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

This is Stan Hansen's debut in New Japan, and the dyed hair and goatee is not his best look. This is a pretty clear dynamic of Inoki using speed and skills vs Hansen using power and cheating. They both do a good job getting their personalities across here and the action isn't slow or anything. Hansen flying into the air and out of the ring on a kick to the gut was probably a bit much (he doesn't make it work like Sgt. Slaughter might be able to). The finish is bullshit DQ when Ueda & Tiger Jeet Singh interfere. I thought the post match was strong, Inoki refuses to accept the win and then cuts a promo on Ueda, who comes back out as the credits are rolling, is stopped from getting in the ring by red shirts and throws a chair into the ring **3/4

As an anti-Harley Race person I think there's a certain amount of people don't enjoying watching him get beat up for 90% of the match in most of his matches. And I think he doesn't have the matches that get recommended by taste makers like Baba, Robinson or Fujinami. His best opponent was probably Flair, but his most high profile Flair match fucking sucked. There's not a great 5 match sampler of Harley Race matches that'll get someone seeking more when they're starting to look into wrestling from that era.

What the hell is Kendo Nagasaki? He's got a manager with tarot cards, in a David Bowie looking jumpsuit, with sequins glued to his face called Gorgeous George Gillette. Kendo does a salt throwing ritual before the match like he's Mr. Fuji. When he gets his mask torn, we see a tattoo on the top of his shaved head that looks like a Star of David. Who am I meant to believe this man is? Haystacks is de-facto babyface here, even though I'm pretty sure he's normally a heel. Kendo hitting the ropes and bouncing off his belly is embarrassing. This is nonsense & most of the actual wrestling sucked but I kinda liked the spectacle of it, and it felt like a nice change of pace **1/2

This has a lot of cuts, but most of them seem to only be removing a few seconds. This wasn't any fun to watch though, boring shine, heat where Patterson gets thrown into a ringpost a bunch of times, abrupt finish *1/2

This got me more emotionally invested in the heel-face dynamic than any of the other matches before it in January '77. Dynamite Kid is spectacular here, especially in the early going. It did feel like it meandered a bit especially near the end. Maybe they should have leaned more into Dynamite's nosebleed for something here or used anything as a throughline. But overall Dynamite is very likeable, Tally Ho Kaye is very unlikeable & the moves were cool, so it was pretty darn good. ***1/2

The voice in my right earphone announcing the exact time every 10 seconds was a nightmare, but once I got my right earphone out of my ear I loved this I think this is at the tail end of French Catch footage, maybe I shoulda done a year in the 60s, instead of looking at 1977, so I could get more stuff like this. Le Petit Prince was awesome in this, spectacular moves, getting my sympathy with over the top selling, bleeding, did a great hot tag tha got quickly cut off, add in a dive and he'd be a regular Hijo del Santo. Kadar Hassouni was stylistically pretty similar to Prince but not as impressive in basically all facets, which isn't a knock on him really. I thought Anton Tejero was great too, very entertaining getting out played by the babyfaces & definitely not bad on offense either. The third fall of this match felt like dessert after the meal that was everything else. The final outcome felt obvious and the whole third fall was the babyfaces making bafoons of the heels, there was a smile on my face through all of that. ****

Mick McManus might look the least like an athlete of any wrestler I've ever seen. This match is the really the Mick McManus show, it's all built around his shtick. I like some of it, distracting the ref with some meaningless cheating to divert attention away from more serious cheating, & I dislike some of it, whatever the hell the deal with his weakness being his ears is. McManus is also 100% right that his shoulders were not down for the finish of the 1st fall. **3/4

Tibor gives us some cool counters and holds especially early on in this. But my god is John Kowalski's offense boring as fuck, doesn't give us anything to care about here. And honestly this match has no hint of a narrative. The finish is a very cool way to reverse a backbreaker, but doesn't make much sense as a way to end a match **1/4

The appeal of this really comes from Yearsley's cheating and making us want to see him get comeuppance. Once Veidor decides to get aggressive we the audience get that satisfaction. I like Yearsly flexing to show off his muscles between every round & I think he does a good job seeming vicious. But these did lack some dynamism and excitement ***

This was really good until the anti-climactic finish. Boscik gives us fancy holds and counters akin to early Zack Sabre Jr, Alan Sarjeant upstages him with very flashy stuff that comes off a humorous while simultaneously all seeming logical and like he was really trying to win. Tiny guys, fast holds, action packed. ***3/4