WingedEagle

It very well might, not sure why I had 45 in my head but its certainly closer to to 60 than 30.

Terry & Dory Funk Jr. vs. The Sheik & Abdullah the Butcher (2/3 falls match, 07/15/79) After the Funks steal Roman Reigns' ring entrance through the crowd, the first fall actually sees some wrestling, as opposed to brawling, including I believe the first spinning toehold in the 3 matches I've watched between these teams, but Sheik & Abby go to the weapons and we get double juice after not too long. This is the 3rd match between the teams I'm watching today, but I'm still so impressed at just how much Sheik & Abby bring to the table here. You wouldn't expect two maniac heels in this fashion to use tactics like Austin & Pillman to hide their cheating and foreign objects, but they're just so damn good at those little things as well as the blood. Dory abandons his proper world title match form and is throwing punches, getting the life choked out of him with some kind of small rope or plastic, working with a chair and out for blood quickly enough to keep this great. Terry is apparently murdered at some point late in the 2nd fall which forces Dory to go it alone for a bit. Abdullah makes this segment as well by bumping all over for Dory, before a crazed Terry is back seeking Butcher blood. I couldn't tell you how this ends as it becomes a crazy brawl with half the world trying to break it up and the Funks fighting everyone off to continue going after Sheik & Butcher. It was yet more insanity, blood and brawling, albeit without much of a finish. Now need to seek out the tag league matches from this era as I thought those were just as responsible for making everyone's reps here. ****

Did he actually bs hs family about the result? I assumed they all knew but were still emotional seeing it take place.

I'd start with the Choshu feud as there are fun & classic tags there as well as some shorter singles, and can then move onto the Tenryu series. As you get into Misawa you're basically also covering '90s AJ in general and can approach that how you like. Not to mention the Flair world title match, which is an all timer, but at 45 minutes not where you want to start.

My afternoon has included Abby & Sheik vs. The Funks. Christ is Abby good here. He brings the maniacal, lip smacking, blubbering, stabbing, chopping, juicing madness, but in the same breath he delivers cowardly heel by bailing out on a babyface and some incredible sneaky goodness by carefully working in his foreign object attacks to avoid being caught by the ref. Where do I find more of this Abby?

Terry Funk and Dory Funk Jr vs. The Sheik and Abdullah the Butcher (9/19/78) After this, Dory can go home and tell Marti he is the one who knocks. Heisenberg is in the building! I don't do BJPW style death matches because knives and swords and light tubes and the like are appropriate for snuff flims and not my rasslin. But sick juice jobs, brawling, non-lethal weapons and punching? Sign me up. I liked some of Dory on the AJPW 80s set and thought other performances there were just okay. Then there was the Lawler match from Memphis which was damn good, but otherwise I'd always been in camp with those who found him to be a safe and sound, don't wake the kids "old style" NWA champion. This is definitely how you flip the script and force people to rethink things. Terry had his moments with the *awesome* screaming at Abby, some punch drunk goodness and his signature hot stepping punches. But Dory was a man possessed here and gave the heels every bit of the violence and weaponry that they dished out. Dory literally used the ring bell so effectively that the bell rang. Loudly. He also did so with a face and chest drenched in blood. He punches and stabs at every ring boy that tries to slow him down, just absolutely possessed. The original Sheiky Baby provides the amazing selling this time, looking like he might need his arm amputated by the time this is done. When Dory Funk Jr wanted to bring the hate he absolute could. It just so happens he could also put me to sleep on other occasions when he chose to do so. This occasion was the former. This flew by and once the violence escalated it felt like it was over in a flash. On the other hand, they didn't stretch it out too much and fill it with any clutter or excess. Looking forward to '79. ****1/4

Terry Funk and Dory Funk Jr vs. The Sheik and Abdullah the Butcher (15/12/77) This was good but not what I expected going into it. I figured Sheik & Abby would bludgeon the Funks and we'd get a hot tag and babyface comeback down the stretch. At no point did I imagine seeing Sheik & Abby bumping and selling so well. I'd sooner expect my father in law to come watch Night of Champions tomorrow than see Abdullah take a double atomic drop, but goddamn did we get that here. Terry let his arm get carved up and provide the babyface juice and selling before Dory bailed him out, and that was all well and good, but it didn't outshine the heels here for me. It wasn't as wild and outrageous as it could've been, or as much as the subsequent years will apparently get, but it was solid, fun and not a dull or wasted moment to be found. My only real issue was with the finish -- Joe Higuchi watched Sheik & Abby use proper carving techniques on Terry for the entire heat segment of this match, and then at the end we randomly get a DQ for the same antics? Just don't get that, but it doesn't ruin the whole show. ***1/4 or so. Back after 78 & 79.

Mayumi Ozaki http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/20630-mayumi-ozaki-sugar-sato-vs-kaoru-toshiyo-yamada/?hl=ozaki http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/12631-manami-toyota-toshiyo-yamada-vs-mayumi-ozaki-dynamite-kansai-ajw-120693/?hl=ozaki&do=findComment&comment=5589287 http://prowrestlingonly.com/index.php?/topic/13993-manami-toyota-toshiyo-yamada-vs-mayumi-ozaki-dynamite-kansai-ajw-dream-rush-112692/?hl=ozaki&do=findComment&comment=5517209

Awesome, definitely post which ones we need to check out.

Multiple Hase threads?

I kind of feel the same way, but it raises a question that's been in the back of my mind here -- how many matches is enough to rank someone, let alone highly? We may have more Flair in a given month than from Destroyer's prime, or pre-80s Bockwinkel. Not quite sure yet how to balance that or when I'll be comfortable saying I've seen "enough" of someone.

Ha maybe I'll have to check it out again, as I was with you the first time after initially watching -- felt like a good / very good match with an excellent third fall capped off with some incredible emotion for the unmasking. But it seemed so rushed and without much urgency or tension through the first 2+ falls. We'll see what a rewatch brings. Got the house to myself today with plans to look back at this, ROH TV last week, Funks vs. Abby/Sheik and Billy Robinson. BOOM!

Karl Malone? Not likeable enough to get the Barkley love, and around during Jordan so never got the ring, but still a top 20 all timer.

Yeah, folks were dying to make it out like some Flair/Nikita situation. I love Suzuki and he's probably been my personal favorite in NJPW for the past few years. But that proposition was a big stretch.

Definitely looking more interesting. https://twitter.com/WWE/status/512976420247961600

Thanks, just bookmarked all of that. Plan is to plow through these and Funks vs. Sheik/Abby tomorrow afternoon if I can stay away from the '93 yearbook.

Yes, but Hayes also didn't always get a good night's sleep. And it showed. God bless him but he looked closer to 55 than 35 in 1994.

The Bockwinkel match still blows my mind, but I can still probably count on 1 or 2 hands the number of Robinson matches I've seen and have enough fingers left over for dim sum. What else is out there that I have to check out?

Pretty cool that Bray Wyatt, Blackjack Mulligan, Barry Windham and Mike Rotunda voted last time.

Will, how do you rate him vs. Rey? I feel like I could fill up more space with good Misterio matches but could probably rattle off more than dozen Liger classics that are legit all time great matches. Not sure Rey got to that level quite as many times, even though he was unquestionably not put in a position to do so as much as Liger.

He absolutely looked and carried himself like someone who'd be an out of control brawler. He was okay at that when he did it, but I don't think means people reject him for working differently. If you're going to work holds, make it compelling. Give me a struggle. Show me someone fighting off pain or working to wear down your opponent in a dedicated fashion or avoid having the same done to you. Or work holds to set someone up for a high spot. Brody never did for me. There's also a time and place to not sell and it can be incredibly effective and pop a crowd if held off for a while. But when you never sell at all it renders one half of a match impotent and combine that with a sometimes lacking approach on offense, and you've got someone who's matches don't have a lot I look for. I absolutely get the many digs at Kurt Angle here and can't really argue them, but I can still enjoy what he does for a bit before it becomes overkill. But at least he had some hot spots to keep me engaged. Brody rarely even delivered that much from what I've seen.

I thought Hase was also in for his influence in booking NJPW. No clue how responsible he was or wasn't for the company's direction but I seem to recall Dave giving him a lot of credit for that.

Maybe I'm crazy but I didn't mind the odd spot like Shane outwrestling Kurt. Done well and very sparingly, that always seemed like someone pulling out a move from the and1 tour just to pop people for a second before getting back to business. I found the extended mat wrestling in the Benoit match at 17 a lot more tedious and absurd.

Han is definitely an interesting comparison here. I've got no idea how I'm going to weigh the quantity issue in cases like these other than to guess I'll be inconsistent.

Do I need to watch anything as a lead in to the Sheik/Abby tag league matches from '78 and '79 or can I jump right in?