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SAMS

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  1. SAMS
    1980-12-16 AJW Jackie Sato vs Rimi Yokota Fuji TV Cup WWWA World Single Title Tournament Final Match Ota City Gymnasium, Ota, Tokyo, Japan ★★★★ ¼ For Yokota, this felt like a step up for me. She’d shown glimpses, and I know she has a pretty strong rep for this year, but there were certainly a few other Joshi candidates who stood out more over the year. Whether that’s just a footage issue, I don’t know. At least here, in a big singles setting, she delivered the goods and certainly pulled her weight. The first moments had her tentatively going for some low kicks, getting way down onto the mat, but positioning herself so that she could retreat quickly enough if required. This displayed her wariness at taking it to Sato right from the off, respecting the senior woman. It didn’t take long though before she did manage to gain control and this stretch, with Yokota working over Jackie, was my least favourite bit of the match. Yokota’s work was good. She displayed viciousness, raking Jackie’s hands along the ropes, but hand work in general doesn’t hit home for me like some other body part specific offense does, but more importantly, I felt like Jackie gave her this portion way too easily. She was just taking the offense, with no resistance or fighting back and Yokota wasn’t ever forced to double down to consolidate her control. I shouldn’t have worried though because from the halfway point onwards this was pure fire. Jackie managed to find some footing in the match and mounted some offense of her own. I might be at the point where I think Jackie may have the broadest and best looking offensive arsenal in all of wrestling in 1980. It wasn’t present all year round, but the last few months I think she stepped up a gear and just the sheer amount of moves she had in her bag is unbelievable, capped off by the ludicrous suplex into a backbreaker. But on top of that pure insanity, she delivered at least 2 or 3 other moves here that would be candidates for moves of the year. Then when Yokota managed to nail her with some comeback moves, Jackie’s subtle selling, not going overboard, but showing off that vulnerability, did the business. They finished the first “section” of the match with a double countout. Desperately grappling on the outside and then, with the count reaching 20, Yokota clung onto Jackie to stop her getting back into the ring. Seeing that this was a tournament final, things couldn’t finish on a double countout, so we got an extra 5 minutes and the intensity was up to 11 right from the jump. Both women did a fantastic job of getting across the urgency. They had a small window to secure victory and they were going to pull out all the stops. The kitchen sink was all that was left by the end, and the bell rang with Yokota locked in a Boston Crab, screaming and clawing for the ropes, but refusing to give. Things finished on yet another draw, but this time the “judge” made the call and Jackie took the honours. However, Yokota had stuck with her bell to bell, she had arrived and moving into 1981 it looks like a new star is ascending for sure.
  2. SAMS
    1980-12-13 PNW Cowboy Lang, Jonathan Boyd & Lone Eagle vs Billy The Kid, Buddy Rose & Little Tokyo Six Man Tag Team Match Sports Arena, Portland, Oregon, USA ★★ Card Mixed-midget match which was essentially a vehicle for Rose to show ass and look a fool. It was actually Cowboy Lang who was the star here, Boyd taking a back foot and allowing his partner to shine. They worked it pretty well, pulling off several banana peel spots and keeping it interesting, but I get the feeling that if I watched this match run several times in different towns, I’d see a very similar match each time. In the end Rose was his usual slimy self and capitalised on Boyd letting his guard down and heading to the locker room too quickly and jumped Lang and nailed him with a backbreaker after the match.
  3. SAMS
    1980-12-12 Houston Wrestling Harley Race (c) vs Gino Hernandez NWA World Heavyweight Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, Texas, USA ★★ Card Interesting dynamic with two nominal heels going at it. Both usually work light and from underneath, giving a lot to their babyface opponents, but here they had to shake that up a bit. Gino took the initiative in the first fall, jumping Race at the bell, and the nail in the coffin for Race was when he ate a Piledriver on the floor. Race took the same approach in the second, suplexing Gino onto the floor on the outside to solidly put himself in charge and I liked the mirroring of both men using a similar tactic to deal a punishing blow to their opponent. After Gino was posted his forehead opened up something fierce and it was only a matter of time before Race put him away, which he did by actually hitting his diving headbutt. The third was a see-saw affair, with a few moments where it seemed like Gino might have been able to pull it out, but an inadvertent suplex to Race which sent him over the top rope triggered an automatic DQ and the champion retained. This was pretty nice. Gino was far more aggressive than he usually is, he bled well when called for and they teased a potential title change pretty well, but I really wished that Race had been more assertive. Much like his matches against Baba, he seemed quite content to work at a methodical slow pace, but his offense didn’t have enough oomph and the match relied a lot on Gino bleeding and selling to generate the necessary drama.
  4. SAMS
    1980-12-11 AJPW Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta vs The Funks (Dory Funk Jr. & Terry Funk) Kuramae Kokugikan, Tokyo, Japan ★★★★ ¼ Card The greatness in this lay with the dynamic between Jumbo and Terry. I’d probably take Terry’s performance overall, as he was what pulled it all together and many of the key moments relied on his involvement, but for the few highest moments this reached, it required Jumbo to deliver in kind, and that he did in spades. He hasn’t been this fired up in an age and the ferocity of his attacks on Terry, especially when breaking up pins, was extraordinary. They really teased these two squaring up excellently at several points, and I was getting worried they weren’t going to follow through and deliver on their promise, but after several sliding door moments they finally collided and it was great. Both Terry and Dory did a great job selling Baba’s big chops and he looked like he was having a blast out there, even nailing a spectacular dropkick on Dory at one point. In turn Baba did his best woozy selling for Terry’s jabs, which was a lot of fun. Dory had some moments, his offense can look grizzly when he wants it to, but it always feels like his designated role is to be “The Cooler”. When he needed to take control for his team, without fail, it was back to the side headlock. That was a bit deflating, and I sensed it was for the crowd too, as every time the energy built up in the arena it just - poof, disappeared. In addition to Dory’s penchant for a headlock, the finish left some to be desired. They brushed right up against the time limit but Baba and Jumbo succeeded with a count out victory. I’ve come to accept these as par the course now, but you still can’t excuse such sloppy execution here. It was very unclear what was happening and when Joe raised Jumbo’s hand everybody, Baba included, looked mystified. I kind of knew the finish, so I was expecting it, but I couldn’t see where Jumbo had slid in the ring before Terry, and certainly didn’t see how Joe had seen it. The call for the bell was slow and delayed as well, coming after he broke up a pin by the illegal men of Dory and Baba back in the ring rather than as soon as he seemed to have completed the countout. As a finish for the whole tournament and to decide the champion team, this felt like a strikeout to be honest.
  5. SAMS
    1980-12-11 AJPW Billy Robinson vs Nick Bockwinkel Kuramae Kokugikan, Tokyo, Japan ★★★★ ¼ Card It’s been said before but this feels like one of the last hurrahs of the 1970s matwork style. They displayed glimpses of what they were capable of in the tag league matchup between their respective teams, but here the focus was solely on them and they surely delivered. Robinson and Bock were such a fantastic pairing and they worked seamlessly together to hit the mark on those matwork sports, blending counters and new moves into each other with absolute ease. Then, just at the halfway mark they brought things up a notch and we had distinct periods where each man was in control, able to press for the victory, only for the momentum to swing organically to their opponent. I’d seen this match before and this time I’ll admit I’m a smidge down on it in comparison. To nitpick, after a strong several minute spell where they’d really begun to show the exhausted selling, they decided to do a spot where Bockwinkel bridged out of a pin attempt and then transitioned into a test of strength. It just felt out of place for that to be plonked right in there and would have felt more natural much earlier in the bout. Seeing as they were both selling how tired they were it didn’t make sense to me that they would have logically gone that route, and if they did I’m doubtful it should have been successfully pulled off. Secondly, down the stretch I don’t think they were able to really get the crowd to buy into any of the pinfall attempts. They were probably pretty certain it was heading to a draw at that point, but there were a few bombs that perhaps could have caused them to bite a bit harder and they didn’t, so that level of drama and furor the best matches have is lacking here. It’s certainly one of the best matches of the year, but it may fall short of being the best match of the year.
  6. SAMS
    1980-12-10 NJPW Antonio Inoki & Bob Backlund vs Hulk Hogan & Stan Hansen MSG Tag League 1980 Final Match Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium, Osaka, Japan ★★ Card This sadly was a disappointment for me. I was kind of expecting them to pull something fun out the bag for the tournament finale but this really felt lacklustre. These four couldn’t really point to any external factors either, the crowd were electric to start, so clearly they were engaged, and to his credit Inoki from the off was giving the requisite energy. My main issue I think is that it came across like both teams were really winging it. Neither had any clear defined plan of action or strategy and everything felt really haphazard. Backlund in Japan continues to bemuse and is beginning to irritate and Hogan was a peripheral figure, always merely following Hansen’s lead. Hansen displayed good viciousness, especially with those connective tissue moves like stomps or clubs, but he was never able to really put his stamp on this match at all. Inoki probably was the best of the bunch, again the energy he exhibited went a long way but he had another woof moment here, whiffing on a dropkick by a good bit, so 2 for 2 in consecutive matches with a botch like that, feels like it’s becoming a pattern. This had a pretty heated final 2-3 minutes, but the ending felt premature, they certainly needed at least a couple more minutes to really get things primed for a finish. But at least that stretch was kicked off by the Lariat of the year on Inoki, they timed the sequence perfectly so that it kind of snuck up on me and the connection was just perfection. As I mentioned, the finish though felt anticlimactic, with Inoki sneaking a backslide on Hogan, and it was amusing to see Backlund celebrating the win during the post match interview while Inoki just looked like he wanted Bob as far from him as possible.
  7. SAMS
    1980-12-09 NJPW Antonio Inoki vs Andre the Giant Kyuden Memorial Gymnasium, Fukuoka, Japan ★★ Card It was curious to see a man of Inoki’s standing come across like a mere child, as he did here when faced across from Andre. Obviously Andre’s been in countless matches against smaller men, but at least from what I remember, they’ve mostly been in throwaway squash matches. All his real singles challengers have been bigger - your Hansens, Hogans, Sakaguchis, so the size disparity isn’t so big. Inoki is the first serious opponent who’s been significantly smaller and it certainly was jarring to say the least. It worked in getting across Inoki’s, for lack of a better phrase, “fighting spirit”. Whenever he locked on a move or connected with a strike it felt so much bigger than it would normally. Andre’s offense here also looked tremendous for the most part. Major gripes would be Andre applying too many static holds in the first half of the match and a botched Enzuigiri that missed by several inches but Andre sold like death anyway. Probably not fair but it shows how one wrong move can somewhat ruin a match. This finished with the predictable countout, which they didn’t work towards in any uniquely interesting way, so that would be a demerit too.
  8. SAMS
    1980-12-09 NJPW Bob Backlund vs Stan Hansen Kyuden Memorial Gymnasium, Fukuoka, Japan ★★ Card Maybe it was just in light of my expectations of a match between these two, but this felt pretty uninspired, all the way down to the finish. Hansen put on the pressure throughout and Backlund was forced underneath, the impetus placed on him to carve out some sort of resistance. The problem was that he didn’t push back on his end strongly enough and when he did it wasn’t that interesting. Hansen, as always, looked singularly credible, but this highlights a flaw, in that a match being interesting or compelling often relies on his opponent’s willingness or ability to rebuff him, and that’s not always the case. At this point I don’t think you could call him a broomstick worker. Bob had a mini comeback at the end, but as soon as he applied the Abdominal Stretch Hogan appeared, they laid the beatdown on him and left. So a DQ loss for Hansen but I guess the logic is they dealt some damage to him before their final tag league match coming up. The attack was maybe a couple clubbing blows to the back from Hogan and a stomp or two from Hansen and that was it. If they were trying to get across what I think they were then it fell way short from what I felt was satisfactory. Nowhere near as interesting as Hogan carrying Inoki back into the ring with a rope tied around his neck for sure. One thing is that it will be fascinating to see how Hansen and Backlund differ in how they worked this match compared to Hansen’s upcoming run in New York in ‘81. I’m fascinated to see if Hansen changes things up based on the environment. I’ve seen smatterings of him in Georgia and SECW this year, but all in studio settings so it’s been hard to judge his versatility on that front.
  9. SAMS
    1980-12-09 NJPW Hulk Hogan vs Dusty Rhodes Kyuden Memorial Gymnasium, Fukuoka, Japan ★★ Card Competent but forgettable is what this was. Other than some cat and mouse acting by Dusty around an early test of strength spot and a 5/10 on the fire scale bloody comeback from Dusty at the end there wasn’t much of note. Nothing bad, but nothing really good either. I’ve found Dusty matches in Japan always supremely interesting. I can’t help but get distracted during them thinking about whether the audience are “getting” the Dusty experience or whether something is getting lost in translation. Sure he gets some reactions here and there, but he just doesn’t seem like somebody they’d really warm up to. I feel the same with Backlund. Does anybody have a list of Dusty’s best matches in Japan? Are there any really good ones? Does he have any particularly memorable tours there?
  10. SAMS
    1980-12-09 AJPW Abdullah The Butcher & Tor Kamata vs Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta Real World Tag League 1980 Match Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium, Osaka, Japan ★★ Card Who would have thought that a match that was 90% standard wrestling fare would still finish with 3 of the 4 competitors bloodied? Well when Abdullah the Butcher is involved you can expect nothing less. The Abby face turn is fully sealed. I can’t pinpoint when it happened, but there have been signs in his most recent matches, but here it was irrefutable. When he and Baba eventually faced off we had a massive Butcher chant from the crowd, and once the mayhem had died down post match, it was Abby, not Baba or Jumbo, who was standing tall in the ring being cheered on by his adoring fans. Really a surreal sight to see. As for the match, Jumbo held his own, but once Baba was in Abby and Kamata really swarmed him and he hardly had a chance, save a humongous dropkick that nearly killed Kamata. But generally they had their way with him and it was Baba who was the first to bleed after a brief foray to the outside with Abby. But to his credit, Abby was probably the most successful in the ring as well, using his sharp jabs and elbow drops to great effect and really felt like the standout performer. As to be expected, this did break down by the end though, but this time it was the hometown team who went over the edge, battering Abby in the corner with a chair, and with Joe trying to break things up he was sent flying by Baba to the floor outside and ultimately got the the DQ. I think to set up the final match against the Funks, Jumbo & Baba needed to lose here so the result isn’t that surprising, and to a degree they leaned into the strong reaction Abby was receiving from the Osaka crowd and delivered a reasonable climax here.
  11. SAMS
    1980-12-09 AJPW Jim Brunzell & Nick Bockwinkel vs The Funks (Dory Funk Jr. & Terry Funk) Real World Tag League 1980 Match Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium, Osaka, Japan ★★★ Card This was almost a great match. If the finish hadn’t come out of nowhere and Dory had been more than a walking zombie it would have made the cut. Having said that, Bockwinkel was clearly in his element on this tour, delivering yet another excellent performance - fantastic offense, just snarling and calculating, plus his combination with Brunzell almost got the deal done as they were extremely successful in isolating Terry early on and then when given the opportunity later, they focused on his left leg and relentlessly assaulted it with a series of attacks including consecutive figure four attempts. It wasn’t to be though as we got the hot tag to Dory and he was able to use his veteran wiles to outmanoeuvre Brunzell and catch him in a pin. I wish they’d built up the hot tag more though and executed the finish a little cleaner, plus Joe was uber liberal with the tags, allowing Bock and Brunzell to switch numerous times sans tag which pulled me out somewhat. Can’t finish this without waxing poetic about Terry, once again. This was TEXTBOOK face in peril. The bumping, the selling, he didn’t give anything away at any point so every advantage Brunzell and Bockwinkel gained they had to earn at every step. There was one moment where Bockwinkel gave him a nice clubbing blow to the chest while he was up against the ropes and he did this crazy back bump over the ropes to the floor and it just wow’d me. It wasn’t particularly integral to the match and they didn’t dwell on it at all, but these are the little moments where he really separates himself from the rest. Every single match he does something like that which gets me out of my seat.
  12. SAMS
    1980-12-09 AJPW Ricky Steamboat vs The Sheik Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium, Osaka, Japan Card This was barely a match, they went straight into the brawling and it never let up from there. The Sheik did Sheik things, and was pretty bloodied within a minute or so, and his attacks with his hammer did the same for Steamboat (has it always been a hammer? For ages I’ve been thinking it was a spike but he must have just been holding it by the head). Sheik attacked the referee for some reason, which led to the no question DQ. I loved the referee’s sheer fear at being chased but otherwise this approach didn’t make much logical sense to me. Overall there was nothing Steamboat did “wrong” here, but he felt like a passenger, like a school kid in his first fight, like an afterthought. Later on he tried to reignite the brawling even though the energy in the building had completely disappeared by that point. So as far as brawls go, this was nothing special.
  13. SAMS
    1980-12-05 NJPW Kantaro Hoshino & Riki Choshu vs Kengo Kimura & Tatsumi Fujinami MSG Tag League 1980 Match City Gymnasium, Tokushima, Japan ★★★ Card After watching several All Japan tags in a row it’s interesting to see how starkly different the New Japan style actually is. Whereas All Japan seemed to veer between wild brawls or old school mat work, New Japan has a crisper pace and a more rough, formless structure. This match could very well be described as workrate-y, and maybe it’s because I’m less familiar with 80s New Japan in general, but I do struggle at times to pluck the narrative threads out of their matches. This was eminently enjoyable though, but had the air of more style than substance, lacking any real character or soul. It was fun to see two Japanese teams face off, which feels like a novelty at this time, and despite my comments above, this didn’t feel like a disappointment. It was good, but never close to being great. The Fujinami/Kimura team felt a bit more established, with Kimura operating as the younger brother or kohai member, looking to Fujinami to lead the way, and they ended with the Lucha finish of hitting the big dive to clear the ring which allowed Fujinami to pin Hoshino with an O’Connor Roll.
  14. SAMS
    1980-12-05 AJPW Abdullah The Butcher & Tor Kamata vs The Funks (Dory Funk Jr. & Terry Funk) Real World Tag League 1980 Match Prefectural Civic Hall, Kochi, Japan ★★ Card I’m tempted to say that this was actually good, but it suffers from too many flaws to reach that level. Having said that there are a couple excellent elements to this that made it so fun to watch at points. The aim of the game early for the Funks was keep-away from Abby on the outside. This mostly meant holding Kamata in a standing headlock, but at least Terry made this engaging, showing struggle when Kamata was edging his way to his corner and also kicking out at Abby to fend off any potential tag. When Dory was in however we just got a plain old headlock and his blank stare off into the distance. Finally they started actually dishing out some double team moves on Kamata to get some action going and Dory busted him open with a series of punches to the head (Dory is 2 for 2 making someone bleed with punches in this tournament. Were his punches the low key most deadly move in AJPW at this time or what?) Terry whiffed on a cross body and took a tumble to the outside which gave Kamata an opening and it wasn’t long before he finally made the tag to Abby. I should mention that Abby got what could almost be described as a face reaction when he was introduced, so I have a sense he wasn’t a straight up heel at this point, and the finish to his match vs the Sheik would play into that narrative as well. Face or no, Abby still loves his forks, and Terry took one right in the eye here for a nasty cut. Dory got juice too, brawling in the crowd with Kamata, but it was the Terry show from this point on, flailing about blinded from the attack and Abby sadistically just took him to pieces before nailing a series of elbow drops. In the end Kamata tagged in, found himself on the top rope for some godforsaken reason, Dory took him out with a chair shot before he rounded on Abby and into the crowd they went. Terry was done for after his beatdown from Abby and Kamata wasn’t moving a muscle either, so Joe was forced to count, and to 10 he did count and we finished with a tie. This stretch has been the most fun I’ve had watching Abby outside of the classic Funks tags in 78/79 but this time round he’s impressing me against different opponents. Dory was fine I guess, and Kamata I can take or leave (I’d rather leave to be honest), but Terry, as always, shone the brightest. The little additions he added in the earlier stages, which otherwise would have been a real bore, were excellent, and from taking that shot to the eye until they went off air he was pure magic.
  15. SAMS
    1980-12-05 AJPW Billy Robinson & Les Thornton vs Jim Brunzell & Nick Bockwinkel Real World Tag League 1980 Match Prefectural Civic Hall, Kochi, Japan ★★★ Card Well this was a long one. It went the total 45 minutes for a time limit draw. Had that real 1970s vibe to it. Bockwinkel and Robinson put on a clinic to start, really cycling through the mat routines and it was fantastic. Brunzell and Thornton however had shaky starts, whether in there together or matched up against the team captains. Brunzell specifically looked really hesitant, like a scared child at times, but I’ll concede he still had a killer dropkick. The majority of the first half was Bockwinkel and Robinson though and the match was the better for it. The underlings however grew into the match and had their own little neat squareoff, punctuated by Thornton getting Brunzell in a headlock and clubbing him full-on in the face, even giving him a bloody nose, which was probably the most brutal sequence of the match. It was lovely to see Robinson in full swing. I’m not sure whether a Robinson squash or sprint would actually be any good, and by his showing in Memphis it probably wouldn’t be, but when he’s allowed to slow burn and show off his skills he really is something. Like the Terrence Malick of wrestling. By the 30 minute mark the draw was looming, and while things never dragged, it did lose some steam in parts and we never got that final gear to push things over the edge. This is something that I’d describe as very good, but never great, despite some excellent performances from Bockwinkel and Robinson in particular.
  16. SAMS
    1980-12-01 AJPW Abdullah The Butcher vs The Sheik Nakajima Sports Center, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan ★★★ Card This wasn’t a match, this was an attempted murder. Sheik came in with a drive-by chair attack, levelling Abby with shot after shot and within a minute or so Abby was already bleeding like a stuck pig. Just when it started feeling like it was becoming gratuitous for the sake of it, Abby finally made his comeback. Taking a spike to the head one too many times he dug deep into his reserves and managed to unleash a few jabs of his own. It’s not hyperbole to say that when Abby reached down to pull out the fork it felt like some superhero shit! Fighting fire with fire, two monsters going at it full tilt. Sheik was on the defensive the rest of the way, a brutal attack on his arm left him a similarly bloody mess. Mephisto ran down to double team Abby and the referee was forced to call it. Kamata showed up in support of his partner, but these two couldn’t be contained. The remainder was just arena brawling but we finished with Sheik turning tail and bailing and Abby standing tall in just a classic image, up in the stands by the hard camera, hands raised like some kind of religious figure, blood pouring down his face. Say what you will, but at its worst this was no less than a grand, bloody spectacle.
  17. SAMS
    1980-12-01 AJPW Jumbo Tsuruta vs Ricky Steamboat Nakajima Sports Center, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan ★★ Card Jumbo has certainly filled out as this year has progressed. Evolving from baby 70s Jumbo and now more closely resembling the Jumbo I’m more familiar with from the rest of the 80s. He certainly seemed more assured here, more comfortable in his skin compared to say his series of matches against Murdoch earlier in the year. Obviously he has classics in the 70s, and a lot of them to say the least, but I’m not sure it’s a hot take to say that he probably wasn’t driving those matches against Funk, Robinson, Brisco etc. Here it certainly felt like the impetus was on him to work more from on top and I felt he came across closer to “the man” than he’s been able to up to this point. However, this didn’t translate into a classic by any means. They ratcheted up the tempo pretty quickly actually, going for a rope running sequence within the first 5 minutes and Steamboat ended up crashing to the outside a couple times early on, but as would be a trend throughout, instead of building on this momentum they would always reign it back in and slow things down. The whole 30 minutes felt like the first opening 10 minutes of a match repeated three times over. It was only in the final stretch when it was clear they were reaching the time limit that they fully committed, which made it all the more frustrating as you knew they had it in them the whole time. My assessment was that this was a timid performance from both men, lacking the courage to really go for it. Steamboat allowed himself to be controlled for far too long in sections. When he did get some offense in, it was great, but he was cut off too easily and he waited too long between hope spots that the energy always dissipated in between. Jumbo clearly was game to sell when required, but again, he was far too eager to sit in a hold. This could have been so much better than what it was.
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    1980-11-28 AJPW The Funks (Dory Funk Jr. & Terry Funk) vs The Great Mephisto & The Sheik Real World Tag League 1980 Match Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan ★ Card The wild finish of the previous match bled into the start of this one, and it felt like a messy way to start things. Before I knew it Terry somehow was somehow already in trouble, getting flung around the ring by the Sheik. Some semblance of structure was established eventually with Terry working underneath against both Sheik and Mephisto but their attempts at offense weren’t very compelling in the slightest. I’m no fan of the Sheik, but Mephisto was just plain trash. I can’t think of one single thing he did here that added value. His attempt at blading was one of the most poorly executed I think I’ve ever seen, so clear for all to see right in the centre of the ring. Just awful. They swung far too violently from Terry in peril to Mephisto dead on his feet with no inbetween whatsoever. Terry and Dory tried to squeeze something out of this when they went on offense but there was nothing they could do to save this. Then we were dealt the finish. I guess it could have been worse, at least the Funks picked up the victory, but with Terry and Sheik brawling on the floor it was primed for Dory to just kill Mephisto and get it over with. Instead we got some contrived spot where Dory pulled Mephisto out of the ring, they jostled a tad before Dory dived back in to grab the countout victory. Why Mephisto couldn’t have done the job here is beyond me really.
  19. SAMS
    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.
  20. SAMS
    1980-11-27 AJW Jackie Sato vs Devil Masami Japan ★★★ This was more tightly worked than other matches in this promotion at the time. The execution, in terms of working through a sequence of holds and their general application, was probably better, but it lost the sense of chaos that the best women’s matches of this year had. Sort of like their version of AJW doing AJPW of the same era. Not a knock on it though, both Sato and Masami give good performances here. Sato was the early aggressor, took her turn to sell hard in the middle, rallied with some absolutely killer offense, including a suplex into a backbreaker that looked awesome, and then was dumped onto her gammy leg for the countout finish. For Masami it was all about her presence and her facial expressions. This lacked, to its benefit, the incessant screaming we usually get, which is a trend in Masami matches. Her offense was pretty decent too, but without the wow factor of what Sato was dishing out. Overall this was an extremely well worked affair that was lacking that decisive hook to reel me in fully.
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    1980-11-26 Joint Promotions Dynamite Kid vs Mark Rocco Assembly Hall, Walthamstow, London, UK ★★★★ Dynamite Kid back in the UK and the first signs of him on tape since way back in the spring maybe. I can tell it’s been a long time as he has a full head of flowing locks and the last time I saw him in Japan he was sporting a brutal buzz cut. These two grabbed the audience's attention from the word go. Rocco getting in a few nasty cheap shots on breaks and Kid was having none of it, coming back at him with gusto, and we had ourselves a match on our hands. Unsurprising from these two but the pace was quick, a lot of action but that edge was ever present. Lofton seemed almost perplexed by the amount of leeway the referee was affording them both, and while Rocco definitely was the initial aggressor, he certainly was not alone in carrying out illegal actions. The intensity and energy in the building grew and grew, climaxing in a cacophony when Kid was able to unleash a flurry of offense on Rocco which sent him to the outside to recoup. Finally in the third he was able to endure a few meaty moves from Rocco himself before he hit a backbreaker, falling headbutt and a GERMAN SUPLEX sequence for the pin! I don’t think I’ve seen a German in the UK yet and this was one of those where he released halfway, just flinging Rocco across the ring with an impact that folded him up like an accordion. Unfortunately for Kid he’d been opened up at some point previously and the referee deemed him unfit to continue so we finished with a no contest decision. If they’d been allowed to go the full distance this would have been a classic, no doubt in my mind. It was a little workrate-y, but the chippiness and griminess at the edges pulled this together into something really fantastic. More and more I get the feeling that WoS is the ultimate tease promotion. All the elements are there but due to TV regulations, the nature of business at the time and other factors the matches often fall just a tad short of their true potential.
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    1980-11-26 Joint Promotions Jon Cortez vs Keith Haward Assembly Hall, Walthamstow, London, UK ★★★ This was really riveting to watch. Unfortunately we missed the first two rounds here, but they crammed enough good stuff into the 12 minutes that remained. Haward is in the mould of a Dynamite Kid or Chris Benoit, physically gifted, chiselled build and aggressively offensive. He’s certainly impressive on the mat and his series of moves leading to his equalising fall were absolutely fantastic. However, it really has been Cortez who has jumped off the screen in the two matches these men have had together. It may just be good chemistry between the two as I wasn’t as enamoured with Cortez earlier in the year. He was good, but perhaps in comparison to such a character like Breaks, or in the shadow of a couple Saint/Grey classics, he struggled to match up. But the performances he has delivered in November have been total class. Technically, he’s extremely gifted of course, but the extra touches are the thing. In the final two rounds he deliberately was slower and more laboured in getting to his feet to start things, he began to increase how he sold the impact of moves as the match went along and it all led to him trying to match power with power against Haward, deadlifting him off the mat, only for his back to give out and forcing him to throw in the towel. If we’d had the whole thing or if they’d let this have more time this could have been really excellent.
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    1980-11-15 PNW Jay Youngblood & Joe Lightfoot (c) vs Buddy Rose & Rip Oliver NWA Pacific Northwest Tag Team Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Sports Arena, Portland, Oregon, USA ★★★ Card Feels like the momentum in Portland is building again for the first time since Piper and Martel’s departures and they’ve really got something going with the Youngblood vs Rose dynamic, Youngblood’s desire for payback following his broken arm a few years earlier and the ability to slot the remaining roster into the feud accordingly. Just like he did the week before, Rose was deliberately ducking Yougblood unless his team had the advantage. Unlike the week before, Lightfoot didn’t have any strong moments here, instead he again botched an attempt to stick the landing on a back body drop (awkwardly landing on his backside and forcing Rose to improvise on the fly) and his apron work left a lot to be desired, tarnishing somewhat a series of excellently built hot tag attempts by the others. Rose was doing his best Ken Patera impression here. Preening about and launching guys across the ring with body slams, but it was Youngblood who was truly excellent here throughout. Coming in for an early tag he was filled with intensity and set the tone for the match, then once Oliver had gained the advantage on him, he was a textbook face in peril for both of the first two falls. Bumping - check. Selling - check. Well timed, meaningful hope spots - check. He didn’t make it to his corner in the first, succumbing to a couple absolutely jaw dropping backbreakers from Rose, but finally, bit by bit over the second, he built to the hot tag in the second and managed to turn the tide of the match. The time limit draw was easy to spot a long way off, and they kind of tried to finish with a wild brawl (Youngblood taking Rose to task, obliterating his arm again and again on the ringpost and Lightfoot going at it with Oliver back in the ring), but it didn’t really sync up properly and came across more like they were vamping for time until the bell rang than delivering something really out of control and wild. After the match Youngblood was interviewed and they set up a 4v4 match for the following Saturday. Rose’s Army against Youngblood, Lightfoot, Boyd and one more. Lightfoot goes to the back to retrieve their fourth member and it’s BUZZ SAWYER! I’ve only seen one match from him so far, a pretty short squash match from a couple weeks earlier, but I’m absolutely ecstatic with this addition to the match. Roll on next week!
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    1980-11-08 WWF Bob Backlund (c) vs Larry Zbyszko WWF Heavyweight Title Match (Special Referee: Tony Atlas) Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA ★★★ Card While their previous match was a Larry match, this at least started much more like your classic Backlund match. We got the extended shine and, with Atlas also in the mix, it almost felt unfair, the odds decidedly stacked against Zbyszko. Larry was his ornery best though, getting up in Atlas’ face whenever given the opportunity and once Backlund missed a shoulder charge into the corner he was in the ascendancy and did well to keep Backlund grounded. His elbow and knee strikes to Backlund’s head are the most vicious looking we’ve seen from him and then he turned his attention to choking Bob. I could have done with them going in a different direction here, as Larry sitting in a front facelock while choking Bob wasn’t the most engaging visual and it went on for a fair bit. It worked from a psychology perspective and gave him opportunities to face off with Atlas when he was forced to break, but it wasn’t that fun to watch. Backlund started mounting his comeback but Zbyszko was able to repeatedly cut him off. I’ll grant Backlund’s selling through this stretch was really good, he was getting over the residual damage that Larry had dished out to him and it made his final comeback all the better for it. A huge piledriver followed by an Atomic Drop sent Larry to the apron. From there Larry managed to corral Backlund into another choke on the ropes, but this time he wouldn’t relent and Atlas was forced to call the match. There were some great bits to this. Backlund’s aforementioned selling down the stretch, Zbyszko’s overall character work and his bumping when Backlund did manage to get some offense in. On the negative side I thought Atlas looked pretty green as a referee - he missed a few spots, which kind of broke the illusion here and there, the middle was a touch bland, and the finish felt odd considering they don’t have another match down the line. I’m not sure if they originally planned to have one but we didn’t get the decisive Backlund victory in this series and looking at upcoming match listings they pivot to a Atlas/Zbyszko match in due course.
  25. SAMS
    1980-11-08 WWF The Wild Samoans (Afa & Sika) (c) vs Rick Martel & Tony Garea WWF Tag Team Title Match Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA ★★ Card Easily Martel’s first good WWF match/performance. He’s been pretty underwhelming so far in New York, lacking the big character and run of squash match others like Sgt. Slaughter have had and seemingly got lost in the shuffle pretty fast upon arrival. This match had a very basic structure: shine -> Garea FIP -> Martel hot tag -> chaos into a finish, and the best parts were all Martel. His hot tag was excellent and he was allowed to really spread his wings in a way he hasn’t been able to recently. The fire was there, the big series of offensive moves and also being able to pick up the win with a nifty sunset flip. The Samoans weren’t great, better in concept than in reality, so this was never destined to be some hidden gem, but the title switch is definitely a capital M moment. With a member of both teams being pinned simultaneously there was ambiguity to the finish. Dick Woehrle and Gary Michael Cappetta did a fantastic job at building suspense before the subsequent explosion of joy from both Martel and Garea, but also the Philly crowd.
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