Jetlag
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A 23 minute contest in 2/3 falls. Luis El Gayo may also be „El Gayo“ or „El Gallo“ (it would fit his hair) or El Galio since the announcer keeps calling him something like that. One of the cool aspects to the old French footage is that there are a ton of Spanish wrestlers featured, so getting to a glimpse at that is really something special and something I never would have hoped to see, since the Spanish scene ended in the 1970s with a few later revival attempts failing. Jacky Corne is someone who shows up in matches all the way to the 1970s and 1980s, so it‘ll be cool to watch him for a nearly 30 year period. This was the 60s lutte libre style that we saw in Cesca/Cantanzarro, both guys working holds while mixing in cool arm whips and headscissors. It wasn‘t quite at the transcendent level of Cesca/Catanzarro, as they didn‘t seem to have some things fully worked out, but they knew not to expose the business when a spot wasn‘t hit perfectly. El Gayo was right there working the French style, he had some graceful escapes, a cool headwringing snapmare and he did these awesome BattlARTS style 8 count near KOs when Corne started dropping the bombs on him. He also launched Corne to the outside with a cool throw from the ground in a nasty moment, then later took a big bump himself flying over the rope. Both guys were moving fast and really making their hip tosses and body slams look good. The first fall was going nice until Corne caught El Gayo with an awesomely timed powerbomb and then took him to town dropping him with some more before El Gayo would seemingly come back only to be caught. The second fall gets chippy with both guys really cracking each others jaws with thudding european uppercuts and elbows, the high quality audio and video that the French preserved really adding to each exchange. One of the cool things El Gayo does is he will move in like a Greco wrestler, grab a hammerlock behind the other guys back and use that to set up a move, in one case he uses it to drill Corne with a nasty tombstone piledriver which was pretty mindblowing even by 1957 French standards, unfortunately Corne didn‘t go to the Spanish school of selling and just kind of moved on in the match. I liked the feel that El Gayo was pushed to the limit and had to resort to making things chippy. After Corne threw him to the outside in a heated moment that lead to several cigarette smoking fans helping El Gayo back in the ring, both guys shook hands only for El Gayo to start throwing elbows and knees the next moment. Seconds later the Spanish wrestler had to resort to throwing a punch to the mid section, seemingly apologizing to the audience and being frustrated with himself for having to resort to such tactics. Once again, I really liked the rope running sequences and the finishes were good although I was hoping for the match to go a little deeper, I thought El Gayo was done a little dirty here although he did a great job telling the story of the match. Still, good shit and a threat to see.
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JIP with about 12 minutes shown. This kind of bout probably won‘t stand out in the long run of French watching, but it‘s really cool to check out. Both guys did some neat stuff. Di Santo had some Billy Robinson esque offense, nasty neckbreaker and the big backbreaker. I think of Billy Robinson as someone who had pretty advanced offense for 1970s AJPW, so seeing a guy bust out that kind of offense in 1957 is pretty wild. Both guys took some nasty bumps, especially Di Santo flying into the ropes trying a pin. Both guys had some cool ways to work around the greco roman knucklelock pin, Di Santo bridging out of the with van Dooren on top was pretty freaky. This is our first time seeing van Dooren and he looked good, busting out a cool luchaesque pin and uncorking some nasty looking headbutts that got a big reaction nicluding one from a full running charge, and Di Santo fires back with straight elbow smashes. Pretty cool to see how evolved this style was in 1957 already. Van Dooren keeps finding ways to reverse Di Santos counter attempt, and the finish sticks with this time. Nice stuff.
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2/3 Falls match that goes about 40 minutes. Our journey into French wrestling begins with Edouard Carpentier of all people. He‘ll be interesting to watch, since he obviously stands out in the US wrestling scene, but in France he might be just another guy. Although I imagine he will definitely get a bump from watching this French footage. This match wasn‘t quite in the super athletic French style that blew all of our minds in the first place anyways, it was instead a classic heat mongering affair. Gueret seemed rather non-descript, but Bollet drew a really loud negative reaction as soon as he was announced. He was a towering guy, he could clearly wrestle, but you could sense that this wouldn‘t be a wrestling heavy match very soon. The match was the type that I imagine sent folks into near riots all across Europe in the post WW2-wrestling boom. It starts with some slick arm rolls and nice wrestling, but they soon get to the real meat. Guys get bitchslapped, cheapshots are thrown, and eventually you have a bunch of heavyweights throwing forearm smashes with abadon. Gueret did look a little bland, but he sure knew how to throw those forearms. The heels would soon start to try and buckle their opponents to the corner to deliver nasty 2 on 1 beatdowns, and the faces would retaliate with ear rakes which the crowd loved. Koparanian was kind of bastard too, he would bitchslap the heels and get in cheapshots of his own. The whole match was worked like this, there would be moments of well executed wrestling, only for someone to throw a forearm or cheapshot and things would fire up. It‘s quite a long match, but they keep the pace up. Add 3 fun finishes and you have one hell of a match. -
The first Slinger match that I know of that received some modest hype. I'm not sure if the consensus on Slinger was that he sucked or that simply nobody paid attention. Anyways this was an unexpectedly intense scrap with some gnarly submissions. I wonder if AJPW did sudden finishes on houseshows a lot at this time because the crowd really bites on the holds (granted these guys were really stretching eachother to the max). Add a constant feeling of struggle and both guys being willing to kick the shit out of each other and you have an enjoyable match in the vein of a stiff undercard fight. There was an awesome backslide spot too that was one of the better "wrestling" spots I've seen in a match in a while.
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This was a really rewarding match to check out. It may have peaked in the first 5 minutes with both guys trading awesome wristlock reversals. I'm absolutely dead tired of wrestlers flipping out of wristlocks so the fact they made it cool here speaks volumes. Match had everything: brilliant athletic spots, pin-point accurate technique, fierce strike exchanges, and everything made sense. Prince tagging Saulnier with a savate kick to the face also caught me off guard. I didn't think the draw ending was as flat as Phil described it, they clearly kicked it up a bit. This match feels a bit weird to give a YES in project, for all we know there may be a dozen Prince matches in the archive that blow this away, but for now it's a really good, unique bout.
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[1990-08-03-CWA] Dave Finlay & Marty Jones vs Mile Zrno & Franz Schumann
Jetlag replied to Loss's topic in August 1990
I shouldn't have held of from watching this so long, because this really was damn great and easily in the Top 5 euro matches I've seen post 1980s. Really 4 legends tearing it up in a hot match that builds to a big finish. There is a long opening segment centered around the heels working with Zrno and it was really good hold vs. counter hold stuff, more complex than what you'd usually see in these kind of heat mongering affairs and the apex of this style of european wrestling. Finlay & Jones really start working rough house tactics, trying to double team their opponents and constantly throwing forearm shots and kicks. I was a little wary going in since it's a long match, but there was no obvious time killing and they manage to keep the asskicking compelling all the way. Even with the poor black & white footage quality you really feel the aura Jones & Finlay had going for them, which was especially interesting for Jones to be in this kind of role since he normally works as a babyface in england. Lots of neat spots, counters and cutoffs throughout. I liked that Finlay & Jones were allowed to outwrestle their babyface opponents, Jones at one point mixes in a handspring move that is normally resereved for babyfaces and Finlay casually uncorks powerbombs and suplexes. Really liked how the heels seemed to crank up the violence in the 2nd fall with Jones hitting some mean headstomps (including pulling the other guy into a Boston Crab and just kicking the low of his back like a reverse curbstomp) and Finlay punching dudes in the face. The last couple minutes are damn epic and the main reason I'm nominating this, Schuhmann gets bloodied and is taking an asskicking eating kicks and punches. There is a tombstone piledriver that feels as epic as any piledriver in history and an amazing finish that I never ever would've expected to work this well. This is a euro tag so it didn't have the kind of polished structure a US tag would have but I still thought it worked really well, the rhythm was really good, all 3 finishes work and everything felt like a struggle throughout. -
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I'm on a quest to find the ultimate japanese indy sleaze match. This is part of a weird 3 vs. 3 match that starts with a singles match then a 2 vs. 2 tag and the a 6 man tag, but this match is good enough to watch on it's own. Hiroshi Watanabe is a guy who has been around since the early 90s and never really got a shot due to being undersized even by indy standards. Yamada is a guy who barely makes tape and doesn't really get to do anything working HEAT UP undercard matches and Gatoh Move. And here they are, working a really good MUGA match. Maybe these two have some kind of Z-level indy Solar/Negro Navarro feud going on. Anyways, Yamadas unorthodox attacks ruled and due to Watanabes selling his joint manipulations appeared really painful. Then both guys do this really elaborate section built around indian deathlocks, leg stretches and pin attempts that was some of the most fun pro style matwork in years. Watanabe decimating Yamada with backdrops was simple but worked and Yamada took some nice bumps. The finish was built around Yamada trying to hurt Watanabe with rough technical moves and Watanabe coming up with cool counters. Highlights include Yamada busting out a Curb Stomp of all things, some nasty legwork and a really well timed sequence of counters leading to a great Robinson backbreaker. Loved the fluke finish too. This was a great modern version of a 70s style match that never felt like a tribute.
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First half of this was pretty great as Danielson would torture Evans with ultra tight basic holds while Evans would use his freak athleticism and flexibility to escape and hit spin kicks. Danielson can play Fuchi extremely well as he did both subtle things like digging his elbow into the leg aswell as stuff that looks grossly painful such as twisting at the chin, almost making the back of Evans head touch the back of his thigh etc. Finishing stretch wasn't as great as Evans looked a little sloppy while both guys transitioned from offense a little too easily. All time great finish though. I'd wager Evans performance here was better than pretty much anything Manami Toyota has ever done as he showed greater flexibility, better timed comebacks, more spectacular offense etc.
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Insane fucking fight. No lighttubes or barbedwire, just 4 crazy guys wailing on eachother with punches, chairs and headbutts. Everyone was bumping madly here, just flying all over the place into chairs and walls, taking suplexes in the damn parking lot and generally having no regard for their own body whatsoever. The story here was that Gage & Pain have been terrorizing CZW for ages and now the 2 craziest guys from out of town come in to kick their ass which works just fine. Necro is a sneaker wearing wildman here throwing chairs and crowbar punches, Klein bleed huge and also looked good throwing punches, while Gage & Pain were perfectly willing to kill themselves here flying around. Crazy spectacle finish with a few dozen chairs being thrown in the ring and Pain unloading his throws on Necro, huge Necro punch combo etc. This was only 6 hours after the Necro/Joe match, what a resume Necro was building.
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Crazy crazy hot brawl which delivers all you can ask for. Big bumps and boots to the face a plenty at a great pace. They did a great job filming this with the dual cams so you get pretty much a great shot every other second. Briscoes are great in this flipping around the place while Necro & Pondo hurl furniture at them. Pondo may not be a great wrestler but he understands to play a heel outsider, giving fans the finger and shit talking while grimacing dementedly. Lots of 2,99999s towards the end (it's indy wrestling baby!!) which feel a little out of place but a cool finish with Necro & Pondo looking like psychos who will kick anyones ass.
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Only 24 hours after his war with the Briscoes in FIP, Necro has another brutal match featuring one of the biggest bumps of 2007. This was an IWA-MS joint show so Necro comes in to take on the toughest craziest dude in the fed. The first half of this is really good, it's a brawl with chairs and ladders etc. but it starts with solid body slams and both guys understood how to work their control segments (by punishing the other guy with awkwardly thrown ladders, chairs etc), tease spots etc. Masada is one of the better outcomes of tape watching indy wrestlers, he is a metalhead looking dude with a shirt and shorts who does exploders big boots and enzuigiris, which in combination with the garbage brawling I like better than hairless kickpadded dudes doing that. Plenty of fun, there is one truely savage punch exchange, suicide dive against the stone bar, aswell as a beer bottle coming into play and Necro defending himself by pulling guard and using a wrist snap etc. I thought they got a little too into the plunder spots in the 2nd half while neglecting the substance, altough both guys just take one massive nasty bump after another.
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Payoff to their FIP feud so that means lots of blood, huge bumps (even from the referee) and mean punches and stomps. I thought the brawling wasn't quite as great as in the first match, but it was still a standout match. Necro decking a Briscoe with a right hand the second he took his eyes away is an example of how to do brawling. Also love his use of the guardrail. AJPW-like finish where Necro is laid out while the Briscoes finish Pondo off. Huuuuuuge finish. This would be legendary if it happened in ECW, in later 2000s indy wrestling it's „only“ another really really fun match in these guys portfolio.
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Wonderful wonderful match. Based on small show matches like this that no one remembers I think it's safe to say Low Ki is an all time great. This was Bill Watts UWF meets Indy Wrestling, with Hernandez as One Man Gang and Low Ki chopping him down. The first 10 minutes or so Hernandez doesn't even take a bump, it's all Ki trying to chop the giant down and hit the body slam, and the crowd just loves this. Both Kis strikes and crazy ragdoll bumping were worldclass. Hernandez has some sprinkles of cool athleticism of his own, he also uses the canadian backbreaker which rules and even his shoves felt violent. I'm not sure how good Hernandez exactly is but he was really good in this role for sure. Kis athleticism and babyface selling was just off the charts, up there with the best of Rey Mysterio or Steamboat.
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The most baffling thing about "Sad Genius" Yukimasa Watanabe may be that he genuinely looks like a good wrestler in the spare footage we have of him. He kind of reminds me of Ohtani, a balding technician who will work the mat and kick you hard. Every kick he throws lands with a thud and the Lou Thesz inspired moveset is cool. He would've been a great addition to the roster of DDT or Michinoku Pro, hell throw him in there with Yuki Ishikawa to work an undercard ZERO1 feud. But if Sad Genius wasn't hidden in obscurity he wouldn't be so fascinating. This was a pretty good match up until the really dumb finish. Gran Hamada gets to work a serious main event in UNW of all places and it's cool to see old man Hamada work like a maestro and face someone with a ground based style. Hamada really gets to show of his mat skills here. However the ending is really dumb because Hamada taps out Genius with 4 or 5 armbars in a row. Since UNW rules means Texas Death there is a 10 count so Genius just keeps getting up. Hamada gets annoyed at this and just leaves. I almost want to think Hamadas reaction was a shoot because it's so dumb. Really disappointing because the match was just getting good with Genius selling in a big way.
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UNW (United Nations Wrestling) was a project run by a madman known as "Sad Genius" Yukimasa Watanabe. Mini-shows that drew less than a 100 people. This might be the absolute null point of japanese indy wrestling. This is filmed with one camera, in front of a crowd so quiet you could hear a pin drop. The match was weird meth lab shootstyle, so just what you expect on this kind of show. Tsunehito Naito is a guy who was rejected from the UWF dojo, I guess because he killed someone there, and afterwards was relegated to lurking Z-level indies. He wasn't untalented. This match was about the skill disparity between Naito and Sawada. Naito would pretty much dominate on the mat and all Sawada could do was go for eye clawing, choke holds and cheap shots. Sawada isn't exactly a polished shootstylist but Naitos grappling was solid enough and the creepy atmosphere really added to the match. Also, for some reason, every UNW match has Texas Deathmatch rules, so you get Naito tapping out Sawada multiple times, which added to the match feeling like some kind of sadistic training session. Highlights include a nasty GAEA Girls level dropkick and a neck crunching belly to belly suplex. The finish aswell as the build to it were grizzly as hell.
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WAR interpromotional tag that lags a little behind the standard for those due to Mutoh and Samurai not being quite up to the violent standards that these matches have. You watch these matches for some kind of violent showdown to happen and these two aren't the types to bring it. Kitahara was also unusually subdued. However I'd still recommend this for Tenryus amazing performance. He would really eat the fuck out of Mutohs flimsy offense and looked great flying around to put over the match. Add in the usual dose of signature Tenryu face kicking, throat chopping, powerbombing and lariating madness and have yourself something fun.
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Another round of beefy dudes clobbering eachother. This wasn't peak WAR interpromotional material, but I still probably liked the best out of all the matches on the show. Particularily because the whole match felt thoroughly violent, and Fuyuki and Koshinaka were really at each other's throat. They randomly broke out into this super violent exchange that lead to a poor sap getting punched repeatedly and all was right in the world. I continue to enjoy Goto in these Heisei Ishingun tags as old guy with 2 moves who comes in to lariat and backdrop fools and nothing else, altough there was some sloppiness on his part. Hara's career was winding down but he could still take some big bumps. These matches pretty much write themselves but they still work in some things you won't expect.
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Oddly enough, Norman Smiley fit perfectly into WAR. I've yet to check out his mexican work but this may be the best stuff he's ever done. He was allowed to work as this tough as nails shooter who would dominate on the ground and potatoe dudes with nasty shots. Basically an UWF version of Regal. His holds looked clinical and when it was time to kick Orihara like a dog he wasn't playing around. I imagine if Smiley had faced Hashimoto in a big match or something we'd all be Smiley superfans. Orihara works as a Smiley opponent because he is CRAZY and will bust out unexpected highspots. Worth checking out.
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[1989-10-26-Pioneer Senshi] Hiroshi Itakura vs Hideki Kawauchi
Jetlag posted a topic in October 1989
Damn great match, possibly the greatest black trunks rookie match of all time. The reason for that is that this isn't your regular black trunks rookie match, instead it's two very young guys basically working a high end 20 minute shootstyle match that resembled 1950s pro wrestling here and there. Itakura ended up some kind of unfairly shafted 90s indy undercard hero, and Kawauchi was never seen or heard from again, and the concept of this kind of experimental indy shootstyle pretty much fell off the radar until BattlARTS was created 7 years later. It feels earned that these two went all out on a random card that just happened to be filmed so we can watch it and declare it an awesome match 30 years later. Kawauchi is the smaller of the two but he doesn't look outmatched at all. The early parts of the match see Kawauchi pushing the pace with superior amateur skills. The cool thing about this is that they work in some basic pro wrestling moves, like a drop toe hold or headscissor, but they really work these as shootstyle moves. Kawauchi's ground moves were inspired and when Itakura caught him with an awesome flying armbar (a holy shit spot in 1989) it felt like an awesome moment. As soon as Itakura got the advantage he would throw his smaller opponent around like a ragdoll, altough Kawauchi fired back with some nasty stiff kicks and then awesome suplexes of his own. While the matwork wasn't super slick and flashy, there are some crafty reversals (especially dug Itakura wringing his way out of a legbar) and some of the deepest Fujiwara armbars you'll ever see. While the striking wasn't a huge focus in the match as both guys were hellbent on forcing a tap, anytime both guys threw strikes felt suitably epic. There are some awesome 1950s like dropkicks and spin kicks. I also got the say the suplexes in this match were just awesome and some of the best I've ever seen. Even the more pro style suplexes, like a gutwrench or double underhook suplex felt like the guy was brutally hammered into the mat. There was also a great Randleman-like side suplex. Kawauchi going for a flying armbar of his own and failing feels like something that should happen more often. So, a really intense match with awesome suplexes and striking and some of the tightest submission work you'll ever see, with Kawauchi giving a cool gutsy performance fighting of his bigger opponent... damn I wish all pro wrestling felt this real and intense.