ohtani's jacket

Andre the Giant & Tony Garea vs. Sgt. Slaughter & Moondog Rex (WWF, 4/18/81) This was fun to an extent. It would have made more sense to me if it had set up the Slaughter vs. Andre singles match since at the end of the day it left everyone frustrated. The faces were frustrated, the crowd was frustrated, the ref was frustrated, and perhaps the viewer too. Andre clearing house after the shitty finish wasn't the same as Andre clearing house in a live match.

Pat Patterson vs. Sgt. Slaughter (WWF, 8/1/81) I'm not sure why they ran the Alley Fight in Philly three months after the New York bout, but I thought this was a much better bout. The build was smarter and they used better transitions. The chokes came latter in the bout and somebody remembered the Cobra Clutch. It was the same basic finish with Slaughter's bladejob and the cowboy boots, and that was probably more shocking in New York, but add the mutant Philly fans at ringside and Dick and Kal doing a better job of calling the match than Vince, and I give it to the Spectrum. Now, if you took the body of the match from Philly and added the finish from New York, you'd get the Dr. Frankenstein version of the bout.

Pat Patterson vs. Sgt. Slaughter (WWF, 5/4/81) This is a match I've always struggled to get into, and even immersed in the culture as I have been, it's still a match that doesn't do a lot for me. In fact, I like the April a lot more than the Alley Fight. The finish is great with Slaughter bleeding like a stuck pig and Patterson attacking him with his cowboy boot, but the beginning of the fight isn't violent enough and I don't believe that the Slaughter bladejob is earnt. There's too much smoke and mirrors stuff with the belt and Patterson's shirt, and they don't tease the Cobra Clutch at all, which I thought was a mistake. The WWF was never very good at these no holds barred matches during this era, and while this is the probably the best one they ran, I'm still not a huge fan.

Pat Patterson vs. Sgt. Slaughter (WWF, 4/18/81) I'm not even sure I knew his match existed before but this is a heck of a Spectrum match. Slaughter does a brilliant job of jawing with the fans at ringside. He calls a couple of them maggots then mocks their attempts to front him. He beats Pat up a bit then threatens to jump from the top turnbuckle to the floor, which of course he was never going to do. Once he gets Pat n the Cobra Clutch, the crowd shout "Gomer!" at him. Then they transition nicely into Sarge trying to jump off the top rope in the ring and damaging his leg. Patterson tries to take advantage of Slaughter's miscue with a figure four and Slaughter gets himself DQ'ed instead of tapping. After the bout there's a great interview with Pat where Kal has his arm draped over him and Pat is cutting a promo about how much he wants to hurt Slaughter. This pro-wrestling 101 as taught by Sgt. Slaughter and Pat Patterson.

Mr. Fuji & Mr. Saito vs. Rick Martel & Tony Garea (WWF, 11/29/81) I kind of expected Martel and Garea to win the tag belts back in quick succession, but I've since learned that Fuji and Saito held onto them for a lengthy period of time. This was an interesting match in the sense that instead of teasing the faces winning back the belts, it felt like the door had shut on them. Fuji was becoming increasingly devious and Saito looked awesome beating on Garea. Martel didn't get to unleash the way that he or the fans would have wanted. Garea was solid as the beatdown victim.

Mr. Fuji & Mr. Saito vs. SD Jones & Tony Atlas (WWF, 11/14/81) I wasn't sure what SAMS was talking about during the beginning of this match, but man, once Atlas bleeds, this gets REALLY good. It's a heck of a bladejob for the era, and it leads to a huge dramatic conclusion where SD Jones takes on Fuji and Saito by himself until Atlas makes the save with a bloodied rag around his head. I have no idea where this spectacle came from. Rudman was marking out like it was real. Fun stuff.

I liked this a lot as I tend to prefer work rate Homicide to any other version. Everything was humming along nicely. The commentators did a good job of spelling out how long Homicide had waited to have an ROH title shot. Of course, they oversold how good the matches had been since every match that takes place in ROH has to be an instant classic, but they gave you a peek into Homicide's mindset during the match. The match would have been perfect if Aries had won with his first 450 splash. The crowd was in synch and ready to explode... 1..2... Julius Smokes with the save. This led to Bryan Danielson attacking Smokes, a decent nearfall from a Homicide lariat and then Aries doing rolling brain busters before winning with a 450 splash. We could have done without all that shit and had Aries win with the first 450 splash. That would have been the natural thing to do. ROH likes to sound its own horn, but there's been a ton of bullshit creeping into their matches since the debut show. That said, I liked the bout. Apparently, Homicide kicked out of a burning hammer at one which angered a lot of people,, but I didn't notice or care. This was the first Aries as champ match that I enjoyed.

Rick Martel & Tony Garea vs. Mr. Fuji & Mr. Saito (WWF, 10/19/81) Another fun bout. The contrast between Fuji and Saito is interesting. Fuji belongs to the lineage of Japanese-Hawaiian wrestlers that we first saw in the 50s while Saito belongs to the first generation of really good Japanese workers. Their pairing works nicely with Fuji doing the stooging and Saito doing the grunt work. It's a half-hearted tag match in terms of structure, but Martel brings plenty of fire. He would have made a great intercontinental champion if you ask me.

Rick Martel & Tony Garea vs. Mr. Fuji & Mr. Saito (WWF, 10/13/81) I'm not very familiar with WWF TV from this era aside from an angle or two, but this was intriguing for me for a number of reasons. First of all, my parents used to always name drop Rick Martel as someone they remembered from the NWA New Zealand shows they went to when they were dating. Secondly, Garea is announced as being from Auckland, New Zealand, which the ring announcer has a tough time pronouncing since us Kiwis don't pronounce the "au" sound the same way that Americans do. I kind of wish that this match had happened seven or eight years later, as us Kiwi kids would have gotten a kick out of it. We did get the Bushwhackers, I suppose, even if one of them was Australian. Masa Saito had to have been a top 5 Japanese wrestler at this point (no less than top 10), while the only time I ever saw Fuji wrestle was when he was a manager. There's not much difference to be honest. Just at this point he had an amazing partner. All of these factors made for an intriguing television bout. The end result was a fun television bout on par with the offerings from other territories.

Thanks for another great Yearbook. I enjoy these threads immensely. I'm so impressed by your stamina. I hope you've got the energy to keep going.

I was really impressed with the performance Atlantis and Panther gave here. They were able to work a modern style lucha match while still grounding it in the traditions of lucha title match wrestling, and their opponents reaped the benefits. It would have been incredibly easy to work a quick match with a bunch of dives. Instead, they worked a changing of the guard style match with Averno and Mephisto not only winning the tag belts but beating two masters of the form. The Infernales had finally arrived and Atlantis and Panther made sure they looked legit.

These are two guys I know I should watch more of, but there's only so much time in a month. They produced an entertaining bout. It got a bit silly towards the end with the fighting spirit shtick and calling out the name of their finishers, but Corino was always a bit tongue and cheek with the Japanese elements. I normally loathe indy commentating, but I thought the guys calling this were amusing.

I couldn't resist watching this. Ian Rotten is another of those guys I should be following. This was fun while it lasted, but the finish was soft. It was supposed to set up a rematch somewhere down the line, but I don't think it ever happened. Still, an interesting one off that would make a great compilation stuffer.

Since I like the Christopher Daniels vs. AJ Styles match so much, I figured I should probably watch Christopher Daniels more often. He worked the same basic style here as he does against Styles. It's very "counter-rific" for want of a better term. Not annoyingly so, but he definitely loves to pepper a match with counters and reversals. I did his flashy technical wrestler shtick, though. Hero works hard to keep up but seems slightly outmatched.

My expectations for Kawada are so low at this point that I could enjoy this without worrying whether it was any good or not. It's basically an average wrestling match, and instantly forgettable, but easily digestible. I am kind of curious whether it was a physical or mental thing that caused Kawada's decline. You'd have to think that the state All Japan was in played a part. I wonder if Kawada would've been better off freelancing. I suppose popping up places having interesting matches would have been no different to the random collection of opponents he faced as Triple Crown champion.