El McKell

These two main eventing Madison Square Garden two months in a row. Real step up from the previous match. Crowd goes fucking berserk for every move Sammartino does which helps a lot. But I think Bruno helps create that effect by starting out like an absolute house of fire taking it straight to Patera; and with his big over the top selling to the cheap seats when he's in trouble. This ends on a blood stoppage, which doesn't seem like a conclusive finish, but this does appear to be the blow off of this feud. This was as fun as I can imagine a match of all stomps, kicks, punches and bearhugs being. ***1/2

I've seen this before, but that didn't take away from my enjoyment of this at all. This is for a belt that was basically created back in August '76 so that AJPW could have a second singles title to make Jumbo the 1B to Baba's 1A. This is like a precusror to modern nearfall heavy, big bomb throwing main events. And my god does that suit Billy Robinson to a tee. Jumbo is game here and shows he's a heck of an athlete but it's Robinson who steals the show here. Combining neet escapes (see the reversal of a headlock into an overhead wristlock in the 2nd fall) with great looking big backbreakers and suplexes. I also love that Jumbo one the 1st fall with a bulldog and then lost the 2nd fall because Robinson had an answer when he tried a bulldog again. Jumbo hits a dropkick in the 1st fall that blows it outta the water, gets so high it's like Okada shit. When Jumbo loses his belt he wants to fight Robinson for some reason, Robinson is game but the whole AJPW roster gets between them. Match of 1977 so far and I wanna see if they can top it in the rematches when I watch 'em next week. ****1/2

These two are technical wizards and they gave me a killer fucking babyface matchup. This is what I imagine in my head when I think of World of Sport, two stylish grapplers giving us cool inventive counters. ****

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An insane spotfest between two babyfaces that goes to a time limit draw. Just some lunatic shit in this match. Initially Albert tries to ground the flippy Angelito with holds, but when that doesn't seem too successful switches to power moves (including a very Diesel style powerbomb), but Angelito can hold his own in forearm exchanges against the bigger man. Crazyiest move goes to Angelito for the sunset flip to the floor. ****

Dusty wins this in 2 straight falls. Tank Patton is the bigger man but never really seems threatening. Dusty carries this to an average match with charisma & dancing (he's obviously also much more mobile than 10 years later). Paul Bosche is awful on commentary **1/2

This is a "fence death match". Which is just a regular match with a fence around the ringside area. Plenty of photographers, officials and wrestlers inside the fence. My understanding is the only function of the fence is to keep Umanosuke Ueda out. Which it does. This could've been good if it were short. We got a lot of Tiger Jeet Singh grappling here and he's not great at it, I expected him to be awful or incapable at it based on his rep, so I was pleasently suprised when he was merely sorta bad at it. I liked the false finish right at the start, Singh pins Inoki but it gets reversed because the ref realises he used a foreign object. There's a lotta grappling, Inoki clearly has the advantage there, so Singh tries to choke and cheat. At one point he tries to throw Inoki outside to brawl but Inoki instantly slides back in, I like that spot and so did the crowd. Eventually Inoki bloodies up Singh, repeatedly punches him in the head, dropkicks him, suplexs him, and Singh loses by countout. Inoki isn't satisfied with a countout win and demands Singh keeps fighting. Surprisingly Singh does keep fighting, he looks like doesn't know where he is & I feel kinda bad for him while Inoki beats the piss out of him until it gets broken up. **1/4

Not gonna throw a rating on this as it's joined in progress. I'm sure I probably would've liked all the bombs at the start of this clip, if it was preceeded by something less intense & we escalated to the big moves. Solid action though, lots of nearfalls & I think Harley's celebration made the title change feel like a big moment, even if none of the other presentation of it did.

I've never seen a Tiger Jeet Singh match, but what I understand about him from reputation is that he is the worst wrestler of all time & he was a heat magnet who was a hugely successful heel. We'll see if it's possible for both of those things to be true at once. The opening of this gets delayed because a fan throws something at Singh that takes a long time to be swept off the mat. The fan is also ejected from the arena, I think. I guess that tells us something about the heat. This is pretty boring in the early going, but I thought once Kobayashi started getting his arm destroyed with the chair it picked up and was pretty entertaining. I expected a hot tag to come at some point, but eventually the match just gets thrown out. The heels get DQ'd in the 2nd fall but just keep killing the faces bloodying up Kobashi. Our saviour from this is Inoki, he runs the heels off, takes his shirt off, and challenges Singh & Ueda to match against himself & Kobayashi. I definitely don't think Singh gives a bad showing here **3/4 A couple of weeks prior Inoki-Hansen was interrupted by Singh & Ueda. And now this ends with Inoki. So NJPW feels like we're building everything toward Inoki vs Ueda & Singh

Babyface vs babyface, with Roy as very subtle heel. Great execution, plenty of nearfalls especially in the 3rd round. Veidor is great at doing somewhat flashy stuff as a big heavyweight and making it all still feel real, logical flashiness & holds that look snug ***3/4

I'm not used to knockout finishes in a world of sport match presented as conclusive finish, but we've got that here. I think Kendo's personality & gimmick carries this, but the actual wrestling is just fine too. **1/2

Bobo Brazil is clearly way over the hill here, his execution of basic stuff like pushing out of a headlock looks awful. I think Stasiak bumping over the top rope back into the ring from a headbutt on the apron looked totally unbelievable. Worst match from a bad MSG show. dud

The Masked Executioners are Big John Studd (the beefy one) & Killer Kowalski (the decrepit one) & Billy White Wolf is more known for being Sheik Adnan Al Kaissey. This was kind of awful. They really did fuck all here, Kowalski using a hold that looked like he was just grabbing White Wolf's back looked horrible, the finish was literally the thing where you trip somebody up by having your friend get on all fours behind them 1/2*

Highlight of this was the excitement of thinking Patterson was going to get some revenge after being thrown into the ringpost a couple times and he drags the Baron outside. But even that didn't really payoff as they just got back in the ring. Dunno what the hell is the logic of Scicluna getting on his knees and begging not to be hit right at the start of the match, I don't like his over the top selling and I don't like hide the object (unless you get creative with it). Patterson was fine, Scicluna sucked *1/4

Both guys definitely have presence. This was slow but didn't really drag, maybe it could've used some more dynamic offense. But the crowd loving Bruno definitely helped. I think champions not losing the best on a count out is silly, but presumably this leads to a rematch **1/2