Search the Community

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

1980-11-28 AJPW Abdullah The Butcher & Tor Kamata vs Dick Slater & Ricky Steamboat Real World Tag League 1980 Match Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan ★★★ Card This was never destined to be a five star classic, but as the opening match of the tag league tournament, they clearly looked to begin with a bang. It’s striking how much Kamata feels like a low rent version of Abby when placed right beside him. Considering his whole gimmick was being Japanese, I’m very curious as to his perception in Japan, when he very clearly wasn’t Japanese. In the opposite corner both Steamboat and Slater were incredibly over with the crowd, who for Japan were a rowdy bunch from the get go. The first half of this was pretty standard. Tie ups, wrestling holds, you know, normal stuff. Steamboat seemed intent on really selling with a capital S here, going to town when eating strikes from both his opponents. He almost went a bit overboard with the spasming thrown in there. It wasn’t long though before Abby had had enough of this standard wrestling malarkey and went for the foreign object. Steamboat got the brunt of it, tied up on the apron, and Joe Higuchi slowly lost control as Kamata joined in for the numbers advantage. From then on it was pretty much bedlam. Slater was throwing himself in there to try and fend them off his partner and eventually Steamboat was able to wrench himself free and get to the floor on the outside. It was interesting that his selling was more measured and realistic when taking a spike to the head than getting punched in the face. The only thing that I could complain about from when the brawl began until the end of the footage was that Steamboat probably didn’t bleed enough. It was more of a trickle than a gush, and considering the attack and the general mayhem going on I think some extra juice would have gone a long way. Either way, he and Slater managed to turn the tables on their opponents, using the foreign objects against them in return. Slater had Kamata absolutely seeping blood back in the ring while Steamboat and Abby stumbled through the crowd to mega reactions. Joe tried again in vain to regain some semblance of control but after getting shoved off by Slater a few times he threw in the towel and awarded the match to Abby and Kamata. Dodgy decision perhaps, as by now it would have been no secret who initially brought the weapons into the fray, but you’ve got to just go with the flow with these things sometimes. The wild frenzy of the brawl was easily enough to say this was an excellent curtain raiser for the tournament.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

JJ has put a bounty on Dick Slater. Bart is here to collect. Bart starting on the arm. Bart moves to the leg. The leg work is relly well done. I liked Slater's selling of the leg. A comeback by Slater gets ended by a Bart headbutt. Love the work of Bart here focusing on the leg.Bart using a front face lock to control Slater. A beautiful neck breaker by Slater. A back drop is a trigger for a Slater comeback. Slater gets a Fig 4 on Bart. Dory Jr. attacks Slater. 2 on 1 and hits a flying knee to Slater, and Dory locks in the spinning toe hold. Manny in for the save. This was a fun match with a great angle.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

Mid-South North American Champion Dick Slater vs Jake "The Snake" Roberts - Mid-South, Houston 2/14/86 No DQ In the angle leading to this match, Slater wanted to hold all the gold in Mid-South and was angling for Roberts' TV Championship. The Snakeman was ok with that as long because he wanted the North American Championship. Dicky Slater said the match would only be title vs title if the DDT was banned. Roberts being smarter than most wrestlers says no way, but when Slater doesn't budge he calls for Dark Journey to be banned. They brawl and Dark Journey sprays something in his eyes. Roberts in his blind sat DDTS DARK JOURNEY!!! HOLY SHIT! THAT WAS AWESOME! CROWD EXPLODED! Jake pokes fun of Slater asking him where Dark Journey is at the start of this match and Slater loses it on Roberts using a shirt to choke him and attack him. Slater beats the shit of Jake in this No DQ bout. He posts him, which busts him open. Piledriver! Jake's foot is on the ropes. Slater does his Terry Funk impressions while punching and chopping The Snake. Nice Russian Legsweep and then chokes him with tape. This is a really good match thus far. Slater has looked awesome and Roberts is a pretty decent seller. Jake takes off his boot and just starts wailing on Dicky Slater with it. Awesome idea! When you are getting beaten that bad, desperate times call for desperate measures. Slater blades off this. Roberts follows up with a clothesline and is signaling for the DDT! The crowd is going wild, but Slater dumps him with a back drop. Slater comes off the top, but cant follow it up. Jakes takes off his boot again, but loses control of it. Dicky Slater goes to pick it up. Jake steps on the boot and then BANG DDT! AWESOME FUCKING FINISH! Huge pop! This match is helped immensely by how over Jake and the DDT are. It was such a great ending. I thought Slater was great working on top kicking ass. He was getting revenge for the Dark Journey DDT, but never like the babyface. Too short to be an all-time classic, but as a feel good match with a ton of heat to it this was awesome. ****1/4

Some stuff has been written about the racial politics of this feud before that I won’t get into again, but it’s definitely evident and interesting to follow. Slater goads Reed into putting the North American title on the line, with the stipulation that if Reed wins, he gets the services of Dark Journey for 90 days. This is a terrific TV match. Slater didn’t make much of an impression with me the first time around on the Mid South set, but this match was solid. I loved Slater’s elbow cutoff when Butch put his head down for the back body drop when Slater came off the ropes. They cut a hard pace in this one. Slater ends up winning after pulling the tights, but Tommy Gilbert saw it and ordered the match to continue, which is a great way to increase the stakes. Slater ends up hitting Reed with Journey’s loaded boot after a ref bump to get the win. Really fun match. ***

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

I'll figure dates out later and will probably do a lot of editing as I go. Ric Flair vs Butch Reed (TV, Non Title, Mid South) - This had a great set up with Butch goading Flair into attacking him to set up the non-title match. Flair had hired Slater ($50K) to take Reed out and had hurt Reed's knee but that doesn't come into play here. It did in the next match. Flair's great in this, which is sub-ten minutes without a real opening stretch. He's very aggressive with his heel tactics. One thing he does better than anyone is shoot them out so He kicks out the double stomp. Reed's very good selling on the outside.quickly. The fastest draw in the west when it comes to eyepokes or the cheap knee. Flubbed backslide towards the end but it wasn't the finish so it's ok. The fans are viscerally into this. Reed wins with a shoulder block, but gets ambushed by Slater and spike pile-driven after the match. Watts wonders if Flair didn't sacrifice the fall so Slater could ambush. Very effective TV match to set up a live show. Ric Flair vs Butch Reed (WHC, Mid South, New Orleans, JIP) - What I saw was after the fact with Joel Watts and JR announcing to set up the no DQ match. I liked how Flair did the belly to back reversal out of a sleeper in the TV match and out of a headlock here. Variation like that is important to me. He brought back the knee drop instead of the double stomp too. I didn't get enough here to get a great sense of the match but it felt more like a Flair match and less like the TV one. Attacking the leg, figure four, reversal, but really the sense of Reed powering it over. Well done ref bump with Reed chasing Flair back in the ring and Flair trying to ambush him with a flying knee. Phantom backslide fall. Reed sent flair over the top and Fergie saw it. Reed suplexed Flair back in and pinned him (Second ref). Fans had the moment but then it was Dusty finished. It was okay since it set up the no DQ match the next week. Good from what i saw. Ric Flair vs Butch Reed (WHC, No DQ) - This is the last 15 mins of a supposedly hour long match. The No DQ is only evident here in over the top rope tosses and one transition crotching by Flair. It's hard to get a sense of what happened before this, which is a shame. There may be a full version out there. I have no idea. Reed's jabs are great. Flair takes over with said crotching and he's really vicious. Obvious disdain in his stomping and what not. He does some legwork and puts on the Figure Four. I'm not a big fan of Reed's struggle here, though Flair's great in it. The turn over happens sort of undramatically. Flair breaks the hold, sells huge, goes for it again, and gett rolled up. Then he stops selling. It was a little annoying since it was all to set up the spot. Reed's selling after this, but it kind of sort of looks to me like he's blown up. Flair even has to maneuver him into a spot or two towards the end. Reed takes back over with a nicely filmed post reversal on the outside. Flair takes it awesomely which is really evident the camerawork is so close. Reed doesn't show me as much as I was hoping here. There's a moment where Flair comes back in forcibly and I wish that was the off the top rope toss because that would have been fresh. It's not. That happens a minute or two later on Flair trying to do a top rope move. There's an overwrought ref bump to set up the big shoulder block off the top (a normal version pinned Flair in the non title match) which Flair kicks out of the delayed count WAY too early on. Anyway, they meander to the draw, without that really palatable moment that he MIGHT win at the last moment. He does get the press slam in at the end but times it poorly. This was disappointing to me. Ric Flair/Dick Slater vs Butch Reed/Jake Roberts (TV) - Towards the end of Flair's run in the territory. Dark Journey on the outside. Flair uses her to assist in his Figure Four, which is great since he wasn't used to working with her. Slater's really good in this, cutting off the ring during tags and distracting to allow Flair to take over. It's mostly Flair and Reed with Reed playing FIP. We miss the transition and come back from commercial with Flair on top over Reed with Dark Journey jawing at him. It's a joy to watch Roberts punching Flair, stomping around in a circle, and it's a super heated DDT tease. Flair's excellent at fighting back while getting overpowered during this Jake was great cheerleading outside of the ring due to his weird thin body shape and all but I don't get why he wasn't the FIP here. It all broke down in the end and he won it with a roll up. I liked the team of Flair and Slater. Shame we don't have more of them together.