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SAMS

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Everything posted by SAMS

  1. SAMS
    1980-04-21 WWF Ricky Steamboat & Jay Youngblood vs Tor Kamata & Bulldog Brower Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York, USA Card ★★★ Wow this was shockingly good. I just wanted to check out Steamboat & Youngblood because it seems like footage of them in ‘80 is scarce and this is their MSG debut but damn, they worked their asses off here. Really glad I checked this out. There have been some great babyface selling performances in ‘80 up to this point but Steamboat popping up kind of puts everyone else to shame in comparison. Mention should go to the Martels and the Brunos of the world, but I would say only Terry Funk could really hold a candle to this. Steamboat here made Kamata and Brower look like absolute killers and it was clear they were just throwing shit at him. He was bumping around, he timed his comebacks superbly, he threw in a couple hope spots, there was delayed selling, I mean, he just ran the gamut of everything you would want really. Youngblood was no slouch either when he came in and the two of them were just an injection of energy into the WWF tag team division. I need to know how long they stick around because apart from Patterson & Andre, who were always going to be primarily singles competitors, I can’t think of another tag team that can match them as a whole.
  2. SAMS
    1980-04-18 AJPW Abdullah The Butcher vs. Terry Funk Champion Carnival 1980 Match Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium, Osaka, Japan Card ★★ Can’t say this was good but it definitely was a spectacle. Both guys were pouring blood by the end of it. There was no messing around and they got right to it off the bat. Abby can barely sell a thing but with Terry shrieking like a banshee throughout it was never less than compelling viewing. After the inevitable double count out they even had to cut away because the ensuing attack on Terry was too violent to be shown. This is exactly what you would expect a Funk vs Abby match to be and it was a whole lot of fun, if you don’t mind a bit of blood. I thought Terry Funk was great, as usual, but Abby here was a bit too static to give any real sense of threat or drama, so in a sense it did feel a little bit like two guys getting together to bleed in a ring.
  3. SAMS
    1980-04-19 CWA Bill Dundee vs. Larry Latham ★★★ Easily the best TV match from Memphis and most likely the longest so far in ‘80. Definitely the only one I recall exceeding the 10 minute mark. For some reason Dundee was extremely serious going into this one, against your random jobber he usually had a more easy going vibe. This was an exceptional performance from Dundee. He made Latham, who I thought was the least interesting member of the Blonde Bombers, look like a legitimate threat. Latham’s punches did look great but Dundee sold Latham’s offense like a champ. Earlier on Latham worked the arm, then Dundee between his own offense would sell that arm. Later on Dundee missed a knee drop and Latham began targeting that, then Dundee began constantly selling the knee, including pulling out of a body slam attempt because of it. Definitely a great example of limb selling and a good example of when to switch up and logically begin to sell a different limb. Dundee’s seriousness here I thought added an edge too, he clearly was very aware of Danny Davis at ringside, and his desperation to steer clear of that corner just added to the threat that he posed. Despite the aforementioned leg selling, Dundee managed to dig deep and hit a cross body off the second rope and steal the pin and he scarpered pretty quickly before Farris could make his way to the ring and outnumber him even further. It was really good to see Dundee in something substantial. With Lawler out with a broken leg I would have thought it would be Dundee picking up the slack, but at least from the footage I’ve seen, he’s kind of been drifting while Jimmy Hart’s stable and Jimmy Valiant have been the main show so perhaps this is a turning point for him.
  4. SAMS
    1980-04-16 CWF Bob Backlund (c) vs. Antonio Inoki WWF Heavyweight Title Match Card ★★ Backlund vs Inoki…in Florida! Really interesting to see both men in such unusual surroundings. I’ve seen essentially zero Florida so I have no idea of the house style, so I was looking forward to seeing the crowd’s reaction to this. I actually really liked the opening matwork here. The pace was snappy with both men trying to gain the advantage, but as things went along things got choppier and the pace slowed down. Inoki especially was consistently just going for static holds, and once he locked them on, there wasn’t much intention to make them interesting and the fact he consistently kept going back to these spots didn’t give any sense of escalation. One of the best spots of the match was Backlund’s deadlift spot out of an arm scissors. After placing Inoki onto the turnbuckle he gave him a slap and Inoki bumped massive for it in a way I’m sure he wouldn’t have back in Japan and it brought the house down. The biggest however, was Bob’s piledriver. Even just setting it up the crowd murmured with excitement and as we all know, Bob delivers a great piledriver. Considering the reaction it felt like a finisher and in context ended up feeling wasted as there was still roughly 10 minutes of the match remaining. Backlund ended up winning here, to rapturous applause, after Inoki threw him over the top rope. Out of all DQ finishes, the over-the-top-rope one has to be the stupidest. Both men were bewildered by the call and you could visibly see the referee explaining to them the rule and commentary was doing the same for the viewing audience. I guess it’s an easy way to ensure the finish saves face for the two champions, but honestly it’s just the laziest finish possible when you’re trying to keep two people looking strong. Anyway, the crowd didn’t seem to care. This often bordered on good, however I think it may have been a case of two men with styles that were too similar. Both work on top and were the aces of their promotions, and that struggle felt disjointed here and they couldn’t get into sync. It was especially prevalent in the middle chunk as it seemed that they just got in each other’s way and they couldn’t find a rhythm that was really working.
  5. SAMS
    1980-04-13 UWA Gran Hamada & Satoru Sayama vs. Babe Face & Perro Aguayo Best Two Out Of Three Falls Tag Team Match El Toreo de Cuatro Caminos, Naucalpan de Juarez, Estado de Mexico, Mexico Card ★★★ I loved that we got to see more of Hamada’s rough edges here. Right at the beginning we saw him trying to work Aguayo who was having none of it. He strolled to the outside ignoring Hamada, who was trying to goad him back in. Eventually Hamada just spat at Aguayo, which is something I was sure I’d never see from him. Sayama sure had some moves and they were flashy, but he felt out of sync with the other three, who all seemed very comfortable with what they were doing in the match. Two examples would be the finish to the first fall where Hamada got the pin on Baby Face and Sayama came off the top to finish off Aguayo, however he missed the roll up and then awkwardly took an age to lock on the submission and it all came across a bit weird. The second would be when he hit his patented backflip move in the corner against Baby Face after a series of other flashy moves and we got a strong reaction from the crowd. He tagged in Hamada, who then goes and effortlessly one-ups him by pulling off a brilliant sequence with both Baby Face and Aguayo simultaneously which lasted at least 5-6 moves. Yes, that also had some flash, but it also felt organic. Both Hamada and Baby Face built upon their impressive showings in Japan earlier in the year with awesome performances here. I was so blown away by their versatility even within this one match. Both guys had a great sequence together here where they were exchanging arm drags and flying around, but throughout the match, especially when matched up against Sayama, Baby Face was bringing the heat. His strikes were very stiff and it was a straight up beatdown. For Hamada, he was trying to keep things kosher for the most part until the third fall where he blew his gasket and he just went off on Aguayo. His headbutts were nasty and he really brought the intensity as well. When I think of Hamada I don’t think of brawling, but he proved that he could do it here no doubt.
  6. SAMS
    1980-04-12 WWF Bruno Sammartino vs Larry Zbyszko Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Card ★★★★ This is more like it. We resume the best feud of the year and I’d say this was easily the best of their series since the inaugural TV match between these two. Any chance we were going to get an exchange of wrestling holds to start this one off was blown out the water right away as Larry jumped Bruno as he was entering the ring. Larry had the ascendancy, laying in the boot until Bruno caught him downstairs with a stray leg and Larry was down. Now that Bruno was able to gather himself it was on and he went after Larry with a vengeance. This was all kicks and punches but it was all extremely visceral. To even call them kicks would actually be doing a disservice. With Larry prone on the ground Bruno was lining up some serious punts to his head. They went back and forth a bit but all the while it was Bruno steaming forwards, the force of nature that Larry was attempting to fend off. At one point Bruno tumbled to the floor and I loved how after that, the entire time he was beating on Larry, he would pause to sell the lower back, constantly holding up, visibly favouring it, which allowed Larry the time to sell each punch individually and allowed the match that time to breathe. We had some sick turnbuckle bumps from both guys, Larry got wrecked into the railing and then he had had enough and he grabbed a chair. I wondered whether we would see it, and yes we did, lunging to take Bruno’s head off he whiffed with the swing, got the ricochet off the ropes and it came flying back into his face. Bruno grabbed the chair and just launched it at Larry’s head and he was out. The referee completely disregarded the flagrant use of the chair by Bruno and seeing Larry is out for the count declares Bruno the winner. This was heated from the off, had lots of action, never had a dull moment, and even the quirky ending I liked, because Larry got obliterated with a chair, twice! I liked their previous Spectrum match and the one at MSG, but I was fearing that this feud was stalling somewhat if they had continued further in the same vein. However both previous matches clearly had escalation towards Bruno losing his gasket at the end, leading to this kind of match, so in context they made perfect sense. I’m just glad they were able to execute something like this so well.
  7. SAMS
    1980-04-04 AJPW Jumbo Tsuruta vs Terry Funk Champion Carnival 1980 Match Tendai Town Gymnasium, Chiba, Japan Card ★★★ Terry is often described as the Gaijin babyface ace of All Japan but I wanted to see how the crowd responded when he matched up against somebody like Jumbo and it was pretty clear from the start, and throughout the match, that Terry was, in fact, the fan favourite between the two and he generated far stronger reactions at various points. I think they spent far too long on the mat-work portion of the match, and what they did was rather poor. It felt at times that they were completely out of sync and it was hard to figure out what they were going for at various points. Things picked up a lot in the final 15 minutes or so when they just started throwing bombs at each other and we had a strong stretch where things reached a fever pitch. Ultimately they ran out of time and we had the predictable time limit draw. Funk really stood out between these two as he just about did everything you’d want a wrestler to do better than Jumbo here: selling, bumping, facial expressions, great offense. Jumbo’s offense, especially his slam and suplexes, are great but that’s about the only thing he was able to match Terry on. There are glimpses here and there that I find promising but I think it’s obvious, especially when matched up against such a great babyface like Terry Funk, that Jumbo isn’t the kind of guy who’s inherently lovable. I think he could be likeable and obviously he wasn’t a heel that was looking to be disliked, but he didn’t have that loveable quality. Instead I feel like he works best when he leans into being more smug and more entitled. When he transitioned into his Grumpy Jumbo phase it was these qualities more than anything else that really solidified his persona. He was fighting to retain his top spot, he couldn’t believe that these young guys were trying to usurp him and those were the defining characteristics of late Jumbo. Either way, in 1980 he was still more of a bland generic babyface than any clearly defined character and I think it would have served him well if he’d leaned into those aspects of his personality sooner.
  8. SAMS
    1980-04-03 NJPW Stan Hansen (c) vs. Antonio Inoki NWF World Heavyweight Title Match Kuramae Kokugikan, Tokyo, Japan Card ★★★ This is the rematch after Hansen won the NWF Title from Inoki in February. Back then Inoki’s strategy was to keep Hansen grounded, whilst here it was to work over the arm. He went for a number of different arm breaker attacks and whenever he was able he’d throw a kick or two at that left arm of Hansen. Hansen’s approach? Be a beast and maul Inoki until he can no longer fight back. They kept the pace pretty high and kept the sitting in holds to a minimum. Inoki can’t resist a leg lock or two, but I think the strategy of working on the arm pulled him away from his usual formula and to the match's benefit. Obviously everything in a Hansen match works towards a Lariat, and here he once again was able to nail Inoki. It sent him to the outside where Hansen followed. Unlike their previous encounter Inoki was able to get the upper hand and he went to the top and nailed him with a pretty sweet looking knee drop which absolutely stunned the big man. Climbing back into the ring he was set upon by Inoki, who hit a suplex and was able to get his shoulders to the mat long enough to seal the pin and regain his title. Decent match, but this was probably the upper limit of what these two could do together, mostly due to the limitations Inoki brings to the table (edit: it wasn't).
  9. SAMS
    1980-04-03 NJPW Gran Hamada (c) vs. Baby Face UWA World Light Heavyweight Title Match Kuramae Kokugikan, Tokyo, Japan Card ★★★ I was eager to see these two matched up 1v1 and I was not disappointed in the slightest as this was an awesome technical display. The moves between the two were slick and fluid and when they went airborne they showed off how high flying can have impact and look like it hurts. I can’t believe how much air Hamada gets on his back body drops! Obviously this gives him the ability to nail the over rotation and then land on his feet move he does so well. The finish was a bit of a cluster fuck, even if it was intentional, as Hamada got the Victory Roll for what looked like a two count, then after a few seconds of confusion, the referee raised Hamada’s hand and claimed it was a three count and declared Hamada the winner. After the Lou Thesz debacle at the IWE show I’ve had enough of these phantom three counts. Anyway, both of these men will pop up on tape in Mexico soon so I’m looking forward to that.
  10. SAMS
    1980-04-03 NJPW Tatsumi Fujinami (c) vs. Ashura Hara WWF Junior Heavyweight Title Match Kuramae Kokugikan, Tokyo, Japan Card ★★★★ I loved the way they presented this match. Shoot style exists so this would be a step down from that, but looking at it from a more pro-style approach, this is an excellent example of “if wrestling were real”. Everything both men did in the ring came across as real and felt like something either man would have done in a real fight. And boy did this feel like a fight. From the off there was chippiness between the two. There were slaps thrown, kicking the other man while he was in the ropes. This is by far the most engaged I’ve seen Fujinami. His matches up to this point have been good, his work has been good, he’s even bled before (twice!) but he exuded far more charisma than I’ve seen from him before. If this is the real Fujinami then sign me up. I don’t have much to say about the events of the match beyond both men beat the shit out of each other, Fujinami ate a ring post and ended up with a crimson mask, Ashura nearly stole the title with a crazy Senton Drop with a backflip into a pin move I’ve never seen before. Then Fujinami put the challenger away with a Picklock(?) which was a kind of headscissors but with Ashura’s arm pulled through. The main takeaway is the key fact that this was a great match with an absolutely electric atmosphere. Gold stars all around.
  11. SAMS
    1980-04-XX AJW Lucy Kayama vs. Mami Kumano ★★★★ Now this was a great match. This was a fucking war. The first few minutes had them running through some holds, Kayama was chucked to the outside and we got the usual interference from the other women at ringside, they did the running spot where they disappeared into the back rows and rammed her into the wall and I was like great, here we go again. Then we finally got back into the ring for the restart and suddenly everything just jumped up a couple levels and it never dropped for a second. First things first, Kumano might easily be the best heel in AJW at this point. I thought her partner Ikeshita’s singles match against Kayama was a dud but here Kumano proved that not only could she be great in a tag setting but she could deliver in singles as well. As a point of comparison, I think at this point in time, a contemporary like Masami is playing being a heel, while Kumano embodies it. She has the casual arrogance and that air of superiority that is important for the character that she’s portraying. The Masami vs Yokota match had an example of a middle of the road version of the hide-the-foreign-object routine, here they did an amazing rendition of it. For a good solid 8-10 minutes she teased it and I actually don’t think there was an object at all. In fact I wasn’t sure they were doing the routine at all. But there were murmurings from the crowd and the punch motion from Kumano was too strange to be a normal punch. I kept looking for her to pull it out or conceal it between strikes but I saw nothing. Then after a brief foray to the outside for a little brawling, she suddenly was wielding a very clear and visible miniature spanner, which she certainly wasn’t using before. I don’t know about other people but I thought the fake object into a real object worked a charm and she pulled it off expertly. For Kayama, this was definitely her breakout performance for me. She made a simple hair-pull toss, that all the women in AJW do, look like absolute death. That moment when they returned to the ring early on and the levels suddenly jumped, it was these bumps she took that were the trigger. The audience immediately responded and they knew that they were gonna see something good. Secondly, boy does she have some moves. She had a version of the Bubba Bomb that looked great and she might have one of the best looking neckbreakers ever? How have I not seen her pull this out up to this point? I thought this was an excellent babyface performance from her as she was amazing selling; amazing bumping; when she got the upper hand she brought the intensity, the hatred, and she had those killer moves. Really displayed the whole package. I was incredibly down on her before but now I’m keen to catch her again asap. Finally, this is the first match where I thought the outside interference actually did add a layer to the match. It was the most even between the heels and the faces. Both got involved, had their moments, worked to support their girl and it didn’t spill over into being overkill but instead was merely a little additional seasoning.
  12. SAMS
    1980-04-XX AJW Rimi Yokota vs. Tenjin Masami Junior Heavyweight Title Match ★★ This was a Junior Heavyweight Title match. Yokota ended up outside early and the Black Pair, supporting Masami at ringside, were all over her. Yokota managed to scramble back into the ring and the referee actually paused the action so the other seconds at ringside could wrangle the two ne'er-do-wellers and escort them back to the locker room. Once the match was back underway Masami channelled her inner Jerry Lawler (with a citrus twist) as she played hide-the-lemon with the referee, rubbing it right in Yokota’s eyes when he got the chance. I can usually take it or leave it with the hide-the-foreign object routine, as I’ve seen it done poorly more times than well. Here, other than the unusual fact that she was using a lemon, I didn't really enjoy it. By the time we actually got the two women going at it properly and we’d dispensed of all fruits, more than half of the match time had been eaten up. Both women seemed physically exhausted by the time we got to the final five minutes and it felt like they were spinning their wheels a bit. It wasn’t bad, just very directionless. It was clear we were heading to a draw, and even then the final minute was basically Masami slowly trying to get into the ring, so we missed out on any high level tension at the end to see if anybody could grab a late victory. Not bad, but instead disappointing. It had more bells and whistles than it should have and each one I thought was an unnecessary distraction that actually made the match worse.
  13. SAMS
    1980-03-31 IWE Nick Bockwinkel (c) vs. Kintaro Oki AWA World Heavyweight Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan Card ★★ Definitely wouldn’t call this a great Bockwinkel match compared to his other stuff. He and Oki seemed quite content to sit in rest holds for the majority of the first fall with Oki locking a short arm scissor on Bock.I will give him credit for attempting to show struggle, either by trying to wriggle free or doing the hand slap spot to indicate it’s losing blood flow. The fall ended with a phantom three count by Thesz which threw everybody off as he clearly only counted two and only he and Bock seemed to think it was three. I think the second half of the match was far superior as Oki started to visibly gain momentum and Bockwinkel did a great job of putting him over. A series of headbutts drew blood and eventually just knocked him out for the equalising fall. The third fall began with Oki continuing to dominate and it looked lights out for the champion, but as soon as Bock dived to the outside and Oki followed for a quick brawl outside I knew the countout was coming and Thesz literally couldn’t have counted any quicker. Really drab first half with lots of lying around in holds and Oki was a charisma vacuum in general. When Bock kicked into overdrive on selling for Oki to present him as the star things got a lot better but I think it’s clearly not a high point for him.
  14. SAMS
    1980-03-31 IWE Rusher Kimura (c) vs. Johnny Powers IWA World Heavyweight Title Match Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan Card ★ The IWE Title is on the line here. I realised just before the bell that I’d seen Powers in some terrible match with Inoki in the mid 70s and I feared the worst. Low and behold, those fears were well founded. I don’t know what to say about Kimura, he tried his best. His chops had fire and he was able to generate some drama at the end with his juice job and screaming in agony from the “Powers Lock”. But honestly, he just wasn’t good enough to fashion a good match out of Johnny Powers. Powers, honestly, was a terrible wrestler. He had no authenticity. His offense was terrible, his selling was worse, I’m not sure he could even bump. Considering this was a title match I’m not sure how he even sniffed the matchup in the first place. Lou Thesz, in his mid-60s at this point, looked like he could beat Powers in a fight and the best part of the match that actually involved Powers was Thesz giving him a stiff forearm to break up his shenanigans with Kimura in the ropes. Honestly just a terrible match. So disappointing considering the two that preceded it on the show.
  15. SAMS
    1980-03-31 IWE Animal Hamaguchi & Mighty Inoue (c) vs. Haruka Eigen & Kengo Kimura IWA World Tag Team Title Match Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan Card ★★★ This was a 10 minute sprint. The pace never let up and all 4 men really stepped to the plate and delivered. I have no idea what the background for the match was, and while I’ve seen most of these guys in random matches before, I was still trying to keep up with who was who for the most part, but damn it was a lot of fun. If this is just the midcard, have I been sleeping on IWE so far?!? Kimura laid a plancha on Hamaguchi and I can’t tell if it was a shoot or real, but he was knocked out. Inoue came over and hauled him into the ring to avoid the count out, but he kind of just dumped him on the mat then headed back to his corner. At this point Hamaguchi’s lifeless body was just lying on the apron allowing Kimura and Eiken to just start stomping away. Eventually Inoue was forced to again come back over and this time he dragged Hamaguchi towards the middle of the ring. I repeat, he was not moving. He didn’t stir. He might have been dead for all intents and purposes. Finally we got the wrestlers from outside getting involved, the ref came over and got clocked by Eiken and there’s the grounds for a DQ. The chaos and indecision from everyone involved lead me to think that this definitely wasn’t planned, but it certainly was memorable. If they had just 3-5 more minutes to build on the foundation they had laid in order to deliver a more satisfying ending I could be pushed to go higher on this 100%.
  16. SAMS
    1980-03-31 IWE Ashura Hara (c) vs. Ryuma Go WWU World Junior Heavyweight Title Match Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan Card ★★★ Ashura looks like a star here. He’s got the long hair, the leather jacket, his entrance has him coming down through the crowd, and he has this amazing moustache. Moustaches can either make you look like a creep or look like the man, and Ashura looks like the man. Ryuma worked on top for a lot of this, keeping Ashura grounded in a headscissors or a leg lock and the impetus was on Ashura to get to the ropes or counter the move with one of his own. It wasn’t exactly amateur wrestling style, but there was a lot more struggle for position and attempting to get holds and leverage than I’ve seen elsewhere at this time. As the match wore on Ryuma grew stronger and Ashura looked like he was fading. In their strike exchanges he came off second best and he took a real beating. I think they made a concerted effort to make Ryuma look really strong here as I can’t remember him properly selling any move Ashura laid on him all match. In the end Ryuma dumped Ashura onto a table at ringside and was DQ’d for a pretty sad ending Ryuma wasn’t bad by any means. His offense was solid and he was technically sound. It may have been intentional but I thought his lack of selling was a negative for both him individually and also the match as a whole, whereas I was really impressed with Ashura. He managed to go through the whole match as basically second best but through his selling, which I thought was extremely good, he generated sympathy from me and I thought that he came off as more tough than weak after everything was said and done.
  17. SAMS
    1980-03-25 Joint Promotions Johnny Saint vs Steve Grey World Lightweight Title Match Guildford, Surrey, United Kingdom After winning their two previous bouts Saint agreed to this title match. The footage starts and we’re already at the start of Round 10, which is such a bummer. These two continued where they left off back in January. Really amazing work, I’m not sure if the stuff in their previous match was sharper than what we saw here in about 3 rounds worth of footage, but this felt big. It had that title match feeling, a sense of epicness that I haven’t felt much in the WoS footage so far. The thing that really stood out to me was, that while I think Saint is the more technically proficient (by a hair), Grey is the one you’re drawn to when you watch. How he sold on the mat is the best in WoS hands down. Most guys lie there, perhaps presenting that they’re composing themselves before they start again or whatever, but Grey is writhing around, his body is moving, it really seems like he’s hurting, not in the injured way, but in that push yourself through your threshold kind of way. He looked exhausted throughout and that just added to the drama of him clinging on to his lead and trying to overcome Saint and take his World title. Unfortunately for him, Saint came back with 2 falls to retain and keep Grey nipping at his heels for now.
  18. SAMS
    1980-03-28 AJPW Terry Funk vs Ray Candy Champion Carnival 1980 Match City Gymnasium, Kumagaya, Saitama, Japan Card ★★★ This match popped up in my match list and it’s Terry Funk in Japan, so yeah why not? Who’s he up against? Ray Candy?! Who the hell is Ray Candy? Well he’s nothing special, but this match was. Oh boy! This was Terry doing the hard sell. Sell sell sell sell. Nothing but selling. He made Ray Candy look like an absolute beast. He took three absolutely nutty bumps right through the ropes. He did a flat back drop right onto the concrete. Terry is a God. Of course his comeback was fire, the punches were lit and only Terry Funk can make a sloppy looking running press come across as an exciting finish. One of those stab in the dark matches that completely paid off. So happy I watched this.
  19. SAMS
    1980-03-24 WWF Hulk Hogan vs Tito Santana Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York, USA Card ★★★ This was a little firecracker of a match to send the paying customers home happy. Tito is the perfect opponent for Hulk at this time because his selling is good enough that he makes Hulk’s offense look great, but he also has enough offense himself that when he makes his comeback, or during his hope spots, it looks effective, legitimate and any selling that Hulk does doesn’t feel like a token effort. On Hulk’s selling, I would say that this is the largest weak point. The selling isn’t quite there yet. It looks stiff and unnatural, or rather it doesn’t have that organic quality you want from good selling. But he executes everything else he’s asked to do to the money. They didn’t reinvent the wheel here, you got what you would hope to get and they maximised their time really well. Hulk finally swatted the annoying Santana down with a huge suplex to take the win. Easily would call this a good match.
  20. SAMS
    1980-03-24 WWF Andre the Giant & Pat Patterson vs Ken Patera & Bob Duncum Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York, USA Card ★★★ After the emotional melting pot that was Bruno vs Larry, we needed a change of pace for the second half of the main event and that’s exactly what we got here. Much more lighthearted but not a drop in quality. Frankly, this was the Pat and Andre show. Patera & Duncum are too good to be carried but they were merely tools here that were used by Pat and Andre to carve out their match. Pat had his little moments, flying out of nowhere at one point, diving between Andre’s legs and nailing Patera in the stomach, but wow, what a tour de force performance from Andre. For anybody championing him as a great wrestler, this is absolutely a match that you can point to to show what he could bring to the table. Once Patera and Duncum had grounded Andre and they began using a nerve hold on his trapezius to keep him off his feet and I was concerned that the match was going to start to lose its way. But Andre was flailing about in the hold, selling the pain but also the struggle to escape, and when a man Andre’s size starts flailing about, it really makes an impression. He really guided this match throughout. He had amazing work on the apron, was constantly involved in the proceedings and when he was in the ring, he milked every action to the absolute maximum. I had such a blast watching this.
  21. SAMS
    1980-03-24 WWF Bruno Sammartino vs Larry Zbyszko Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York, USA Card ★★★ This is the first match of their series at MSG. During the first few minutes I thought that they were merely running back their match from the Spectrum as the sequences were extremely similar. They again played it straight up to start with both going for legitimate wrestling holds with Zbyszko repeatedly coming off second best. His frustration steadily grew before he flung an elbow, gained the advantage, and from then on we had a fight on our hands. The Philly crowd at the beginning of the month were HOT but this almost had the sense of a gladiatorial spectacle which took the atmosphere to a whole other level. In the middle there was a long stretch where Bruno was sent to the floor and Zbyszko kept kicking him back to the floor every time he tried to re-enter the ring. I think if they’d shaved maybe 3 or 4 minutes from this section it would have done a world of good, but perhaps the peak later on would have been as impactful if they had. Either way once Bruno made it back into the ring Larry was just wailing on Bruno in the corner and you could just see the comeback brewing. Unlike in Philadelphia, Larry could see it coming this time and we had a chase. Three times they circled the ring and Larry would dive in and then escape before Bruno could get his hands on him. The third time however Larry was a little too slow and Bruno caught him as he was diving through the ropes. Once he had him he went hell for leather just beating down on him. The referee got caught in the crossfire and we had a somewhat foreseeable DQ finish. Bruno wasn’t letting up though and it took the referee and Arnold Skaaland several minutes to pull him away and allow Larry to retreat to the back. I would say the Spectrum match and this were roughly equal but I did think that Bruno’s comeback here had a little more juice. The slow build to his comebacks is something I’m really enjoying as he doesn’t go over the top as some others do. I like Martel and I’m not calling him out, but as a contrast he is visually very LOUD in comparison.
  22. SAMS
    1980-03-15 PNW Rick Martel & Roddy Piper vs. The Sheepherders (Butch Miller & Luke Williams) Best Two Out Of Three Falls Tag Team Match Card ★★★ Since I last checked in on Portland it seems like the Sheepherders have had a run in with Martel because everytime he tagged in they were desperate to avoid him and went hell for leather bailing from the ring. Miller carried over his emotion from the hair match, despite it being his partner Williams who lost his hair, and he had a real nasty streak to his offense and specifically targeted Piper’s hair throughout the first fall. When Martel finally got his hands on Williams he was at his high stepping best and the energy in the building was through the roof and he took the first fall with a flying cross body. Williams was stuck isolated from Miller for almost the entire duration of the second fall. Piper and Martel honed in on his left arm but I felt that this is where the match dragged a bit. Piper’s best attributes aren’t working a hold and he ended up doing a lot of that here. Martel was the same but he’s prone to yanking on a limb a little more often at least. Thankfully the transitioned into a FIP sequence eventually with Martel struggling to get back to Piper on the outside. The sequence where Williams finally got free was great as after tagging Miller he came in and immediately destroyed Martel with a reverse elbow thrust that looked absolutely brutal. They did the usual slow build to the hot tag and this is where Piper really showed his stuff as he was molten hot when he got in and it was easily the most fired up I’ve seen him. Unfortunately for him he bit off more than he could chew as he went for Miller in the corner and got blindsided by Williams from behind and they doubled him, draped him over the ropes and Miller from the top pulverised him into the mat to square things up. Things ended on a DQ as Rose rushed the ring with scissors in an attempt to cut Piper's hair. It’s sad we couldn’t get a clean finish here but they are pivoting towards another hair match between Piper and Miller this time so it makes sense from a booking perspective. Rose and Piper were great on the mic again post-match. Rose constantly reminds me of that child that thinks they’re smart, is happy to pipe up and say things confidently, but really are just so blissfully ignorant of how dumb they actually are. Beautiful stuff.
  23. SAMS
    1980-03-15 AJW Jackie Sato vs Monster Ripper WWWA Singles Title Match ★★ Big title match here as Monster Ripper challenges Jackie for the WWWA Singles Title. Ripper had a huge presence and was the prototype for the Dumps, Bulls and Kongs of the world who followed her and she barely sells anything here, especially in the early stages. Despite Jackie’s popularity she hasn’t jumped out to me so far compared to some of the other women in the company. Here she was serviceable once again, but I didn’t think her working underneath this monster was particularly inspired. The best spot of the match was when she suplexed Ripper and her timing on the delay, the same thing Backlund does in his powerlifting spots, was perfect, getting across the effort and achievement of the act. The thing that kind of killed the match was the finish. The Black Pair, I’m assuming underlings of Ripper, started attacking Jackie on the outside. This relentless beatdown was halfheartedly attempted to be stopped by the other women at ringside but to no avail. Ripper, after swatting a few of the women aside, gets back into the ring and wins via countout. My issue is that the outside interference was allowed despite how blatant it was. There was serious consternation from Jackie, the other women, and also on commentary, that this clearly was supposed to be controversial, but I’m not sure how such blatant interference could be allowed by the referee. Secondly, it was Ripper and the Black Pair up against at least 10 women, including Jackie. How this mass of wrestlers weren’t able to subdue 3 women is beyond me and speaks to a general incompetence or pure indifference from those trying to prevent it. There shouldn’t be hand wringing and there isn’t anybody to blame but themselves, because they got punked.
  24. SAMS
    1980-03-12 Joint Promotions Mick McMichael vs Vic Faulkner Digbeth, Birmingham, West Midlands, United Kingdom ★★★★ McMichael here was billed as “Popular” Mick McMichael, which I don’t recall from his last match, but I can see why he’s so popular. At first glance he’s somebody who could easily be overlooked. He’s big, but not impressively so, probably closer to plump. His build is maybe like a Buddy Rose if the fat looked more solid. However, despite his build and the preconceived notions that may come with it, he can do the technical stuff, especially to the general level required to compete in WoS. His matwork is crisp and he can get around the ring when he needs to, but the key I think is his impeccable timing, especially in regards to when to sprinkle in aspects of comedy into the match. He knows how to interact with the crowd; with the referee; and with his opponent to great effect. In this match he walked the line between cheating and not cheating (throwing punches and grabbing some hair etc.) without going overboard with it but also keeping it interesting and it not feeling like token work. Faulkner, for his end, was absolutely no slouch either as he definitely brought his fair share to the party. I thought he had a solid, well established character of that classic true sportsman but with a cheek to him that surfaces every now and then. Overall I thought this was a great example of two wrestler’s acts synthesising together extremely well combined with two excellent performances. However special mention for McMichael, who’s general schtick I find to be so effortlessly entertaining.
  25. SAMS
    1980-03-07 NJPW George Takano & Gran Hamada vs. Armando Guerrero & Baby Face General Gymnasium, Matsusaka, Mie, Japan Card ★★★ I came away from this match really not impressed with either Mando Guerrero or George Takano. Well, apart from Takano’s movie star good looks which apparently, and unsurprisingly, makes him very popular with the ladies. Gran Hamada and Baby Face however, when matched up against each other, were golden. Mando and George were awkward when they were in, and especially when matched up against each other, and Mando in particular really looked like a fish out of water. His partner Baby Face was great though, he has a really stocky build and it’s a body type I feel like we don’t see as often nowadays. Similar to Hoshino, he’s like a pumped up baby with a grown man’s face. But despite the frame, boy can he move and the sequences with him and Hamada were a joy. He was also able to, in brief snippets, get across his character and display some solid charisma so I’ve got my fingers crossed that there’s more of him on tape coming up. Hamada is much more subtle on the character front but in terms of workrate he takes the cake. He looked so smooth and fluid when he was flying around the ring and he got so much air on his back body drops that I’m sure he had snow on his boots when he came back to Earth. Hamada & Gorgeous George won it when Hamada took Baby Face out with a dive to the outside and Takano managed to hit a victory roll on Mando.
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