something he was always great at and I don't mean that in a backhanded way either, but this was a Mr. Perfect show and probably his last great match. 

And Tenryu Recalls what She said - that She Wanted Him Dead but there Ain't no Grave Deep enough

Genichiro Tenryu & Stan Hansen v Jumbo Tsuruta & Yoshiaki Yatsu (All Japan, 12/6/89) - EPIC

Imagine coming into a match against Tenryu and Hansen wearing a helmet. Not even a proper helmet, just some flimsy protective headgear. Imagine the bullseye that paints. Could never be me, I'll tell you that much. Find yourself another partner, I'm on sick leave for a month. This was a war that went 100 miles an hour from the start and never let up. It almost had New Japan pacing and was frenzied and FEVERED but had a lot of the structural elements that would make the All Japan tags from the next decade so special. It was tremendous, basically. Hansen and Tenryu were a swarm immediately and you knew it wouldn't take long for them to isolate Yatsu. It took even less time after that for Hansen to rip the headgear off and from there he and Tenryu try and whack-a-mole Yatsu's braincells down to the single digits. Tenryu was vicious here, but he was more of a collected presence and it never felt like he was out to torture for the sake of it. What he did was in the service of winning and if that meant exploiting an injury then so be it. This is competition at the end of the day. It's just business. Hansen, on the other hand, was up for a different sort of business. He was feral and at even the slightest hint of danger would rush the ring and break up a pin or shut down momentum, sometimes with a stomp, sometimes a knee, a club, a smack, sometimes by just throwing his whole weight on top of someone. The crowd picked up on it too and they were quick to voice their displeasure, which gave the match a real heel/babyface divide that only increased the heat as it went. The eventual hot tag to Jumbo was nuclear and this was as good as I've ever seen him as the walking tall gladiator ruling his arena. The first running knee about took Tenryu's head off and he was slapping Hansen across the ear like he was trying to deafen the man. There was one amazing part where he knocked Tenryu flat then secured the mount and started raining down elbows and forearms like he was trying to break his skull open. Yatsu having his head taped back onto his shoulders down on the floor is the sort of thing those 90s tags leaned into heavily, and you can't blame them for that because the drama it produced was off the charts. While this is going on Hansen lariats Jumbo in the back of the head to swing the tide again, then we get a fucking Tenryu rocket launcher off the top with Hansen chucking him across the ring like Tenryu was Bobby Eaton! That first instance of Yatsu jumping back in to save his partner was molten. In stark contrast to when Hansen or Tenryu did it, any save Jumbo or Yatsu made for one another was met with glee. The crowd had thrown their lot in with those two and you can understand why when Yatsu's staggering around with sixteen feet worth of bandages keeping his brains from leaking out his ears. Hansen being isolated in the back half is a great look at him getting to show vulnerability, not something he got to do a ton of given who he was, but any time he did you knew it would rule. Yatsu's big revenge spot is amazing, ripping up the safety mats and hitting a bulldog on the concrete to split Hansen open. Both of them had a phenomenal exchange late on, exhausted and losing blood and/or motor functions, throwing wild shots, Hansen eventually taking one that only woke him up, responding by absolutely blitzing Yatsu with a dozen brutal open hand slaps and a full punt to the face. The last few minutes are sensational. Tenryu accidentally nails Hansen with an enziguri and you feel like Jumbo and Yatsu have a chance despite running uphill from the bell. Eventually they get Hansen in the ring while Tenryu is on the floor and Yatsu tries the bulldog out the corner, but Tenryu grabs hold of Hansen's trunks to block it. When Yatsu turns around he eats a big boot and a fucking Stan Hansen dropkick, and when Hansen raises his arm the roof comes off. The palpable sense of dread is insane and you're worried he might actually kill Yatsu if he connects with the lariat. Then Yatsu blocks it with a dropkick of his own and if there was any of the roof left on it came off right then. He goes for the German on Hansen, who tries to fight free, so Jumbo takes his last big swing with the high knee assist, only at the same time Tenryu whomps Yatsu in the back of the head with an enziguri. Hansen staggers into the ropes and rebounds with the lariat on Yatsu while Tenryu drags Jumbo to the mat, the latter trying to muster enough to break up the pin. A hell of a thing, this match. A hell of a thing. 

Complete & Accurate Tenryu 

The Giant and the Claw!

Giant Baba v Fritz Von Erich (JWA, 12/3/66)

By christ give me all of the Fritz Von Erich. This isn't the first Fritz match I've ever seen, but it's probably the earliest and definitely the best representation of a psychotic German with a claw for a hand who wants to squeeze your head until your eyeballs pop out. He was a snarling menace here and it was incredible. Just the way he'd move around the ring growling nonsense, his low stance like he was ready to pounce, the roll of his shoulders, the way he'd snap his gangly limbs into motion, everything he did exuded danger. Straight out the gate he kicked Baba in the throat and clubbed him in the neck and from there he would stalk him down relentlessly, throwing referees and trainees and reporters and anybody else out the way as he did so. There was one instance on the floor where he picked up the referee by the neck and threw him back in the ring, then later he threw that same referee OUT the ring with enough force that the ref's shoe came off. He literally threw the wee fella out his shoes! And then he just picked the shoe up and chucked it at him in disgust. Some of the camera shots on the black and white footage of Fritz hanging over the ropes ready to go at Baba again made him look like some sort of looming Frankenstein. More than anything I loved how he properly threw his weight behind every attempt at the Claw, using his other hand to force the Claw hand ever closer to Baba's face, really leveraging his body to press all of his 260 pounds down on it. He made Baba fight with everything HE had to prevent it and this was really some of the best struggle over a hold I've ever seen. People were absolutely losing their minds for all of it. The first time Fritz went for it he smashed his own hand off the mat, which was awesome because it made even the application of the hold look like it could crush you, the way that hand came down like a piston. Baba immediately jumping on the hand was obviously great and in general his desperation at avoiding the thing all match put it over huge. That led to moments where they were both on the mat throwing strikes and Baba was frantically chopping Fritz in the midsection and chest and forehead. Fritz applying the Claw from his back at the end of the first fall is such a great moment, then Baba gets himself some COLOUR~ and the heat goes up another level for the remainder of the match. The brawling around ringside in the last couple falls is top drawer. Fritz is throwing Baba across tables and into ring posts, taking swings at people who get too close, then Baba will come back and Fritz starts to realise he might've fucked up here. Baba might be skinny as a rail but they call him Giant for a reason and Fritz had no interest in being chopping in the face by those big shovel hands. Fritz almost launching Baba out the ring with a Claw throw was fucking wild and at that point you can't help but feel Baba is justified in trying to smash that hand to pieces with a chair. I thought this was tremendous and easily one of the best matches of the decade. 

Hey, Driver, Tenryu's So Tired of the Ways of this Old World. Just Drive Until the Tires Melt, He'll Come Back When it's Healed

Genichiro Tenryu v Yoshiaki Yatsu (All Japan, 7/18/89) - GOOD

These two always have a good slobberknocker in them and this was no different. They were staring a hole through each other before the thing even started and then Tenryu went about slapping all of the teeth out of Yatsu's mouth. From there Yatsu actually took most of the match, controlling with an airtight headlock and shutting Tenryu down almost immediately whenever a comeback looked on the cards. Yatsu made real use of the bulldog as well, a couple times just running Tenryu into the turnbuckles like he was a battering ram. Tenryu would try for the enziguri at points but Yatsu was having none of it and ducked out the way, jumping right on Tenryu after each miss. Of course Tenryu is inevitable and eventually the match spills to the floor, at which point Yatsu gets his head smashed into a guardrail or a ring post and then has a full table thrown at him. The blade job is a mere trickle but we appreciate the visual. When Tenryu does finally connect on those enziguris Yatsu takes a few nice face-first bumps, and I liked how when he seemed dead in the water he pulled out a desperation sunset flip to counter the powerbomb. In the end it wasn't enough, but the run to the finish was heated and maybe on another day Yatsu would've hit seven more bulldogs and walked out the champion. Then again, maybe not. 

Genichiro Tenryu & Nobutaka Araya v Tatsumi Fujinami & Shiro Koshinaka (New Japan, 3/26/96) - GOOD

I don't think I need to say it again by this point, but there isn't a wrestler in all of history that I'd rather watch than Tenryu in a foul mood. When I first started watching wrestling from Japan I was all about the STORYTELLING~ and the layered psychology and how the wrestlers progressed both over the course of a match and then subsequent matches and then months and even years down the line. Like many of us getting into Japanese wrestling in the early-mid 2000s, it was still very much a 90s All Japan-dominated field, and the way that period of wrestling was talked about coloured my approach to watching and writing about wrestling going forward. And then the older I got the less I was interested in reading into the plot points and subtleties of every strike or move and what they all meant and more interested in the parts where people who didn't like each other just wanted to fight. I guess I've become a simple man in my old age and there's something about the simplicity of Tenryu punching someone in the cheek that just makes me smile. It feels good to know oneself even a little, you know? When he punched Koshinaka four times on the trot here it sounded like someone whacking a pock chop with a shovel and I found myself laughing at how unnecessary it was. A lot of what Tenryu did in this was unnecessary, really. He went straight for Akitoshi Saito before the bell, Saito standing minding his own business in his funky wee tracksuit only to get punched in the eye. A bit later Tenryu scooted out the ring unprompted and tried to throw Saito over the barricade, again for seemingly no reason. Koshinaka strayed too far towards the wrong corner at one point so Tenryu kicked him in the back of the head and Koshinaka never made that mistake again. The Tenryu/Fujinami exchanges were great and whet the whistle for their singles match at the Dome a month later. Seriously they just slapped the piss out each other and it was primal and amazing and this is the very best pro wrestling, let's be honest. Araya wasn't yet quite the surly menace he'd become so he got to play whipping boy whether he liked it or not. Koshinaka drove the point of his hip into the poor man's orbital bone several times, then Araya made an arse of a top rope hurricanrana so Tenryu came in, smashed Koshinaka to bits for a minute there, chopped his own partner on the chest and finally served him Koshinaka on a plate. "Go do it properly this time." I like that the crowd responded big when Araya hit that hurricanrana on the second attempt. It did not stop Fujinami from ripping his head off with a dragon sleeper, however. 

Complete & Accurate Tenryu

Fujiwara v Super Tiger - the first singles match

Yoshiaki Fujiwara v Super Tiger (UWF, 9/7/84)

It's been 15 years since I last watched this. I couldn't really remember anything about it specifically but I can tell you for absolute certain that it was still good. As far as first matches in a series go you'll struggle to find many better. The general talking point about this is that it went a long way in legitimising Tiger as more than just a flashy junior, and of course Fujiwara and how he approached the match is a huge part of that. I'm repeating another talking point but at the core of Fujiwara v Super Tiger you have a grappler versus a striker. Even if their series wasn't necessarily a referendum on which approach is superior, their actions every time out certainly provided a window into the strengths of both. Fujiwara was his suffocating best for most of this. It was already established in the July tag that Sayama could obliterate him with the right strikes, but Fujiwara could utterly dominate on the mat if it went there and sure enough Fujiwara wanted to take it there often. Maybe to highlight that dominance there was at least one occasion where he COULD'VE took it down to the mat but decided not to, just releasing Tiger's leg after catching a kick and casually walking away to reset. He wrenched Tiger into a nasty kimura at one point and Sayama was vocal in his desperation to get to the ropes. When Tiger tries to fight back on the ground he really gets nowhere. The best example is when he half secures the mount and tries to grab a kimura of his own. Fujiwara never panics, stays patient while shifting his weight from underneath, forcing Tiger to shift to a cross-armbreaker attempt that goes nowhere, then to a sort of triangle attempt that isn't much better, but by that point Fujiwara is back to his feet and just hoists Sayama into a sick piledriver. The piledriver was actually a big part of the match beyond that as you had this one, then Sayama's tombstone later where it looked like Fujiwara's head got driven through the mat, and then Fujiwara's response to that where he had to fight through stiffer resistance before spiking Tiger with a Gotch-style version. Obviously where Sayama has a shot is the strikes. There was a part early where he rocked Fujiwara and the latter backed up into the corner. If you've seen enough Fujiwara you know he was trying to draw Sayama in, which he did and turned the tables to strike back, going to the headbutts that would always get him out of trouble. But you knew he backed away in the first place because he got caught and needed a reprieve, and just because he turned it into an advantageous situation didn't change that. The kneedrops make an appearance again and this one bounced Fujiwara's head off the mat like a basketball. A truly vile thing and at this stage of the rivalry they weren't even actively trying to kill each other. Like in the July tag Sayama's big shots looked devastating, but it was Fujiwara's selling that put them over the top. There's no better example than just before the finish, as Fujiwara catches Tiger's first roundhouse attempt only to get fucking decapitated with a flipping enziguri, Fujiwara selling it by going rigid and looking completely gone before even hitting the mat. Maybe Tiger knew it was academic after that and decided to submit Fujiwara with the chickenwing to prove a point. Who isn't a submission wrestler again? Stylistically this is still more pro style than what shoot style would become, but it's an awesome hybrid of a thing. The pro style moves came off like world-enders in a way they wouldn't quite if this was happening in New Japan, and things like the missed top rope moves were momentum-changers. And the strikes were lethal. You weren't getting kneedrops like this in no New Japan. 

Maybe it's time to once again go through the entire Fujiwara/Super Tiger series

Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Akira Maeda v Super Tiger & Nobuhiko Takada (UWF, 7/23/84)

What a pairing Fujiwara/Super Tiger is. You know, just in case you'd forgotten. I don't even remember the last time I watched an original UWF tag, but this was badass as fuck and Fujiwara was sublime from start to finish. It's closer to what these four would've done in New Japan around this point than your classic shoot style, but Fujiwara is one of the best pro style wrestlers ever AND one of the best shoot style wrestlers ever so you're not surprised that he can straddle the line between both worlds, even with shoot style very much still in its formative phase. He tried to cave Tiger's skull in with those headbutts, which is really one of the best parts of the Fujiwara/Super Tiger rivalry. It was his selling that stood out more than anything else, though. He made Sayama look like the most dangerous man alive with how he ate and sold those kicks. It didn't hurt - well, it didn't hurt US - that those strikes were as good as they've ever been. Sayama actually looked phenomenal in this, agile and quick and dynamic as ever, but everything was laid in with more force than it had been in the past. This wasn't about the snappy pirouette on his rolling hammerlock, this was about him spin kicking someone in the guts as hard as possible. His one backflip kick looked like the death blow in a martial arts film and then he about fucking kneedropped Fujiwara's head through the canvas, which is another staple of their rivalry. His diving headbutt looked sensational and it came after a hellish tombstone. Fujiwara/Takada was fun as well and I'll always pop for the spot where Fujiwara and an opponent trade snapmares to get out of being choked to death with a chinlock. Maeda was maybe a wee bit low key in this, but I don't say that to knock him. He let Fujiwara and Tiger drive things and if nothing else that set the table for those two trying to kill each other several times over the next year. I guess it's time I watch every one of their matches together all over again.

Tenryu Lost His Bride to the Finest Man She Claims to have Ever Known. When She Got to the Parking Lot, His Knees were Already Blown

Genichiro Tenryu v Stan Hansen (All Japan, 9/11/87) - GREAT

This was on the DVDVR All Japan 80s set under a different (I guess incorrect) date. At the time I wrote that it had a nice opening and a fun post-match but the rest of it was disappointing. Almost 13 years later I would agree with the first two parts but disagree with the rest of it being disappointing. What can I say, sometimes I get it wrong. I've always tried to avoid retreading ground on this here nonsense blog and writing about the same match twice, but when I miss like this I feel it only RIGHT and JUST that I offer a new perspective. I'm sure all 12 of you are absolutely buzzing. Anyhow, the start really was awesome. Hansen was a terror and riled up about something on the night, swinging a chair at a reporter on one side then storming across the way and hurling another chair at someone in the crowd. These All Japan crowds knew better than to hang around when Hansen was on one and you better believe Stan gave them cause to scatter. When the match starts properly they smack each other dead in the face inside three seconds. This was surliness of the highest order and I love how Hansen would almost stare in astonishment at someone slapping him before cracking Tenryu in the ear with a wild palm strike. Hansen's piledriver is a thing both beautiful and terrifying, stumbling backwards as he hits the mat while Tenryu lands almost side on. How he was able to move his fingers after it is anybody's guess. Tenryu was more intent on treating this like an actual wrestling match and would go after Hansen's arm to neutralise the lariat. Hansen was interested in none of that and every chance he got he'd throw Tenryu to the floor and whip him into the barricade or throw furniture at him. At one point he just chucked a full table on top of Tenryu's semi-conscious body. It's strange watching Tenryu work a slow cross-armbreaker to not much reaction given that over in New Japan even a hint of that move being applied would result in nuclear heat. Eventually Hansen realises his strategy might not be the best strategy and fights fire with fire by going after Tenryu's arm. This still meant taking it to the floor at points, but rather than haphazardly throwing things or rushing Tenryu he'd take his arm and wrap it around the metal railing. Tenryu making his comeback with a desperation dropkick ruled and I've never bought him winning with the top rope elbow more than I did here. Even the double count-out wasn't deflating on account of them trying to maul each other and Hansen smashing Tenryu's head into the floor. 

Genichiro Tenryu & Yoji Anjoh v Koki Kitahara & Arashi (All Japan, 1/14/02) - SKIPPABLE

There wasn't a lot to this, which is a shame when you consider the astronomical levels of shithousery you could be getting from a Tenryu/Anjoh team in 2002. Tenryu was the grumpiest bastard on the planet that year and he was damn near affable in this! Anjoh never pouted and pranced around like a goofball or kicked anyone in the willy even once! The Kitahara stuff was good, at least. If Tenryu was in an uncharacteristically good mood then Kitahara tried to snap him out of it by kicking him in the sternum a dozen times. In the end Arashi bit the bullet after a couple mid-level lariats and I think even the crowd were expecting a bigger finish. 

Complete & Accurate Tenryu

Tenryu's Got a Batmobile so He Can Reach Ya' in a Fast Shake, When Your World's in Crisis of an Impending Heartbreak

Genichiro Tenryu, Takashi Ishikawa & Ashura Hara v Ric Flair, Earthquake & Typhoon (SWS, 4/16/92) - GOOD

This is setting up the Flair/Tenryu match the following night and it's a fun, sort of low key, lead-in tag that easily could've played in America. Flair spends half of the match shit-stirring and riling up Tenryu while refusing to actually engage physically with him. Tenryu is obviously annoyed and wants to FIGHT but Flair immediately tags in one of the Disasters before they need to lock up. Flair will scrap with Ishikawa and Hara, then Tenryu will make a quick tag and Flair will casually tag out, but not so casually that you're fooled into believing his reasoning stops at just antagonism. Earthquake and Hara have a fun beefy boy tussle and Earthquake really does have world class weeble-wobble selling. Hara absolutely clobbers him with a clothesline at one point and Earthquake's shoulderblock could've killed a moose. I don't know if I've ever seen the Flair/Tenryu matches from '92, but their All Japan match from '84 is not good and the exchanges here weren't really the greatest. They did have a couple great moments though, then Tenryu missed his leaping back elbow and Flair scurried to tag Typhoon who squashed Tenryu with a big running splash. I was a little surprised they opted for Tenryu in peril, but they did and wouldn't you know it but it worked. The finish was maybe a wee bit too intricate for a ring with this many guys not exactly known for their finesse, but if nothing else I'm interested in seeing the Flair/Tenryu match from the next night, at least on the off chance they light each other up like they did once or twice here. I would be willing to lay down a wee bitta cash that those two perhaps throw some chops at the very least.

Complete & Accurate Tenryu

Some Mid-South Coliseum CHAOS!

Tommy Rich & Eddie Gilbert v Pretty Young Things (Falls Count Anywhere) (Memphis, 5/14/84)

I hadn't watched this since the DVDVR Memphis project in 2008. If it even made the set anyway. I'm guessing it did because it's probably a top 20 Memphis match of the decade. The first half is more of a traditional tag match than a full scale riot, but there are still moments where it spills to the floor and things get wild, like when Koko punches Eddie Gilbert in the willy. Koko smashes a piece of wood over Gilbert's neck and then later uses half of it to stab him in the throat! Gilbert is on the canvas trying to get up and Koko is just fucking obliterating him with some of the greatest punches you've ever seen. At least two people got heaved over the announce table and metal rods are used as weapons and Eddie Gilbert uses the steps as a trampette to fling himself at Koko. The back half turns into a FULL free-for-all rather than just a partial one and they all brawl around ringside and up the stands and then eventually the Mid-South Coliseum stage. Rich and Norvell Austin make it up there first while Gilbert and Koko fight in the bleachers and Koko takes a Puerto Rico-style bump over one of the safety railings. He was like 18 feet in the fuckin air! Or at least six. Gilbert fully torpedoing himself at Koko's nuts with a diving headbutt was some phenomenal revenge and then he just chucks him off the stage. Norvell tries to piledrive Rich and the people react like a legit murder is about to occur and when Rich reverses it the place erupts. And then Rich throws Austin off the stage as well. You don't even care so much that the match gets thrown out in the end, particularly because Jerry Calhoun got clobbered often enough that he probably wouldn't have been able to count a fall anyway. I'd have thrown the thing out too, Jerry. This was tremendous.