SAMS

1980-10-25 PNW Buddy Rose vs Jonathan Boyd Non Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Sports Arena, Portland, Oregon, USA ★★ Card This feud continued from the previous week. I’ll admit I pretty much hated the first fall. Too often we get a strong shine from the face and the heel just hands it over, there’s no struggle whatsoever. This was the case here with Rose. He tried to stall briefly at the beginning, but he foolishly turned his back and Boyd jumped him and then we got essentially a squash with Boyd beating the daylights out of Rose for several minutes and Sandy Barr counted SLOW for the pin. What makes this all the more frustrating is that Rose obviously has the offensive chops when let loose to do so. He snuck some tape into the ring to start the second fall, and began it by choking Boyd. Later on after a missed knee drop from Boyd he smelt blood and he targeted the injured leg relentlessly until Boyd had to capitulate. Rose tried to continue on the leg in the third, but Boyd managed to turn the tide and ended up wrapping Rose’s leg around the ringpost, which was enough for Rose and he bailed, handing the victory to Boyd. I wish there was more struggle in the first fall, even if it was inevitable that Boyd was going to take the majority of it, I at least wanted him to fight for it. We also got a cheap finish, but it played into Rose’s character, even if it’s disappointing from a match perspective. Another key factor is that I just don’t find Boyd that likeable as a face. He’s ok, but not great on the microphone. I’ve seen him stumble here and there, plus occasionally he veers into unsavoury territory, even for 1980, and I just don’t get how I’m supposed to get behind him in this feud. I’m actually enjoying these matches the most when Rose is kicking the shit out of him. 1980-10-30 NJPW Tatsumi Fujinami vs Hulk Hogan City Gymnasium, Kumamoto, Japan ★★ Card Didn’t last too long but a classic speed vs power matchup. Hogan was pretty decent at bumping for Fujinami’s arm drags, which they called a “Cyclone Whip” on commentary, loved that. Fujinami was an absolute blur in this period and he really feels like he might be able to use that to his advantage and get a result here. In the end the combination of Hogan’s power and Blassie’s dastardly interference is Fujinami’s undoing and, after being tripped by the old man, ended up eating a leg drop to the back of the head and then was finished off by a running power slam. 1980-10-30 NJPW Antonio Inoki vs Paul Orndorff City Gymnasium, Kumamoto, Japan ★ Card Much like his match against Fujinami, Orndorff looks the part but he’s still lacking that in-ring knowhow, in the sense that he could be hesitant and you can tell he was waiting for his opponent to give queues on where to go next. Unlike his match with Fujinami however, Inoki here pretty much sandbagged him. Orndorff was trying stuff on offense and Inoki, while not shrugging it off, made it look barely more than a mere inconvenience. Then it was time to hit the Enziguri and lock on the Octopus Hold to take the win. Felt like an incredibly lazy match for Inoki when it was required of him to lead Orndorff to something passable. 1980-10-31 Houston Andre the Giant vs Stan Stasiak Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, Texas, USA ★★ Card Lacked some rhythm in the first fall. Andre did some of his usual spots, but they plodded a bit between the action. Stasiak again and again went for the heart punch before finally nailing it and sending Andre to the mat like a ton of bricks. Massive credit to Andre here, he sold the hell out of that move for the whole break between falls and even after the match was done. In fact, this may be the most vulnerable I can recall seeing Andre period. Suffering the effects of the punch going into the second fall (Stasiak was actually DQ’d in the first for using the banned move), Stan jumped on Andre to begin the second and Andre was really hurting, taking blow after blow to the head. Finally he steadied himself, got serious and proceeded to pummel Stasiak into the mat for a straight falls victory. Overall this was brief, but Andre’s selling and subsequent intensity in destroying Stasiak was worth it.

1980-10-22 AJPW Terry Funk & Billy Robinson vs The Asteroid & The Avenger Civic Gymnasium, Wakkanai, Hokkaido, Japan ★★★ Card This was a major step up for Robinson as a tag worker compared to his showing paired with Wahoo. He seemed a lot more comfortable here, spending a large chunk of the first half working as the face in peril, and we even got a fired up hot tag from him at the end - which was a nice shift, as I often view him as a clinical technician, especially in Japan. I won’t belabour any discussion on Terry, as he was excellent in all the ways you would expect. In fact, he was so good despite it feeling like he was merely going through the motions, or at least his version of it. I will say that he really stands out as a top tier apron worker, which was particularly obvious in this match. Their opponents however were what surprised me. I will say I spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out which was which. Cagematch said that Asteroid (Scott Irwin) was the shorter, and Avenger (Moose Morowski from recent German Catch vs Dieter fame) was the taller. The commentator’s had it the other way around and I’m liable to believe them here. Either way, both men worked pretty similarly, but they were agile in the Slaughter/Eadie mould. Masked US wrestler’s have always intrigued me as they seem to have vanished by the time I started watching, the hood reserved for Luchadores mostly, but at this point in time we were awash with them, including The Assassins, Masked Superstar, Mr Wrestling I & II and all the Super Destroyers. I’ll admit in some ways it comes across like a second rate gimmick to me, not having been raised with the concept, so I had some trepidation about these two. But as I said, they were a pleasant surprise. Solid meat and potatoes offense, could move about the ring with no problems and operated functionally and effectively as a team, allowing Robinson and Terry to do their thing. This match also ended in a classic call, the commentator shouting over and over again “Terry Funk, Spinning Toe Hold!”, for every revolution he made of the move. Needless to say, The Avenger tapped out. This was all the more enjoyable for how infrequent these kinds of clean finishes seem to be. On the same note, I’d be interested if anybody could identify the commentator in question. A cursory google search led me to this blog, but I couldn’t pinpoint which ones would have worked this match, but my frontrunner would be Kousuke Takeuchi (竹内 宏介). 1980-10-24 NJPW Antonio Inoki (c) vs Tiger Jeet Singh UWA World Heavyweight Title Match Okubuyama Gymnasium, Naha, Okinawa, Japan ★ Card I vaguely remember Singh being terrible, so I skipped over a few of his matches earlier this year. But I bit the bullet here in an attempt to eat my vegetables - I shouldn’t have bothered. Singh’s style made it seem more like Inoki was trying to handle a feral animal than participate in a wrestling match. I guess from a kayfabe perspective, having this crazed man as an obstacle, could be a compelling challenge for Inoki to overcome, but it doesn’t lend itself to being an entertaining watch. Mostly this was just Singh choking Inoki and consistently failing to break the hold despite repeated 5 counts from the referee. Considering this finished with Inoki being DQ’d (and losing the UWA title due to the same rules that apply to the NWF title) it seems totally imbalanced that Singh was allowed such a long leash. The absolute cringe of Inoki and Singh hurling insults at each other in English after the match while an almost completely silent arena sat watching in a combination of amusement and bemusement was fantastic though. 1980-10-24 Houston Les Thornton(c) vs Gino Hernandez NWA World Junior Heavyweight Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, Texas, USA ★★ Card Les Thornton is a stocky little Brummie with a terrible haircut that looked like he plopped a bowl over his head and went to town. Presumably he has the technical chops, hailing from England and all, so Gino had to take a different strategy than beating him at his own game. Thornton got the upper hand in the first though, even if it was with an awkward small package that looked more like he muscled Gino into it rather than cradling him. I did appreciate Gino’s offense here, it was very piecemeal. He would almost peck at Thornton, send him to the outside and then throw a kick or a punch through the ropes, then distract the referee and give the chance for Gary Hart to get involved. The style fits his character to a tee. I guess he’s been working like this all year, but it stood out to me more here and I definitely appreciated it more. He did manage to level things with a rather brutal suplex back into the ring from the outside where he basically dropped Thornton on his head because they couldn’t get the requisite height. The final fall was all about Thornton being riled up and going after them both, Gino tried the same trick he used to take down Mark Lewin (rubbing some substance in his eyes) but the referee was wise to it and gave Thornton the win via DQ. 1980-10-24 Houston Ivan Koloff vs Dusty Rhodes Texas Death Coffin Match Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, Texas, USA ★★ Card I always associated the Coffin match with the Undertaker, but I guess that proves there are no new ideas, only recycled ones. They had an interesting spin on this one though, unlimited falls. I’m not sure how well this worked in practice compared to concept, but at least the inclusion of falls meant that these two actually attempted to wrestle each other for the most part, even if the falls (it ended 2 apiece) were ultimately meaningless. We weren’t subjected to them struggling over pushing/forcing each other into the coffin for 15 minutes. They set up the coffin in the middle of the ring, and it served as an unusual and interesting obstacle for them to navigate around. Occasionally one would get thrown towards it and they would take a side bump to narrowly avoid it. Really though, this was just a slog it out fight, both were busted open from chair shots and Koloff was flung into the coffin for the finish. No need for a closing the coffin lid finale, he just lay there in his own blood, resigned to his defeat. As I said already, the falls were pretty meaningless, and they were pretty pathetic to boot (Dusty was pinned after Koloff countered a back body drop with a simple kick for example). Fun little brawl and certainly one of the better coffin matches I’ve seen, but that isn’t really saying much.

I appreciate the kind words! Backlund's Atomic drop is excellent, but my favourite spot of his might be the deadlift spot. Lots of guys have decent piledrivers/atomic drops, even if they aren't as good as his, but I can't think of anybody, especially around this time period, who did, or could do, that deadlift spot anywhere near as well as Bob. In regards to Bob's title reign, going through this year chronologically and in depth, it really has hit home how long a year actually is. The last time I touched on this time period was for the GWWE poll and I was merely cherry picking highly touted matches. In that context a year can go by in only 5-10 matches (and in 1983's case I think I only watched one: Backlund vs Masked Superstar). Basically it just illustrates the point that Backlund's entire reign was looong, which in of itself is super impressive, and I'm fascinated to see how he develops between late 80 and late 83. I'm just struggling to get my head around how much time that actually covers.

The UK scene seemed to be doing pretty well before both NXT UK and before the pandemic. Progress seemed pretty comfortable trying to run shows at Wembley Arena and Alexandra Palace on a semi regular basis (see once a year). But I think there's something to the scene in the UK not being the major leagues and that perhaps hurting attendance for local promotions. We're used to having the best, or close to the best, leagues for a lot of sports (not going down the rabbit hole of whether wrestling is a sport but for the sake of argument let's say it is), we have the Premier League, Wimbledon, UK Open, and top leagues for Rugby League, Rugby Union and Cricket, even if they aren't the absolute best in the world. We can comfortably say we can go and see the best there is in these sports without travelling too far afield. That isn't the case for wrestling or any major North American sport. Basketball as a spectator sport is pretty much non-existent here in a mainstream sense, but whenever a regular season game pops up at the O2 Arena, it sells out in an instant. The NFL can ship over the least interesting, couldn't matter less matchup (historically involving the Jaguars) and they instantly sell out Wembley Stadium and now Tottenham's new stadium. Even baseball, which has considerably less traction than even basketball, comfortably sold out the Olympic Stadium in Stratford a few years ago. This is all to say that if WWE or AEW decide to run a PPV in the UK, I would never be surprised if they managed to sell 60k+ tickets in a stadium. Now, if they ran more regularly than once in a blue moon then things might be different...

Backlund is one of the hardest guys to put my finger on. I think some of his high spots are terrific, obviously his piledriver, but also some of his other strength spots come to mind, but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that some of his mat work, especially when he tries to get cute with it, can really grate on me. I know in the grand scheme of things it was a throwaway TV match with a terrible opponent, but his "exhibition" with El Olympico on All Star Wrestling was one of the worst displays I've seen from a top 100 candidate right in the middle of his prime. He has a laundry list of good/great matches, but these are also against guys I think are good like Slaughter, Patera, Zbyszko, Valentine, Patterson, Adonis, and in Japan, against Fujinami and Inoki. I'm keen to see him more against second/lower tier guys. I know he has upcoming series against opponents like Angelo Mosca, Jesse Ventura and George Steele, so it will be fascinating to see what he can do in those situations, and also to see how he continues to develop as champion. I'm really struggling to get my head around the fact that from late '80 onwards, he still has 3 solid complete years as champion left to go.

1980-10-18 MACW/MLW Greg Valentine (c) vs Ric Flair NWA United States Heavyweight Title Match Buffalo Memorial Auditorium, Buffalo, New York, USA ★★★ Card The first long singles match I’ve seen of Flair so far on tape for the year. This definitely had a house show vibe, and a house show finish, but to just go out there and deliver a strong 3 star match shows what these guys could do. This was chunked up into a beefy shine sequence -> heat -> comeback stretch -> finish. Flair seemed to handle Valentine pretty handily for the first 5-8 minutes. He had the bravado and the ADHD energy and after the initial use of punches and forearms to the head, he wrestled Greg down into a hammerlock and maintained his control. Flair had been pretty decent up to this point, but I was concerned about when Valentine was going to show some stuff. He’s always been a subdued seller (face flop spot aside) and often that’s a plus, but I also wouldn’t say it’s his strength either and being rammed face first into the mat for several minutes didn’t give him a lot to work with. I shouldn’t have been worried though, as we got the transition soon enough and boy did Valentine not pull any punches when it was his turn to lay them in. His strikes were fast and vicious and looked fantastic. I love it when the heel can actually dish it out when required. He went to the same well that Flair did and ground Flair down into a hammerlock of his own. This time however they really slow burned the comeback. Flair got to his feet, then back down they went. Once again he managed to get to his feet, but he couldn’t lift Greg, and back down they went. Finally, amid a torrent of crowd noise, he managed to stand for a third time, and it was this time that he managed to lift Greg, dump him in the corner and then the comeback was in full swing. I’ll briefly stop to mention that the crowd were solidly behind Flair all night, but at this point they were thoroughly and totally losing their collective shit. One of the more veracious crowd’s of the year no doubt. Flair ran through his stuff, did his strut and woo’d to the crowd when needed before we had the countout finish with Greg on the wrong side of the apron. Despite being the main event, and part of a pretty heated feud, this felt very meat and potatoes from a structure standpoint. They weren’t trying to reinvent the wheel here, but deliver a satisfying match. The crowd didn’t get the result they were hoping for, but they were completely invested, and at least their guy picked up the win. I would say very good performances from both men in my first long hard look at either in a singles setting. Valentine gets kudos for his offense while Flair’s comes from being a ball of charisma. 1980-10-18 PNW Fidel Cortez & Rip Oliver (c) vs Jay Youngblood & Joe Lightfoot NWA Pacific Northwest Tag Team Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Sports Arena, Portland, Oregon, USA ★★ Card Youngblood’s first match back and for sure he was positioned as a top guy here. To the extent actually that he perhaps overshadowed the rest of the guys involved too much. For a fall and a half it was almost like watching an amateur theatre production and suddenly a fully fledged acting veteran is parachuted in. He just seemed so in control, always knew what he was doing, what he wanted to do and was directing traffic. A really strong performance from him, at least in terms of getting himself over. The offset to that was the champions came across really flat until the transition midway through the second. Oliver finally managed to rake Lightfoot’s eyes and, with him and Cortez on top, they really worked him over pretty good. Suddenly it made a bit more sense that they were the champions. I understand that they wanted to keep Youngblood strong, but in this case I think they should have turned the tide a little earlier instead of letting him just beat down on them for so long. In the third Lightfoot and Oliver clashed heads, and with a gentle shove from Rose at ringside, Oliver was able to get the pin. Unsurprisingly Savage came down to inform the referee of what happened and we got the setup for the following week’s action - a rematch for the titles and Savage chained to Rose the whole way. 1980-10-20 WWF Ken Patera (c) vs Pedro Morales WWF Intercontinental Title Match Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York, USA ★★★★ Card On a whim I added this to my watchlist and chucked it on, more curious as to what Patera could do with Morales than anything else, but needless to say, it was a surprise. Pedro has always been a guy that I’ve been a bit confused about. How did he have such a lengthy WWF title run? Was he always this boring? And his return in 1980 hadn’t done much to sway that so far from his less than captivating TV appearances (granted it’s pretty hard to distinguish yourself on WWF TV in 1980 unless you’re smashing Bruno over the head with a chair). Well this match is at least one step to answering these questions. Pedro was a man on fire, like he was channelling the blood lust from the crowd. He didn’t give Patera a second to set himself before he was on him, fists flying. This felt very similar to the Flair/Valentine match from Buffalo a couple nights earlier. Same rabid fans, same kind of structure, but this pushed the pace more. Pedro showed less cockiness and more fury than Flair and Patera, perhaps he didn’t match the nastiness of Valentine’s offense, but he always does an excellent job of representing his character while he’s in the ring, and this was absolutely no exception. In fact, in addition to the intensity of his offense, Pedro really threw me off with his bumping. He took a big bump over the top rope where he got some significant hang time during the first transition and later on took what looked like a pretty reckless one shoulder first into the turnbuckle post. These were both excellent sympathy generating bumps, made Patera look like a real threat and were cool to watch to boot. Once they started shoving the referee around the DQ finish was obvious to see, but there’s been worse finishes this year no doubt. I probably could have done with them breezing through the obligatory bear hug spot a bit faster, but otherwise these two knocked it out the park. 1980-10-20 WWF Bob Backlund (c) vs Sgt. Slaughter WWF Heavyweight Title Match Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York, USA ★★★ Card You get the classic Slaughter bumps and the Backlund strength spots. Those two things alone were good enough to carry this to being a very good match. This was the first chance to see Slaughter in MSG and that initial corner bump he did took my breath away. He was a pinballing machine. Backlund for his part had some excellent moments, I think the highlight for me was when he effortlessly caught Slaughter mid-air rebounding off the ropes and then wheeled around the ring before slamming him. There are few who can deliver a strength spot the way Backlund can. The connective tissue is where this falls down though, and this is a consistent issue in my mind for Backlund. I don’t find him working a limb or a hold particularly compelling, like at all. Here it was the arm and the match ground to a halt in the middle due to this. It’s not uncommon for Backlund to take a lot of the match, but here it must have been 90/10 in his favour and I wasn’t seeing the hook for any future matches if he was just going to steamroll Slaughter so easily. In the end Slaughter did manage to lock on a surprise Cobra Clutch and in a pathetically poor thought out finish (unless they did some serious explaining on TV later on) Skaaland comes out of nowhere to nail Slaughter with a bright red chair to ensure a DQ loss for Backlund but a title retention nonetheless. A heel move if I ever saw one! 1980-10-20 WWF Larry Zbyszko vs Tony Garea Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York, USA ★★ Card Fun little sprint. Garea is a bit generic but Larry was his usual self. They went to the finish perhaps a little prematurely, with Zbyszko absolutely clocking the referee with a forearm while on the apron, but it was fun while it lasted. Perhaps it needed another 4-6 minutes to truly be something.

What Japanese wrestlers would qualify for this? I'm sure there's a few but I'm drawing a blank off the top of my head

Didn’t originally have this match queued up to watch, but looped back around to it when I found it online. 1980-10-09 AJPW Bill Robinson & Wahoo McDaniel vs Great Kojika & Jumbo Tsuruta Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan ★★ Card It was great to see Billy Robinson stretch his legs a bit and go back to what is natural to him. He’s always felt a bit out of place to me when he has shown up in Memphis, and he’s shown up in Memphis more than he has anywhere else so far in ‘80. McDaniel continues to be one of my favourite guys to just watch. I sort of see him as an 80s version of Samoa Joe. Not the biggest guy out there, but nothing less than completely credible at all times. Sort of how Joe is to Brock, Wahoo is to Hansen. Despite this, these two were an odd pairing, seemingly matched up because they were the foreigners on hand. Nothing about them stylistically seems to mesh very well, and their separate periods in the ring could very well have been completely different matches. For Jumbo, he’s a really strange one. I think I view him through the prism of Pokemon evolutions. For nearly all the 3 stage Pokemon, the second stage one seems the most clunky and just off. You start with the cute one, and you build an emotional attachment. You finish with the cool one that feels like a force. But that middle stage, eh not great. Just look at Ivysaur - the most placeholder Pokemon imaginable (I never completed any Pokemon game after Blue/Red/Green so don’t @ me with any talk of newer generations. Original 151 forever!). Anyway, Jumbo in the mid-80s is his Ivysaur phase. He may be better than he was in the 70s, but it certainly doesn’t feel that way at the moment. My ramblings here show pretty much that the idea of these three guys in the ring together was more interesting as a concept than in reality. Match was decent but nothing special. Nice Backbreaker by Robinson to win it, but you would expect nothing less. 1980-10-11 PNW Buddy Rose vs Jonathan Boyd Non Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Sports Arena, Portland, Oregon, USA ★★ Card This had a lot of cool elements: Rose opening up an old cut on Boyd’s eyebrow and him gushing from the first fall onwards; Boyd beating the ever living daylights out of Rose in the second fall; the continued work by Boyd on Rose’s leg until he literally couldn’t, or wouldn’t meet Sandy Barr’s count. With Rose going into a hair vs loser leaves town match against Popovich, Boyd wanted to ensure that Rose would be the one entering at a disadvantage and his aim here was to soften Rose up. That definitely ended up being the outcome, as Rose had to be assisted out of the arena by the members of his army after the beating his knee had taken. In this sense the match was a success, and certainly built the anticipation for Rose’s match with Popovich and the actual chance that Rose might be defeated. In many ways this was merely a setup match, which we get a lot of in Portland on Saturday nights. My main issue was with the length and the pace. Both men had periods where they locked on a static hold, something like an abdominal hold, and this just ate up the clock rather than adding anything to the match. Rose’s selling, especially the expressions of resignation late on, were excellent, but the ⅔ falls stipulation certainly hurt this, as the extended beatdown by Boyd would have had more impact had it come in a single sequence rather than spread out over several falls. Considering they had to stretch it out though, I would have liked to see Rose be a bit more direct and urgent when he did have his moments on offense. We saw a brief glimpse of it when pounced on Boyd to grab the second fall, but it wasn’t enough for me. 1980-10-17 AJPW Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta (c) vs Bill Robinson & Wahoo McDaniel NWA International Tag Team Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Iwate Prefectural Gymnasium, Morioka, Iwate, Japan ★★ Card Nowhere at this time seems to have as strong a concept of the “finishing move” as All Japan. It’s more late 80s WWF than JCP. In this match alone we had two key examples, with the crowd popping hard for even the tease of Baba hitting his big boot or Robinson hitting his famous backbreaker. There was particularly good chemistry between Baba and Wahoo, with Baba almost smirking while going through a chop exchange, but, much like the last match featuring them both, the Wahoo and Robinson pairing was strange, and strongly contrasted with the established team of Baba and Jumbo. In the end Baba was able to get the drop on the stockier Wahoo and catch him in a flash small package for the 2-1 victory. A small package which he pretty nimbly executed by the way. In fact, Baba looked the most sprightly he has for the whole year here.

Putski matches may be 98% crowd as you've said, but those reactions happen 100% of the time. He managed to get a raucous crowd reaction on a shitty All Star Wrestling taping. I think there's something to be said for that. At worst he's at least making his matches a fun watch even if they aren't necessarily good, and that's more than a lot of guys can say. Ultimately, I don't see Putski sniffing a top 100 list, but watching a bunch of Putski matches in the process isn't wasted effort.

Their earlier Spectrum match (7/26/80) showed that the August match wasn't just a one off. It's not as good as the August match, but it's still a solid 3*+ match in my book, with a lot of the same stuff that made the latter one so good. And I wouldn't say it's all Larry either. Those matches wouldn't have been what they were without the kinetic energy that Putski brought on offense or how much the crowd bought into and got behind him.

I've always been impressed by the atmosphere at Maple Leaf Gardens, both when running JCP or WWF crews. It had that funky layout, with the ramp leading directly to the ring, but the crowd always seemed rabid and from what I've seen, the match quality was always pretty high (could be selection bias of course)

This is kind of turning into a Larry Zbyszko celebration thread, but his Spectrum match against Backlund in October is just another fantastic match to add to his collection. Such a excellent performance, and at this point I think, if we went just by quantity of quality matches on tape, his only competition is Fujinami. Rose is carrying a promotion, but purely in terms of top tier matches, I don't think he can match these two, and Terry Funk suffers from not making tape enough.

1980-10-10 NJPW Tatsumi Fujinami vs Paul Orndorff Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan ★★ Link This was clearly designed to give a boost to Orndorff on the first night of the tour. It was one of those rare Fujinami matches where I didn’t really feel his presence, but he was set on selling for Orndorff so he was working from underneath for the majority. I just think he could have peppered in a few more hope spots to keep things interesting. I think Orndorff came out of this looking pretty good. I was very impressed with the first 5 minutes especially, as he displayed some real intensity, and he clearly had all the tools. His movements in the ring were quick, he projected this physical, athletic aura and he clearly was a willing bumper when called upon. This just fell down at the seams. Orndorff in particular was still really rough around the edges, for example he threw in a few babyface mannerisms that felt off considering his role here, and they failed to hide the artifice at various points (blatant spot calling and some very telegraphed moves). The finish could have been better, again a very obvious countout victory for Orndorff that anybody could have seen a mile off, but they delivered in what they set out to achieve, which was to give Paul a solid showing against one of New Japan’s top guys early on in the tour. 1980-10-10 NJPW Antonio Inoki & Kengo Kimura vs Hulk Hogan & Ron Starr Best Two Out Of Three Falls Tag Team Match Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan No Rating Link Hulk Hogan came out flailing his cape around at the fans and then smashed his bouquet of flowers on a photographer’s head. It’s so interesting how much he picked up from Hansen on these tours in terms of being a monster foreigner heel. I only got the first of the three falls here, but that was pretty substantial enough. Hogan and Starr beat down on Kimura like he owed them money, like seriously vicious with it and it was more organically violent than I can recall seeing from Hogan before. I will say that this fall did an excellent job of building to those peak moments. The foundations they laid, with Kimura taking the beating, and working towards that hot tag to Inoki, all were done really well. But when they reached those peaks is when things kind of fell apart. I got the feeling that both Hogan and Starr were trying a bit too hard for the boss, which resulted in loose and even bad execution from Hogan and some over the top selling from Starr which really took me out of it. But the pieces were all there. Hogan, as the months went on, increasingly knew how to leverage his size and presence, Starr was the blunt object, ideal for hammering away at his opponent, Kimura was pitch perfect with his FIP job and Inoki, when he came in, had the requisite fire and energy to galvanise the crowd. Unfortunately the pieces didn’t come together into a satisfying whole this time round. 1980-10-11 IWE Mighty Inoue & Animal Hamaguchi vs Big John Quinn & Randy Rose Koshigaya, Saitama, Japan ★ Link Wow, Randy Rose was bad. Everything he was involved in, plus the terrible finish, is what totally ruined what could have been a good match. Inoue and Hamaguchi were solid/good as usual. Quinn, matched up against smaller opponents rather than the larger Rusher Kimura, did a much better job of projecting his size and he felt like a bigger deal and a more difficult obstacle to overcome. I’m not going to run through all the things Rose did terribly, just know that I’m not sure there was one thing he did well at any point in this match. By the end Inoue and Hamaguchi were switching without tags, which the commentators were clearly confused about and felt they had to mention. Then while Inoue had a figure four locked on Rose, Quinn repeatedly came in to try and break the hold. Eventually he hit 3 consecutive elbow drops, and after the third had dislodged Inoue, Quinn for some reason just dropped down and pinned him for the win. Again the commentators were forced to mention how no tag had been made and Quinn wasn’t the legal man. A shit show all round really. 1980-10-11 WWF Ken Patera (c) vs Andre the Giant Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA ★★ Link This was a great character performance from Patera for sure. When he was on top, he wouldn’t stop running his mouth, denigrating Andre the whole time, which made the comeback all the more sumptuous as Andre repeatedly beat away at Patera’s braced knee and Patera sold that like an absolute champ. They perhaps spent too much time with Andre in a front face lock and the finish, with Patera deciding to cut bait and leave, wasn’t the most satisfying, but they delivered something fun at least for a sub ten minute match. 1980-10-11 WWF Bob Backlund (c) vs Larry Zbyszko WWF Heavyweight Title Match Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA ★★★★ Link This was a Zbyszko match through and through and boy did he deliver a tour de force performance here. Backlund was fine to good, and he played his part as required, but Larry was the driving force narratively and was totally on from bell to bell. The stalling tactics were there from the beginning, and I’m sure we had 3-4 minutes of time elapsed before we even got the initial lockup. Zbyszko does such a good job of mixing it up and ensuring that something that could get tiresome really quickly is still thoroughly engaging. Usually you’ve got guys telling the referee to check the hair or check the tights, but in this case Larry was set on the referee making sure Backlund didn’t attack his bandaged knee! As ridiculous as the concept was, it was genius for Larry to be shouting “Watch the leg, watch the leg” as Backlund got him up for the knee breaker. Larry sold the hell out of the leg and bailed to the outside as he was prone to doing. But something was afoot and I had a sense this was building to something. While Larry could never gain the upper hand when he tried to go toe to toe with Backlund, he was biding his time and sure enough we saw him untie the ropes to the turnbuckle pad. When the time came this was his equaliser. Zbyszko dropped his selling of the knee, indicating it was all a ruse - playing possum to throw Backlund off, the pad came off and Backlund went headfirst into the steel. They did such an excellent job of building towards Backlund’s comeback and the payoff of him returning the favour and sending Larry headfirst into the turnbuckle. And if Larry’s leg wasn’t really injured before it certainly would be after the continued work Backlund put on it down the finishing stretch. Just as it looked lights out for Zbyszko he had a final ace up his sleeve. An airplane spin from Backlund took out the referee and in the confusion Backlund took a foreign object strike to the face. After plummeting to the outside and with the referee having shaked the cobwebs off, he was counted out and Zbyszko was the victor. He wouldn’t take the title, but he had defeated the champion, at least in his mind.

It isn't the same song I heard, but it is way cooler, especially when it kicks into gear around the 1:45 mark. I dug around a few of the matches I have available around the same time and it seems IWE had a couple generic songs they overdubbed for entrances regardless of who was in the match. At least they always played the same song for the foreigners, and then sprinkled in a couple different ones for the Japanese guys.

I love Jumbo's powerslam by the time the 90s rolled around. I would nominate Backlund as having one of the best piledrivers without a doubt.

1980-10-05 Catch Wrestling Association Alex Dieter vs Moose Morowski Festzelt auf dem Schützenplatz, Hannover, Lower Saxony, Germany ★★★★ ¼ Link Having seen no continental wrestling thus far, I was hoping my World of Sport viewing would carry over somewhat. But I’ll admit, this is as close to zero context as I’ve gotten so far on this journey. The venue was very dark, it felt like an old beer hall filled with swirling cigar smoke, but it was more likely a big tent due to being hosted in a festival complex. Definitely had a unique aesthetic and a rapturous audience - they were absolutely behind Dieter the whole way, living and dying with every swing of momentum. However, dare I say that the first two rounds were a bit…boring? They were establishing the match, but they spent a lot of time on the mat, and throughout, the periods where they were grounded were the least engaging. I’m not sure whether that was due to the camera angle or the poor video quality, but it was hard to gauge what exactly the holds were and it definitely would have benefited from us being able to see the wrestler’s faces. If the third round had Moose beating the shit out of Dieter with a barrage of punches, then the fourth round was Dieter returning in kind with kicks. These had a savagery to them and the intensity definitely had risen and we wouldn’t see it abate from here until the finish. As Moose leant more and more into using underhand tactics Dieter was forced to follow suit. A borderline low blow punch to the stomach from Moose caused Dieter to retaliate with a brutal kick straight into the jewels. Moose went to the top, only to get caught and he did nothing but plummet to the floor for the best bump of the night. In fact a couple times Moose’s bumping was almost Slaughter-esque. Essentially the remainder of the match was both men wailing on each other, and while they remained on their feet things were excellent. On the mat, sometimes the energy would dissipate somewhat and the crowd would catch their breath and calm down a bit, but interestingly the finish, which I thoroughly enjoyed, did come from a ground based submission hold. Dieter hit a flying crossbody, as both men had reverted to attempting desperate high risk offense from the top. He then caught Moose in a submission hold that I really have no idea what to call. It was sort of a Full Nelson applied with the legs. The pressure of the hold sent Moose under and I presume the official decision was a KO victory rather than a submission. Definitely one of the best matches of the year with excellent woozy and exhaustive selling from both men. The offense was brutal and primal and for the majority of the 35 minute runtime they delivered in spades. There’s large chunks of context I’m missing for sure and this is one match that I would be keen to revisit in the future to give it a second look. 1980-10-08 IWE Big John Quinn & Ron Bass vs Mighty Inoue & Rusher Kimura Toyota, Aichi, Japan ★ Link This was a rare off night for Inoue but he was still clearly the best guy in the match. I didn’t get any sense of chemistry between opponents, regardless of matchup, and a real lack of chemistry between Bass and Quinn too. Kimura operated as a decent hot tag after Inoue took a beating, as he just came in and started nailing chop after chop, but then things ground to a halt again. There wasn’t any form or structure and too often we got loose resets at weird moments that stalled any narrative momentum. In the end a piledriver attempt by Kimura was reversed by Bass and Quinn into a strange rollup and a sneak victory for the foreigner team. 1980-10-08 Joint Promotions Jeff Kaye vs Sharky Ward Southend, Essex, UK ★ Sharky is a fat guy from Australia making his UK debut here. Bald head, a weird striped leotard and a massive gut. Jeff Kaye definitely brought exuberance to the proceedings, but for the most part this was dead in the water. Sharky went for a series of biting spots in the middle and it was clear from the camera angle that he was just rubbing his cheek against Kaye’s head and then later on Kaye mistimed a reverse dropkick spot that was way off the mark - at least Sharky was wise enough to not sell it too hard. They did finish things on a high note though as Kaye pulled off the “get your head caught in the ropes” spot superbly. They played that off into a submission initially, and then a TKO due to Kaye not being able to continue. 1980-10-08 Joint Promotions Bobby Barnes vs Chris Adams Southend, Essex, UK ★★ Barnes went from having the stereotypical 70s look, to suddenly having one of the most 80s looks imaginable - cutting short his long blonde hair and growing a thick moustache. Pretty decent transformation and probably ahead of the curve. Adams was accompanied to the ring by Jeanie Clark as his valet. Valets haven’t appeared much so far in Joint Promotions, but she certainly got a reaction from the crowd when Adams was first introduced. This had a slow start and didn’t grab me until Barnes lost his cool and began his usual rule bending. I still think his deadpan facial expressions are gold and really give him a serial killer vibe. He was much more interested in working the banana peel angle than actually selling for Adams, and to a certain extent that did hurt the match as while Adams could one up Barnes at points, it made his offense come across as non-impactful and lacking any real effect. In fact Adams had some of the more unique offense I’ve seen, including an Enziguri and maybe the first Superkick I’ve seen so far in 1980. It looked fantastic and was a real flash move that could have been presented as a momentum changer, but instead was sold by Barnes more akin to a slap in the face, which certainly felt a little weird. Apart from that though Adams did come across rather unpolished, both in terms of his lacklustre selling and how he delivered the rest of his offense. They finished round 6 in a tie, more due to the referee’s unwillingness to disqualify Barnes despite two public warnings than anything else. However instead of leaving it there, the referee allowed them to go to a tie breaker, which essentially was a “Judo” throw down - who could take the other man off their feet 10 times, and Adams took the decider 10-9. 1980-10-08 Joint Promotions Sammy Lee vs Sid Cooper Southend, Essex, UK ★ Tiger Mask in the UK! He came to the ring in Bruce Lee’s outfit from Enter the Dragon and clearly they were running with that theme. Seems weird to me that they would give a Japanese man a name like Sammy Lee, but I guess it was all roughly the same to those from 1980 Britain, so no point splitting hairs. This certainly was a showcase for Lee. He dazzled Cooper with an array of kicks and the first fall happened in no time at all. His kicks were flashy and they looked pretty good, a pity that his punches and chops didn’t have the same aesthetic quality. This didn’t last too long but while Lee was running roughshod over Cooper this was an interesting watch, otherwise it was a little clunky and flat. 1980-10-08 Joint Promotions The Fabulous Royals (Bert Royal & Vik Faulkner) vs The Rockers (Pete Lapaque & Tommy Lorne) Southend, Essex, UK ★★★★ What started as a comedy match devolved into a down and dirty scrap, and then towards the finish, veered its way back into the realms of comedy. There wasn’t a second wasted and the action was brisk. Faulkner was certainly the star, leading his team’s mischievous tactics and then taking the brunt of the beating when it was time for the Rockers to take over. The Royals had a sort of Funk Brother vibe, it could have just been Bert’s receding hairline, but he definitely felt like Dory’s straight man to Faulkner’s wild insanity. The nominal heels, Lapaque and Lorne, played their part of the fools to start with, but when the real action got under way they acquitted themselves really well. As a team they were cohesive and they laid a real beatdown on Faulkner in particular. It would be hard to go through each point of action piece by piece here, and I presume it would be a terrible read, but believe me this match had character bursting from the seams and the already lively crowd were brought to a fever pitch at various different points. Comedy matches often have a ceiling for me, but this certainly was brushing up against it - an absolute blast to watch. 1980-10-08 Joint Promotions Wayne Bridges vs Lee Bronson Southend, Essex, UK ★★ Very strange that while Bronson was from Balham, it was Wayne Bridges who was introduced as the “Pride of London Town”, hailing from that well known London borough of….Gillingham. I will say, World of Sport did an excellent job of differentiating the heavyweight contests from those of lighter weight categories. Bridges and Bronson here worked it very methodically, with a lot of side headlocks, snapmares and body checks, and the story for the most part was the advantage that Bridges’ additional two stones afforded him. Ultimately this was all pretty matter of fact. Bridges took the lead with a backslide, Bronson levelled things in the same manner, and Bridges finished things off with a pretty innocuous looking arm drag into a pin. Competent, watchable, but nothing at all special. A pretty accurate way to describe Bridges as well I feel.

Jim Breaks? Can work the comedy into the match without derailing it and still has that mean streak

@elliott's continued pimping of Dump has led to her body of work being what I'm most excited in exploring as I get into the mid-80s!

I'll get the ball rolling. I know it's a somewhat reductive answer, but a good argument could be made that the correct choice for a lot of these categories is in fact Terry Funk. At least in terms of selling, comebacks, charisma, babyface, heel, FIP, hot tags, adding intensity to feuds(!!), brawling, ring IQ, highest floor/ceiling, and big matches (maybe not in terms of quantity on tape but at least quality). I'll take a stab at some others or give an idea of what the board consensus may be: Face: Martel, Santana, Steve Grey or Rey Heel: Jim Breaks, Hansen, Flair FIP: .....Ricky Morton Charisma: Rock, Austin, Hogan, ...the list goes on Brawling: Hansen, Sangre Chicana, Foley Athleticism: Young Rey, Brock, Steve Williams(?), I feel like there's a ton of Japanese guys who participated in the Olympics, which reminds me - Kurt Angle, Kiyoshi Tamura(?) TV Matches: Rey (again), Dundee Big Matches: Kobashi, Misawa, Jumbo, Flair, Cena Basing: Cesaro On the mic: I want to shout out Bruno here. I think he's a pretty lousy commentator but he's an excellent promo I don't know, feels like I'm missing a ton here to just reel them off the top of my head

And this is why I don't like the song. It was one of the earlier songs in the game so as you were learning the gameplay mechanics, upping the difficulty or playing with other newer players, you had to listen to this song a lot and for me it wore out its welcome fast. But Free bird was probably the best final boss song they could have chosen - and another great entrance theme, if nobody has mentioned it already.

October 1980 1980-10-03 AWA Nick Bockwinkel & Bobby Heenan vs Greg Gagne & Super Destroyer II Winnipeg Arena, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada ★★★ Link Seems like the Weasel Suit angle was still going strong as Bock and Heenan refused to wrestle with the stipulation on the match, even if it risked a suspension. The promoter ended up lifting the stipulation to get the match going. The tag matches in the AWA feel far closer to the ones you’d find in Portland than to any other promotion. They always seem to have that extended shine sequence and the faces utilise referee distractions to a far greater degree than, for example, any tag matches in WWF/E that I can remember. Here Greg and SD2 were liberal in attacking Bockinkel when the referee wasn’t looking and repeatedly manipulated Heenan into coming into the ring and drawing the referee’s attention. The key early on was that Heenan himself was desperate not to get in the ring, especially with SD2. This left Bockwinkel on an island by himself and it was only after Greg whiffed on a dropkick attempt that the heels were able to gain some measure of control. Their heel’s advantage was Heenan’s arm in a cast. We’ve seen this ploy before but it is effective. Greg in particular sold any strike like absolute death and Heenan was feeling pretty confident in himself at this point, but of course it wasn’t to last. He found himself face to face with SD2 and this time he couldn’t turn and flee. Momentum swung back and forth for the remainder of the match and I felt like the referee was going to have a heart attack with all the cardio he was getting in, running from one corner to the other, counting the guys on the apron for interfering, then diving across the ring to try and count pinfalls, it was dizzying to be sure. In the end Heenan’s cast was the difference maker and he caught SD2 in the head while he attempted a slam on Bock and it was lights out. The faces managed to get their heat back though by returning the favour (SD2 shoved something into his mask and went on a headbutt spree) and wouldn’t you know it, Heenan ended up in the weasel suit anyway. Greg wasn’t bad here, but he didn’t add anything in particular. Bockwinkel, considering he’s the top heel and a recent champion at this point, I thought came across a bit too weak. I know the formula is to have that strong start from the faces, but he was cooked after just one or two moves. The big standouts to me were Heenan and SD2. Heenan just keeps impressing me every time I see him. His bumping ability is spot on. He’s always working, even when he’s on the apron. He can milk the crowd and he’s always exuding his character. It is really wonderful. For SD2, he’s just so good. He’s a big imposing guy, but he moves so nimbly around the ring. That agility doesn’t impact his presence or power either, plus he’s an excellent seller and bumper. I just don’t think there’s anything he can’t do. 1980-10-03 AWA Dino Bravo vs Jerry Blackwell Winnipeg Arena, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada ★ Link This was just so static. Felt like they’d decided before the match to take it easy. A lot of it was them stationary in the middle of the ring, standing in an arm hold or a headlock with no effort to work the hold or break free. I’ll give Blackwell credit that the sustained arm work he received from Bravo was really sold well for a portion of the match, but then unfortunately shrugged off later on. To make matters worse we finished with a bullshit finish as Blackwell dumped Bravo over the top rope in a blatant manner for the instant DQ. Also, throughout the match, the referee couldn’t help but interject himself into every altercation. Nothing could breathe because he was trying to break them apart, count a guy on the ropes or reprimand someone for using a fist. It was incessant and was a major turnoff. 1980-10-03 Houston Wrestling Gino Hernandez (c) vs Mark Lewin NWA American Heavyweight Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls With Gary Hart In A Straight Jacket Match Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, Texas, USA ★★ Link Cagematch has the result for this mislabeled. Gino actually won 2-1 and we didn’t have the double countout finish they have written. This actually may have been their best match together. The start, with Gary Hart asking the crowd to let Paul Beosch know that they didn’t actually want him in the straight jacket was great stalling, and his trepidation at being put in the jacket was really good stuff. It was a shame that this stipulation ultimately meant that he was absent from the body of the match for the most part so nothing was built off this. This for sure was one of the rowdier crowds at the Coliseum and Lewin did a great job of milking certain moments to maximise their response. When doing things like the punches in the corner on the turnbuckle; he took his time and didn’t rush it and I loved how after every punch he kind of flicked his hand as if to shake off the pain he was inflicting upon himself with the force of the strikes. The finishes for the first two falls were pretty pedestrian, but often that’s something you have to accept with the ⅔ falls match type, but the break before the final fall had Gino really going for it, beating down on Lewin with a chair and really putting him in a bad spot for the final stanza. This made Lewin’s comeback all the better and Gino was bumping hard on his chops and was almost Shawn Michaels-esque with the height he got on a few back body drops during the finishing stretch. Lewin couldn’t help himself though and he went after Gary Hart at ringside which allowed Gino to get something from his trunks. He took an absolute age with his hands shoved in there, and then I’m not really sure whether he was going for a strike, slice, or rub with the object, but I’m presuming he rubbed something in Lewin’s eyes due to his reaction. It all felt a bit deflating though as the momentum for a Lewin win was building nicely and I don’t think the twist they thought up was that great an alternative. 1980-08-23 (Air Date 1980-10-04) AJPW Jumbo Tsuruta & Prince Tonga vs Mil Mascaras & Dos Caras Best Two Out Of Three Falls Tag Team Match Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan Rating: N/A Link This was aired on 4th October but actually happened back in August and this only had the first fall. If this hadn’t been at Korakuen Hall, I would have guessed that they’d cruised into a small rural town and decided to take it easy for the night. Both teams were de facto faces thus this erred towards a more exhibition like presentation. Jumbo for one repeatedly allowed his opponent to his feet after he had tagged in so that they had a chance to set themselves. Tonga was at the bottom of the hierarchical totem pole here, losing out to both Dos Caras and then Mil Mascaras in turn before tagging out. I thought that they would make more of the Jumbo and Mil matchup but it seemed really matter of fact and Jumbo simply let Mascaras have his way with him the first time around. This was a decent showcase for the two luchadores though as they were given the opportunity to run through their spots and pop the crowd but it was all fluff really. The time when the match kicked up a gear or two was the second time Jumbo tagged in. Tonga was having his troubles with Caras and was caught in a Cobra Twist I think. They tumbled over towards Jumbo’s corner and he was able to tag in. He gave Caras some space, brushing Tonga aside in the process, and just at the moment Caras was veering upright he dug in and uncorked a hellacious uppercut. This was followed up by another and then for 2 minutes or so, the tone of the match was completely changed. Jumbo was the force of nature that he would morph into as the decade wore on but here it was just a glimpse - as quickly as it came, it vanished again, as he allowed Mascaras to force him to tag out and then the luchadores double teamed Tonga to steal the first fall with Jumbo looking on passively from the apron. 1980-10-04 IWE Animal Hamaguchi & Mighty Inoue (c) vs. Alexis Smirnoff & The USSR IWA World Tag Team Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Athletic Park Gym, Omihachiman, Shiga, Japan ★★★ Link The USSR is Charlie Fulton under a hood. He and Smirnoff as a team were big and burly, their stuff was very credible, and they came across like a real threat to the titles. Lou Thesz, as often seems to be the case, was the special referee and commentary emphasised that he was a good choice to clamp down on the foreigner’s penchant for bending the rules. Initially the champions were able to eke out a modicum of control but soon the tide was turned and Inoue found himself outnumbered and the beatdown continued for the entirety of the first fall. The champions didn’t take it lying down though and to start the second they ambushed the challengers on the outside and things got hot and heavy. Multiple chair shots had the Russians reeling and after some good back and forth a Backdrop Suplex from Hamaguchi levelled things up. As per the pattern of the match, the losers of the first fall came back strong and Smirnoff and USSR weren’t shy to get some stiff shots in. It was Inoue however who seemed to have the ultimate momentum, and he was just a ball of charisma as he flowed through his offense. In the end, a collision between himself and Smirnoff in the middle of the ring forced Thesz to end things on a double ten count, but the champions retained. I think this did an excellent job of positioning the challengers as legitimate threats without demeaning the champions with the draw. Also, the impact on the final collision was hefty enough that it adequately sold them both being KO’d from it. I’ve seen Smirnoff before in mid-80s WWF and my very hazy recollections led me to have very low expectations of him coming in, but I thought he equipped himself pretty well here. This was one of those matches where nothing spectacular happened but it was never less than solid from start to finish. 1980-10-04 IWE Rusher Kimura (c) vs Mighty John Quinn IWA World Heavyweight Title Match Athletic Park Gym, Omihachiman, Shiga, Japan ★★ Link It feels like a bit of a stretch for Kimura to be the top guy at this point. I’m sure there are valid reasons, but if I was a paying customer at this time, his almost 2 year long run with the belt would be a big turn off. The problem is that he’s pretty immobile here, best highlighted by a running bulldog that he fluffs, and I just don’t feel the credibility of him on top whilst other, better wrestlers are still on the roster. Where both he and Quinn did excel though was in delivering big, stiff shots to each other. They resonated around the gymnasium more than usual due to the rather subdued crowd, but it got across that they were really belting each other. This was my first look at Quinn outside of the UK, and he kind of seemed less in some way. I think to an extent he benefited from being able to diverge so much from the usual fare on British TV and he looked all the better for it, whilst here he came across more like a generic foreigner challenger. I have a suspicion that in a North American setting he’d get lost in the shuffle even more. The match ended up a hefty back and forth on the outside, and after being posted, Quinn couldn’t make it back in and was counted out at around the 15 minute mark. 1980-10-05 NWA Hollywood Mando Guerrero vs John Tolos San Bernardino, California, USA ★★ Link I was glad to get another look at Mando after his disappointing showing in New Japan earlier in the year. Here I thought he delivered an excellent babyface performance, especially in regards to selling and also peppering in hope spots intermittently throughout. It’s a small thing but I find it so irritating when a random kick or stomp is no sold because the wrestler in question is busy thinking about selling a previous move, isn’t expecting it or it just doesn’t register with them, but Mando was on point here, bumping the appropriate amount for every strike Tolos dished out and that kind of stuff goes a long way to ensure there’s no break in the immersion. On the flip side I wasn’t so impressed with Tolos. I would, at best, describe him as serviceable. His thumb to the throat move was nice, the big sweeping motion gave it a nice kinetic quality and made a move that can look pretty meh come across as dangerous. But his selling was, to put it mildly, limited. Mando locked on a figure four pretty early on and I just wasn’t buying it. Perhaps that’s due to my own preconceptions, but if I was a complete newbie, I feel like I would have found it hard to discern who the move was supposed to be hurting here. The finishing stretch was a bit lacklustre and Mando’s comeback lacked the necessary oomph. I think this was both in part to Tolos’ aforementioned selling issues, but also due to Mando. I don’t think he displayed the athleticism here to inject the energy needed in his offense and those two factors combined made it feel quite drab. Tolos nailed Mando with a loaded knee in the end and stole the win. Overall I wasn’t crazy about Mando’s offense, but his selling was really top tier here. Tolos felt adequate, but I did feel that his deficiencies hurt Mando as well here, as a better performer could have given a bit more and really got over the sections where Mando was on top.

Anybody know what the deal with the 61 minute time limit matches in early 80s Japan? I always assumed that 60 minutes was the norm, so I'm intrigued about the significance of that additional minute.

I'm loving Mil Mascaras' use of Sky High by Jigsaw at the minute. It's really one that burrows into your head and you can't shake off. Quintessential 70s theme! Also Mighty Inoue & Animal Hamaguchi came out to a fun one in late 1980 IWE but I couldn't track down the song. The edit cuts it off before any lyrics and it sounds like it might have been dubbed onto the recording as well. Anybody know what it might have been?

Q3 Recap July - September WWF WWF’s Q3 revolved around their big showcase at Shea Stadium, headlined by the blowoff between Bruno and Zbysko in a cage, but also including New Japan talent like Inoki and Fujinami and was a pretty decent show, including perhaps the surprise match of the night in Ken Patera v Tony Atlas. While this event concluded Bruno and Zbysko’s feud, it was only a single chapter in the ongoing one between Hogan and Andre, as they battled it out not only in New York, but also in Philadelphia and on TV too. This thing had real legs and while they weren’t out there delivering classics, their matches were pretty good and matching against Andre, with him mostly holding his own, really did elevate Hogan even more in the company hierarchy. Zbyszko added to his growing list of great matches in 1980 by delivering two bangers with Ivan Putski of all people. The Spectrum match in August gets a lot of plaudits, and rightly so, but their earlier one in July in the same arena deserves some love too. This period also saw the debuts of a few heavy hitters like Rick Martel and Sgt. Slaughter. While Martel had come in fresh off headlining shows over in Portland, it didn’t take long for him to get lost in the shuffle in New York, failing to wow in his TV singles matches (granted that is hard to do) and getting shunted pretty quickly into the tag team scene. In contrast Sgt. Slaughter arrived as a fully realised character. He seemed completely at home in his new gimmick and struck an imposing figure during his series of squash matches to start this WWF run, finishing jobber after jobber with his Cobra Clutch. Finally, we have the World Champion. Backlund appeared on the big shows, but he consistently felt completely disconnected from everything else that was going on in the company, and apart from his feud with Patera, I can’t remember any real memorable thing he’s been involved in. His only TV appearance at this time was when Harley Race showed during the build to their title vs title match. Memphis I’m glad we got more Memphis TV through this period, even if it wasn’t as comprehensive as what we had in Q1. There’s still Jimmy Valiant in the title picture, and we still have Bill Dundee filling in the gaps where necessary, but this stretch saw Paul Ellering leave the promotion (but not before an absolutely bonkers segment where he did sock puppet ventriloquism that really needs to be seen to be believed (19th July episode). Jimmy Hart filled the hole in his stable with Killer Karl Krupp, an interesting character, who was decent on the microphone but pretty bad in the ring. We also saw the tentative return of the King, with Lawler first battling Hart and then taking Krupp out during a cast match which put him back on the shelf for a few more months. On a more positive note, “Dr” Bill Irwin turned up in late August, and while he was lacking as a singles wrestler, his partnership with Gypsy Joe added another team to a burgeoning tag division in Memphis. They were probably the best heel team they had, displaying some real viciousness and tenacity during their matches that I appreciated. Eddie Gilbert also made his debut, and ended up holding the tag titles with his father, and right at the end of September we also caught our first glimpse of Koko Ware (not rocking the B. at this point), but he already had a cool look so I’m excited to see where he goes. No doubt the star of the show was Tommy Rich though. In Georgia he was babyface supreme, but here he had done a complete 180. Following an excellent TV match with Dundee he ragged on Lawler and cemented the turn during an electric promo with Russell. His excellence in this role has carried through up until the end of September, delivering good TV matches and fantastic promos, displaying his versatility as a performer. The only thing Rich really is lacking from 1980 is a solid arena match on tape. Georgia Speaking of Rich, this is the last we saw of him in Georgia. In July he was building to a title match against Race and they pulled out all the stops, laying things on real thick, to the point of bringing his mother out and showing off his baby pictures on TV. I’ve heard his mother makes another appearance in Memphis, and considering he’s a heel up there, I can’t wait to see that! Terry Taylor came onto the scene and quickly picked up some hardware in the form of the TV title and they let him get his nose stuck in a lot of pies further up the card as the months continued on (which I’ll get to later). The Georgia title picture was a weird one. It really felt completely absent from the footage we have. It went from Von Raschke to Steve Keirn to Dennis Condrey, but I have no idea how or when these changed hands. The key angle and feud that fueled this part of the year however was Dusty vs Ole Anderson. This thing kept gathering new life as the weeks went along as more and more guys got added to the mix. Initially Dusty was feuding with the Assassins (for reasons that are unclear to me). Things reached an impasse and he reached out for a partner, somebody to fight alongside him and wouldn’t you know, Ole answered the call. Everybody told Dusty that this was a bad idea, that Ole wasn’t to be trusted and that this was going to go sideways. Dusty wouldn’t hear of it and the matches were signed. Unsurprisingly, Ole did in fact turn on Dusty, and in a steel cage no less. We have clips of the show and things looked like they were on the verge of a full scale riot. In the following weeks Dusty faced Ole. Lars, aghast at his brother’s actions got in on the action and we got brother vs brother. Dusty was somehow ran out of town and was restricted to wrestling only in Ohio until he “returned” with Bill Watts, under a hood, as Uvalde Slim. Later on Kevin Sullivan, Terry Taylor and even Stan Hansen got pulled into the fray for the faces, and then Terry Funk re-emerged as Ole’s latest ally by the end of September. This was a fantastic angle and delivered quality content for weeks on end with no signs of slowing up at this point. Finally, Terry Taylor wasn’t the only debutant in Q3, they saved the best for last with the Freebirds turning up in the latest episodes of Georgia Championship Wrestling. Their TV matches didn’t necessarily match the hype, but their initial presentation was perfect, from their skills on the microphone to their entrance music, and they came across as the biggest deal in wrestling. They were new - they were it. I’m curious to see what their first program is (if we get to see it at all) but Hayes and Gordy alone feel like they’re worth the price of admission. Portland The biggest issue with Portland is just the lack of Tuesday show footage. We missed the departures of both Rick Martel and Roddy Piper, and I believe at least two title changes as well. The Saturday footage was very good, and Portland continues to be excellently booked considering the talent pool of the promotion, but now more than ever it felt like the Saturday stuff was merely used to build to and hype the Tuesday events, the best example being the final Rose v Piper showdown before their Loser Leaves Town match. After the Sheepherders turned face and then subsequently left the promotion Rose was required to retool and the version of Rose’s Army with Rose, Wiskowski, Cortez and Rip Oliver do feel a step down somewhat compared to the “original” version we were introduced to at the start of the year. On the face side, we finish the month of September with the cupboard pretty bare, leaning heavily on Jonathan Boyd as the biggest hitter, flanked by rookie Mike Popovich and an ageing and injured Dutch Mantell, who we’ve seen more often as a special referee than an active wrestler. It wasn’t a surprise that they introduced Lightfoot and that Jay Youngblood is coming down the pike soon enough to bolster that side of the locker room. We saw the climax to the “Rose in a mask” saga, with Piper finally wrenching it from him, revealing the dark brown hair underneath and concluding the narrative arc that had been percolating from basically the start of the year. From a booking standpoint I think Portland did an excellent job here to keep things consistently interesting despite the somewhat shallow talent pool. My only complaint really would be that it would be nice to see Rose’s motivations pivot slightly from merely trying to run everybody else out of town so he can control the Northwest. I think they need another hook at this point. All Japan Women The American contingent were far more prominent than they had been before, with Leilani Kai popping up in both July and August, Jackie Sato solidified herself as the main babyface of the company with the booking in both blocks of footage I saw positioning her far and away at the top of the Japanese babyface crew in a way I didn’t really feel earlier in the year. The company’s highlight I think was the Guam tour in August. From the beautiful ring mat, to the increased matchup variety due to the aforementioned influx of new Americans - it was a fun ride. The biggest surprise was Wendy Richter. I’ve used a Reddit thread as a guide of sorts to figure out what I’m watching and to get some additional context, and they were incredibly down on Richter during this tour - I couldn’t be more of the opposite opinion. Her stuff looked credible, she came across as a monster compared to the Japanese women, and I don’t see how she wasn’t essentially doing an upgraded, more interesting version of Monster Ripper’s gimmick. I’m really hoping I get to see more of her in either the US or Japan soon. All Japan All Japan suffered from the same lack of footage they had in Q2. I’m far less interested in their imported Lucha talent compared to New Japan, so there’s a few random tags that I skipped over, but it really was slim pickings. What we were left with was really just the two NWA Title matches between Race and Baba, neither of which were real classics. New Japan New Japan however continued its strong run with both availability of footage and match quality. Fujinami was on a real tear in 1980 and he wasn’t slowing down any time soon, in fact, he only seemed to improve as the year wore on. Even Inoki, II think, has been on a good little run, as his Hansen matches have delivered for the most part and his star aura is still very much intact at this point and doesn’t look like it’ll be on the wane any time soon. Their talent imports haven’t been perfect (Tony Rocco comes to mind), but I saw pretty great matches from the likes of Londos and Ron Starr and I thought that even a young Bret Hart had good showings, demonstrating embryonic aspects of what I like about him later on. All the while they seemed like they were capable of elevating their in-house talent like Kengo Kimura, even if I wish Choshu had been more prominently featured. World of Sport Finally the Dennison/Breaks matches are over with. By the end of this I was desperate for Breaks to pivot to somebody else (in fact I had reached this point by June even) and Dennison just kept getting worse and worse. I can’t believe he was so consistently featured on TV. It felt like there were more bad performers in this period with Eagle, King Kong Dirk and Giant Haystacks getting TV time (in addition to Dennison). I got my first look at Terry Rudge though who I know people are really high on (I found it hard to develop a strong impression after the single match I saw) and we got good matches from Pat Roach and newbies (to me) in Johnny South v Ringo Rigby. World of Sport is a real tricky one to nail down and summarise due to the fact that they didn’t really air angles. So it’s the most “sports”-esque among the promotions in the sense that we often get seemingly random matchups and the narratives are usually confined to those single matches. Others IWE didn’t have much, but they trot out my new least favourite wrestler in Spike Huber. His partner Rocky Brewer wasn’t much better and they are both in strong positions for a lot of my “worst of” categories by the year's end. I would like to see more of Mighty Inoue though. Houston obviously had to have the bad Mark Lewin/Gino Hernandez match, but decidedly over delivered with a Gino v Bruiser Brody offering which I was pleasantly surprised with. They sorely need some more heavy hitters to come in and take some of the burden off Gino though. I know I’ve been down on Houston all year but I’ve seen what’s available in the upcoming years and I’m excited by a lot of the match listings, so I’m going to persevere in the hope that I follow it on an upswing. AWA and Mid-Atlantic are still sorely lacking in footage. It’s all the more frustrating because the Mid-Atlantic matches in particular that do pop up are so fun, you know there’s a wealth of gold just lost in the ether.

1980-09-30 NJPW Fan Appreciation Super Fight Bob Backlund (c) vs Stan Hansen WWF Heavyweight Title Match Nippon Budokan, Tokyo, Japan ★★ Link Immovable object vs unstoppable force, but in the worst way. The early arm work by both men didn’t go anywhere, meaning the first half was essentially just filler, and I just had the impression that they constantly reached points where they had no idea where to go next. Both men were used to overwhelming their opponents and willing them into submission. For Hansen this would be an eye rake or something, Backlund usually just retaliated enough times until his opponent stops attacking and allows him to take back control. Here it kind of felt like a child with two toys, smashing them into each other again and again without rhyme or reason. However, Hansen blinked first, taking a high knee, and we had our first point of real vulnerability. I’ll admit the finishing stretch redeemed this somewhat. Bob followed up with one of his beautiful piledrivers (all the more impressive hitting it on a guy Hansen’s size) and we finished up with a mad flurry on the outside, including a couple wild Lariat whiffs from Hansen, one of which clocked the ringpost. I believe the official decision was DQ on Hansen for throwing Backlund over the railings. I’m not sure I’ve seen that finish before and wasn’t aware that this was a rule in New Japan. Is this their equivalent of the NWA over-the-top-rope rule? Anyway, I hope that these two work out the kinks for Hansen’s upcoming run in WWF. 1980-09-30 NJPW Fan Appreciation Super Fight Antonio Inoki (c) vs Ken Patera NWF Heavyweight Title Match Nippon Budokan, Tokyo, Japan ★★★ Link Both gave a ton in this match. Patera, great at being the dick heel; that jock bully, also knew when it was time to turn tail and beg off. Sometimes his penchant for big bumping worked against him, as it did at points here, but in the broad strokes it got the desired effect across. Patera opened this up with three massive body slams. Usually these were reserved for humiliating jobbers, but Inoki ate the brunt of these here. Patera trash talking the whole way was gold. Eventually he followed up with a Bar Hug, and this is usually where a match would fall off, but not here. Here is where Inoki shone. Instead of just standing there and taking it, you could see he was enduring the pain but trying to remain calm, calculating his method of escape. He tucked his hand in on the one side and slowly worked it in before suddenly going for the break. He wasn’t free for long as Patera locked the Bear Hug on a second time, but again, Inoki kept his cool and managed to free himself enough to get to the ropes. What I really loved is that while he was in the hold he went to great efforts to steel himself and his expressions. His focus was on escaping the hold, however once free he leant hard into selling the back, doubling over to stretch out the lower back and gingerly moving about the ring which I thought was incredibly effective selling. As they transitioned into the finish it was Inoki in the ascendancy and Patera switched to begging off and selling big. He lulled Inoki in and then sent him to the floor outside where he laid him out with another body slam. Inoki didn’t oversell this, but instead took his time to re-enter the ring. He circled around, coming across like a film action star, milking the moment and building towards the big crescendo. A flash tope back into the ring took Patera by surprise and it wasn’t long before he was felled by the Enziguri and tumbled to the outside. He survived one Octopus Hold, but a flurry of offense by Inoki set up a second, and Patera was too far from the ropes and that was lights out for him. I really enjoyed Patera’s performance here, he did exactly what he should have done and at exactly the right times. But this is a great example of Inoki being Inoki and that being perfect. When it was time to just be a star, Inoki certainly had that in his locker in a way few guys ever did. He oozes cool and that sense of entitlement that I can only assume comes from actually being the boss. Sometimes it works against him, but in big moments, it often is an incredible talent to be able to rely on.