SAMS
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1981-09-18 NJPW - Bloody Fight Series 1981 - Day 25 Tatsumi Fujinami & Tiger Mask vs. El Solitario & Solar Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium, Osaka, Japan Card ★ Solar looked a bit like a headless chicken out there, not really with it in terms of timing, or even understanding how the tag rules worked. The Tiger Mask/Fujinami dynamic was the same as all their previous matches together. Tiger Mask was the one shunted to the foreground to shine and Fujinami just felt like he was making up the numbers. This was nothing special really but what drags it down from just blah to poor was a huge blunder, even by Tiger Mask’s standards, when he whiffed on his patented backflip off his opponent in the corner move. It just makes you look like a complete clown out there when you fuck up your own move, which was shitty enough to start with. Secondly, we got a piss poor double countout finish immediately after that so everything just fell completely flat. Tiger Mask and Fujinami’s team finished up on a down due to the botch and the Mexican team hadn’t got in enough shots to make it feel like they were in the ascendancy either. So it was a big pile of nothing all round. 1981-09-18 NJPW - Bloody Fight Series 1981 - Day 25 Stan Hansen vs. Antonio Inoki Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium, Osaka, Japan Card ★★ If you’ve seen any of their matches from 1980 then you pretty much have seen this match. They added a neat wrinkle in Hansen hitting the Lariat in the opening couple minutes to pop a near fall, but otherwise this was par the course for these two. There was a lot of struggle over holds on that mat, but that didn’t play to either man’s strengths - unbridled carnage for Hansen and cultivating standout moments for Inoki. They also ended up with the most bland and standard of finishes, the double countout. I moan about finishes a lot, and we know 80s finishes in general are pretty trash, but a DQ or a countout in of itself doesn’t need to be bad, it’s just when they are done lazily. This was a lazy double countout. Oh, we’ve hit the allotted time, let's roll to the outside, reverse a couple moves, both end up stalling for time on the mat and the bell rings. So uninspired. Hansen has been surging for me recently but he can still end up in these kinds of matches where none of it comes together as you’d like. He’s not quite yet a worker that can generate a good match at will regardless of circumstance or opponent. 1981-09-18 Houston Wrestling The Dynamic Duo (Gino Hernandez & Tully Blanchard) (c) vs. Manny Fernandez & Mil Mascaras SWCW Southwest Tag Team Title Match Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, Texas, USA Card ★★ The Dyanamic Duo certainly had the chickenshit heel routine down, with Gino in particular timing his escapes through the ropes expertly to generate maximum crowd reaction, but I’m not sure they’ve yet generated the synergy for when they’re on top. Their heat sequences were a bit staid and felt one note which handicapped the match somewhat. I do like Gino more as a tag guy than in the role he held before, essentially the mainstay singles star on the roster, as I think it doesn’t overstretch him as much. Manny was a ton of fun, but I wish we’d seen more of him. Having Mil Mascaras as your partner though always means you’ll have to take a backseat. Mascaras is fine, but I really struggle every time to understand what is supposed to make him stand out as this big star. Nothing he did here was particularly special. It was Mascaras who took the pin here though, which I absolutely did not see coming. All four men suddenly shifted into “going home” mode, Mascaras got isolated as the two referees were busy handling Manny in the corner, and I kept waiting for a twist but Tully crotched him on the ropes and got the pin. Honestly coming in that would have been my least likely outcome but maybe he’s sticking around a while to get his revenge.
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1981-09-17 NJPW - Bloody Fight Series 1981 - Day 24 Tiger Mask vs. Brazo de Plata Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium, Osaka, Japan Card ★★★ You can almost judge a Tiger Mask match based entirely on how many botches occur. When he and his opponent aren’t on the same wavelength there are many and often, when they can get on the same page, it can make for some really exciting wrestling. This was an example of the latter, Plata being able to keep up with Tiger Mask during his furiously fast paced offensive sequences but maintaining enough offensive credibility that he didn’t just get steamrolled. I liked the dynamic of Brazo de Oro being there at ringside and him coming in at one point for some cheap shots before the referee realised it was the wrong brother and I wish they would have gone to that more often. Otherwise I really just wished that Plata was better when he was attacking. I mentioned that he was able to stand his ground and keep things relatively even for the most part, but his output here was mostly holds that contained Tiger Mask rather than anything designed to do real damage, and they weren’t worked particularly interestingly either. If we’d got that then this would have been really good. 1981-09-17 NJPW - Bloody Fight Series 1981 - Day 24 Stan Hansen vs. Tiger Toguchi Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium, Osaka, Japan Card Barely even 5 minutes but worked at a breakneck pace and they jam packed a ton of action into their allotted time. Ultimately the only question was, when would Hansen hit the Lariat, but Toguchi got enough stuff in to save face, including a lovely backbreaker off a Hansen turnbuckle bump. Hansen was just too much to overcome, and with upcoming matches against Inoki and Andre it’s clear why they’re presenting him so strongly at this point in time in particular. 1981-09-17 NJPW - Bloody Fight Series 1981 - Day 24 Andre The Giant vs. Antonio Inoki Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium, Osaka, Japan Card ★★★★ Fantastic example of what Andre, and only Andre, can bring to the table. This started a little slow with Andre controlling Inoki with a series of holds. Andre is never gonna really wow with his mat game but it was effective enough to get over his obvious size and strength advantages. The shift came when Inoki had the temerity to try and fuck with Andre. Just something as little as trying to grab a leg and Andre just swatted him away like a pesky fly. Later on Inoki actually managed to nail a sunset flip of all things. It only got a one count but the emphasis Andre put on that kickout, absolutely flailing around like a drowning fish, combined with the complete disbelief that Inoki had pulled such a stunt on him, came together to generate an effect that is unique to Andre alone. Inoki managed to get some headway around the midpoint by focusing on Andre’s arm. He first managed to wrench it and Andre was fully committed with the selling here. He then followed up with a series of kicks as Andre crumpled into the corner trying to get some respite. This really gave the sense that Inoki was on a roll and had found the silver bullet to defeating Andre, but unfortunately for him it wasn’t to be. Arnold Skaaland (acting as Andre’s manager) flung in a chair which Andre tried to use on Inoki, inadvertently braining the referee before splatting Inoki’s head into the mat with it. A big boot and splash followed but obviously with no referee there could be no pin. A second referee arrived to announce the DQ finish due to the chair shot on the referee and Inoki managed to backdrop Andre out over the ropes to have some kind of triumphant moment before he dived to the outside and had to be assisted to the back by his seconds. Solid performance from Inoki with the sequence of him attacking Andre’s arm being the highlight. For Andre, just another performance where he knocked it out of the park. Leveraging his one of a kind size and aura to generate singular moments, fantastic selling and even a big bump or two as well.
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I have no trouble buying that. Despite being somebody who evidently was still serviceable in the ring as a 55 year old man, booking himself to go out on top as the champion has got to be one of the greatest examples of self-aggrandising in wrestling history that had such an obvious, and avoidable, negative impact on the promotion. But from what I've heard this may have not been the first, and certainly wouldn't be the last, time that Verne went the route of just handing Bock the title as default. It would be an understatement to say that my AWA history is hazy, other than the general heavyweight title lineage and most pimped matches, it's all pretty much a blank slate to me. Do you know if this marks a point where Bock switches to become more of a face, or does he revert to consistently being a heel again and the face turn happens much later in the 80s? I can't imagine him fully turning until Heenan jumps ship at the earliest.
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1981-09-13 AWA Ray Stevens vs. Billy Robinson Minneapolis Auditorium, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA Card ★★ I really liked the start to this. Stevens was stalling on the outside and Robinson was frustrated with the referee’s delay in starting the count. The twist was that while usually this kind of routine puts the onus on the staller to interact with the referee and build the heat, in this case it was Robinson at odds with the referee, engaging the crowd, prompting them to start a big count of their own. It’s a side to Robinson that I haven’t seen too often and shows another dimension to what he had in his locker. Once we finally got underway Robinson was essentially toying with Stevens. Giving little feints, allowing Stevens to apply a hold just to reverse it, that kind of thing. He got a bit too cocky though and Stevens caught him with a rogue shot to the stomach. Robinson ended up on the outside and Stevens played King of the mountain. Later on the roles were reversed and Robinson had Stevens down and out and he kept kicking him while he was down and shoving him out of the ring. None of this work was bad at all, but they spent so long with either man outside of the ring and not a lot of it actually in the ring and wrestling. Overall I think we got maybe 3 minutes out of 15 with real “action”. I’m not saying that you need balls to the wall action for something to be good, but these sequences dragged on a bit too long, and while it was cool to see Robinson do something a bit different, he’s Billy Robinson, I want to see him wrestling for the most part. In the end Robinson did in fact win, surprising Stevens with a matter-of-fact backslide for the win in a somewhat flat finish. 1981-09-13 AWA Nick Bockwinkel vs. Sheik Adnan Al-Kassie No Disqualification Match Minneapolis Auditorium, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA Card ★★ I didn’t think much of this match really, but it had enough bells and whistles to keep it entertaining at least. Baron von Raschke was the referee here and he wasn’t afraid of getting in either man’s face, which would play a big role later on. Heenan was opened up almost immediately from a shot from the Sheik. They generally scrapped around the ring. Sheik himself was opened up, I wasn’t sure if it was from being posted or what, but suddenly his face was plastered in blood. Heenan, after being helped to the back previously, reemerged chair in hand. Raschke tried to cut him off, popped him right in the mouth for a classic Heenan bump on the apron, Bock took umbrage with that and went after Raschke who decided to use said chair, only to accidentally clock Adnan instead and Bock had his victory. The wild final sequence was fun and absurd in equal measure and I actually liked Raschke’s aloof attitude here, as he was clearly invested in being the referee but he also didn’t care who won, which is rare for a special referee stipulation. Being a heel vs heel match the dynamic was a bit off, but from Okerman’s commentary I got the sense that Adnan was more hated and thus Bockwinkel became a nominal face of sorts, but I don’t think that helped the match in getting into any sort of rhythm outside of the finish.
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1981-09-11 Houston Wrestling Dick Slater (c) vs. Bobby Duncum Southwest Heavyweight Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, Texas, USA Card ★★ Despite being the one the crowd was rooting for, Duncum liberally used tactics usually reserved for the heel. Wheeling around to block the referee’s view before administering a swift thumb to the throat, pulling hair to retain control, that sort of thing. The crowd was for him though so it did the job. The majority of his shine in the first fall revolved around these tactics while keeping a side headlock on. It was fun for a couple of minutes but it just went nowhere and lasted about three quarters of the whole match. Finally Slater, who’d been lying there doing a whole heap of nothing up to that point, came to life, suckered Duncum near the ropes, dragged him to the corner, before posting his left knee. I loved this transition because of how Duncum treated it. This was the great equaliser and Duncum was powerless to put up any kind of resistance and ultimately submitted to the spinning toe hold. Slater went right back to work on the leg to start the second but Duncum was able to steal the fall with a surprise lariat. The third fall was just as short, with Duncum somewhat recovering from all the work done to his leg, but getting an unexpected shove into the corner which allowed Slater to grab the win. The final two falls couldn’t have lasted more than 3-4 minutes and, fantastic bump aside, the finish felt really flat and unearned. This had its moments but hinged primarily on the excellent leg selling from Duncum and narrative weight that carried in terms of the condition of his leg. Unfortunately they spent far too long building up the first fall, only for none of that to matter and just blitz through the second two falls with no real rhyme or reason. Slater as well didn’t impress much beyond the focused offense on the leg. 1981-09-12 PNW Chris Colt vs. Art Crews Sports Arena, Portland, Oregon, USA Card ★★ Nowhere near as good as their previous match they had a week earlier. We still got the same tactics from Colt, but he wasn’t able to bring it all together to deliver another banger here. Crews still looked green, and still didn’t look up to much, but boy did the people in Portland love him. Perfectly fine show opener with fun moments from Colt, but not much more than that. 1981-09-12 PNW Buddy Rose & Kim Song vs. Brett Sawyer & Matt Borne Best Two Out Of Three Falls Tag Team Match Sports Arena, Portland, Oregon, USA Card ★★ This had one of the liveliest crowds in recent memory for Portland and they were firmly behind the team of Borne and Sawyer. This was a fun match, designed to get over the debuting Kim Song, his deadly chops and his lethal headbutt. I felt like Rose was operating at half speed, never really getting out of second gear, but even so you could tell he was at the heart of everything, orchestrating events. Initially Borne got a decent shine against Song, dodging his chop attempts and then both he and Sawyer nailed him with a series of atomic drops. So not the most auspicious start for the newcomer. Rose tried to regain control but Borne hit a surprise sunset flip off the top to take the first fall. They went harder in putting over Song in the next two falls, a headbutt deciding the second and a karate chop sealing the deal in the third. As I said, a fun match with a great crowd, just lacking that extra something to make it really good. As important as Rose was in tying everything together here I wonder if he could have done more to push this up a level.
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1981-09-09 Joint Promotions King Benn vs. Steve Casey British Heavy Middleweight Tournament Semi Final Match Victoria Baths, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, UK ★★ Far too dry and tedious for an almost 30 minute match. I’ll admit I was expecting a bit more after how much I enjoyed Benn’s previous match against Rocco, but I guess matching up against Rocco is an entirely different animal to going up against a guy making his TV debut. Casey apparently had several years of experience, just no television outings to his name. He had decent technique but he was almost gormless in how he sold for any of Benn’s offense. The strikes that Benn did connect with were by far the most interesting aspects of the match but the lack of any interesting selling kind of diminished their impact and made Benn come across like a lightweight lacking any real power. When the work transitioned to the mat things didn’t get much better, as they ended up going down far too many cul-de-sacs which ultimately resulted in a pointless break. The finish at least had some excitement and finally Benn’s attacks were met with appropriate responses. First, a nasty straight kick caught Casey right in the chin and sent him straight to the mat. He made it up before the count but a follow running headbutt, again landing directly to the face, meant it was lights out for Casey and Benn would be advancing to the final of the tournament. 1981-09-09 Joint Promotions Big Daddy & Steve Grey vs. Red Berry & Tony Walsh Victoria Baths, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, UK ★ At least they worked the expected shine -> heat -> comeback structure, otherwise this would have been interminable. Big Daddy was even more limited than I remember. I can’t recall him executing one move all match that wasn’t a shoulder tackle or a backdrop. Berry and Walsh weren’t exactly the most formidable of heel challengers, they looked more like two random guys they’d pulled in off the street and they’d been forced to rummage through the leisure centre’s lost and found to pull together their outfits. The main reason I even watched this was to see some more Steve Grey. When the heels finally started bending the rules and properly leaning into being dastardly was the only real chance Grey had to do some proper selling, and this was easily the match highlight by a country mile, but it was all too brief, resulting in a phantom submission on Grey (the referee disallowed it due to excessive double teaming) and then it was only a matter of seconds before Big Daddy was back in to finish things up, knocking out Walsh with a meaty backdrop. 1981-09-09 Joint Promotions Alan Kilby vs. Bobby Barnes British Heavy Middleweight Tournament Semi Final Match Victoria Baths, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, UK ★★ Again, I was expecting a bit more out of this considering the two men involved. Admittedly I’m a bit of a Barnes mark but I’m not sure the styles between the two matched. Either one needed to veer away from their usual approach to get this to work better. Kilby is the strong, reserved type. He was able to tank several heavy forearms from Barnes all the way through the bout. This lends itself well to your classic babyface comeback surges but he’s not the most adept at showing vulnerability, or at least his selling style is more subtle and naturalistic. For Barnes he’s all about cutting corners, finding small underhanded advantages, but often his tactics rely on his opponent expressively selling his sly moves. Things like leaning on a man’s windpipe while arguing with the referee works better when the one receiving the move is writhing around struggling to breathe. Kilby instead was more like a dead fish and it took the sting out of the whole thing. On the flip side Barnes could have been more of a stooge, playing up Kilby’s strength advantage, but with him taking most of the match and working the aforementioned black arts, it didn’t really play into either of their strengths and most of the mat work felt far too static. This wasn’t bad by any means but it was completely forgettable. Kilby ended up winning with a pin following a standing suplex and went on to face King Benn in the final. 1981-09-09 Joint Promotions Johnny Saint vs. Tony Costas Victoria Baths, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, UK ★ The more I watch of Saint the more he sours in my mind. Costas looked to be a decent hand, and maybe grapple fans of the 70s remembered him appearing on television, but you could have taken him for a fool for how Saint decided to work him here. Everything was all cheery and above board but it’s really starting to grate on me how much of an exhibitionist Saint is. Here, lock a body scissors on me just so I can undress it. Here, apply a full nelson on me just so I can counter it. Here, grab my leg, just so I can counter it. All the while making his opponent look like a dummy. In isolated incidents this isn’t too bad but this went on the whole match and by the time they reached a sequence where Costas resorted to just standing there idly while Saint ran rings around him I was completely checked out. Saint unsurprisingly won the thing, 2 falls to 1, but it was a foregone conclusion from the start. 1981-09-09 Joint Promotions Chris Adams vs. Fit Finlay Victoria Baths, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, UK ★★★ Finlay’s television debut here. Adams apparently had returned from a North American tour and he certainly looked to have filled out some, with Walton stating it could have been by as much as 14 pounds. Despite being relatively young here Finlay exhibited all of the bruising traits that have made him famous. I guess he was an underdog here against the more established Adams and it seemed like he may have taken him by surprise. Finlay’s act wasn’t exactly refined but he already knew how to sow seeds of discontent and every time a round finished he would absentmindedly “forget” to break, slowly pushing Adams’ buttons and constantly raising the tension. As the rounds went along any pretence of this being a wrestling bout went out that window as this descended into an all out scrap. Adams really tried to give as good as he got, and with his added mass his non-kick based offense looked better and more credible than ever, but Finlay’s forearms in particular, even at this stage of his career, looked absolutely menacing. They traded falls and Finlay eventually racked up two public warnings before Adams cleaned his clock with an Enzuigiri that sent him tumbling over the top rope and Finlay just couldn’t quite make it back before the count giving Adams a nice knockout victory.
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1981-09-09 NJPW - Bloody Fight Series 1981 - Day 17 Tatsumi Fujinami & Tiger Mask vs. Los Brazos (Brazo de Oro & Brazo de Plata) Civic Gymnasium, Goshogawara, Aomori, Japan Card ★ Very similar in style to the previous Los Brazos match against Tiger Mask and El Solitario, but this time with half the effort and a quarter of the ingenuity. Fujinami, as he’s been prone to do, just faded into the background, another missed opportunity to put his stamp on a match. Tiger Mask showed more miss than hit here, whiffing on a couple big spots here that just fell flat like a lead balloon. Finally, the Brazos weren’t able to show any of the kind of interesting team dynamics or offense they did before. The only real sequence of interest involved a series of friendly fire, but even that felt uninspired with each banana peel telegraphed a mile away and just felt lazily executed by all involved. 1981-09-09 NJPW - Bloody Fight Series 1981 - Day 17 Andre The Giant vs. Seiji Sakaguchi Civic Gymnasium, Goshogawara, Aomori, Japan Card ★ I think one valid criticism of Andre at this time is that he often ended up working very short matches. This happened basically wherever he worked, so it certainly is an Andre thing and not merely promotional. That’s what happened here. It went 6 minutes or so, I’d describe it as an extended squash really. Sakaguchi was scrappy enough to give this a go but there was an air of inevitability about this, to the point that just grabbing on a hammerlock prompted the crowd to give Sakaguchi a round of applause. But the kind you give a young child at a school play because they managed to not mess up the one line they were given. Sakaguchi tried to take things to the outside but Andre yanked him back onto the apron, gave him a headbutt, suplexed him back into the ring, big boot, then splash for the win. Not the best to be honest. 1981-09-09 NJPW - Bloody Fight Series 1981 - Day 17 Bad News Allen & Stan Hansen vs. Antonio Inoki & Riki Choshu Best Two Out Of Three Falls Tag Team Match Civic Gymnasium, Goshogawara, Aomori, Japan Card ★★ Really quite disappointing. The clashes between Hansen and Inoki were electric, and looking at this match as a platform to build a singles match down the line then this kind of did its job. But taking a step back and looking at this match in a vacuum, I think only Hansen really came out of this looking any good. He had really found his groove at this point in being a complete wrecking ball. The aforementioned matchup with Inoki was great due to the pace and intensity they brought, but I think he also matched up well with smaller guys like Fujinami, or in this case, Choshu, purely due to the annihilation that he can rain down on them. Unfortunately if any other pairing came together in the ring this kind of just fell apart. Bad News Allen has never been as bland as he was here and Inoki looked to be on autopilot when he wasn’t squaring off against Hansen. Choshu was pretty game to play his role as “bottom of the totem pole bump and sell” guy, but his contributions relied on a good dance partner and Allen wasn’t up to the task on this night so his efforts were often wasted. Hansen got overzealous, beating Choshu up at ringside which gave Inoki an opportunity to catch Allen by surprise with a backslide for a pin. The match ended with an incredibly lazy double countout where Hansen just seemed to stop caring that he was the legal man and continued brawling on the outside. Considering this was the main event of the show I think it’s a bit disrespectful to the fans to have such a poor finish. If the wrestlers blatantly don’t care who wins then why should the fans. This wasn’t one of those situations where there was a wild, out of control brawl or an angle of sorts being run, it was just Hansen ignoring the count, charging around on the outside, the referee called for the double countout, then Inoki and Choshu trundled to the back while Hansen continued chucking chairs around.
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His WOS stuff is more of a curiosity, jarring specifically because of how lean and gangly he was at this stage compared to what he would become. He doesn’t stand out to me as great, or even particularly good, at this point but he was capable enough to be guided (not carried) to a series of great matches against Jim Breaks. So I could see why some people would view this period as a plus for his GWE case on the strength of those.
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I second the praise of all the recommended matches above, but Andre's performances stick out to me specifically in those two tag matches. Andre/Patterson vs. Patera/Bobby Duncum and Andre/Garea vs Sarge/Moondog Rex are just ridiculously fun to watch and are great examples of how to wring the most out of having Andre involved in what otherwise could have been throwaway matches. The Spectrum one in particular was so good just for how they managed to make Andre merely charging the opponent's corner feel like a high spot
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1981-09-05 PNW Chris Colt vs. Art Crews Sports Arena, Portland, Oregon, USA Card ★★★ I don’t think I’ve ever been so impressed with somebody within the first 5 minutes of ever seeing them for the first time. That’s how I feel about Chris Colt. Art Crews looked a bit like a lump, but he showed here that he wasn’t completely useless, but I get the sense that Colt could have had this same match with literally anybody on the planet and it would have been just as good. He was running through the whole repertoire of heel shenanigans, including at least two different hair pulling routines, and he got his comeuppance both times, even managing to loop the referee into the deal in an interesting way. This was mile a minute Marx Brothers level schtick and the crazy nutter who looked like he’d been transported back in time from the mid-90s was the puppet master. Even more surprising was that he lost the match rather convincingly, indicating that he was quite far down the pecking order, even in a small promotion like Portland, and after checking his cagematch page he’d started his career in the 60s(!!!) 1981-09-07 AJPW - Super Idol Series - Day 16 Mil Mascaras vs. Genichiro Tenryu City Gymnasium, Fukuyama, Hiroshima, Japan Card ★★ Joined in progress at the 7 minute mark. I think this may have been for Mascaras’ IWA World Heavyweight Title that he’d defended a couple other times on this tour, because they mentioned something around that on commentary several times but I couldn’t confirm. They also kept saying that Tenryu was All Japan’s “3rd man”, so clearly pushing the narrative of him being at that rank in the pecking order behind Baba and Jumbo. I’d say that since his Georgia days and his return to Japan he certainly has improved. In general I was surprised here by how good his mat transitions were, taking it to Mascaras on that front and decidedly getting the better of his older opponent. First he turned a death lock into a figure four and later on he smoothly countered some formless attack from Mascaras, which finally resulted in a Romero Special attempt. Overall Tenryu’s general strategy was to attack the leg, with most of the damage coming from the aforementioned figure four, but he followed that up with several other moves all focused solely on that leg. I usually think of him as more of a strike/suplex kind of guy, but here he showed an entirely different dimension that I thought was truly impressive. Mascaras caught Tenryu with a cradle for the flash win but Tenryu looked like he was on the verge of the upset so a great job at further raising Tenryu’s stock here.
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1981-09-04 Houston Wrestling Bruiser Brody (c) vs. Ken Patera SWCW Brass Knuckles Title Match Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, Texas, USA Card ★★ Nice to see Patera back in action after not making footage for so long (Georgia TV notwithstanding). There are times where I wish he was a bit more brutal with his offense but he’s such a fantastic stooging heel. This was fun but there wasn’t much to it and the strikes from both men, especially considering this was a brass knuckles title match, could have been crisper. Tank Patton came out to give an edge to Patera, including handing him a steel chair. Bobby Duncum followed suit to level the playing field and we ended up with all four men in the ring and the referee called for a DQ on Patera. With a big six man elimination tag involving these four men coming up immediately after this ultimately was just a setup match for that. 1981-09-04 Houston Wrestling Ken Patera, Tank Patton & Tully Blanchard vs. Bobby Duncum, Bruiser Brody & Manny Fernandez 10.000 Dollar Elimination Six Man Tag Team Match Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, Texas, USA Card ★★★ An absolutely wild start focusing on the pairing of Brody vs. Patera, carrying over from their match that occurred just before. Patera was having none of it unless Brody was incapacitated, so we got some excellent tag avoidals from him. Eventually things got a bit out of control between the two and their fight spilled to the outside and both men ended up being eliminated via countout and they continued brawling straight down the aisle all the way back to the dressing room. Things dropped off a bit following the first round of eliminations but the final sequence where first Manny, then Patton and finally Blanchard were pinned was really well executed and supremely fun. Overall I’d say that Patton was a negative, weak on offense and easily the least mobile of the six. My thoughts on Duncum are quite clear, but this time he showed that he wasn’t up to much on US soil as well as in Japan. Manny was surprisingly fun, a real firebrand who I haven’t seen much of before but I loved his intensity and he added a reckless energy to the whole thing and Blanchard, well Blanchard is always just on point.
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September 1981-09-04 AJPW - Super Idol Series - Day 13 Jumbo Tsuruta (c) vs. Gypsy Joe NWA United National Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium, Osaka, Japan Card ★★★ I liked this so much more than I expected. A two out of three falls match that goes over 20 minutes with Gypsy Joe of all people was not something that screams “watch me” but I thought this was really good, and Joe was a large part of why. Joe continued his no-selling style, forcing Jumbo to double down and dig deep when mounting his offense, and while this can often just come across as lazy or self-serving, it worked fantastically here to ground the match and give it a real grind-it-out feel. I don’t think anybody would call this match exciting, but it was certainly gritty. Jumbo had to totally lay in his shots because otherwise they wouldn’t register at all. Joe in return was sending back super stiff shots as the slugfest continued. Jumbo took the initial fall by managing to return to the ring first after a brawl outside the ring. Joe went to a weapon to draw blood on Jumbo before nailing him with a sickening knee drop from the top to level things up. I was 99% certain that this would end in some kind of countout or a no contest finish, as was the norm at this time, so to say I was shocked would be putting it mildly when Jumbo got Joe to submit with a Boston Crab to seal the deal. Guys like Joe - along with the Abdullah and Singh’s of the world - just do not submit, and I guess Joe wasn’t on the level of those guys in terms of promotional standing, but it felt huge in its own way. The way they presented Joe here just did a great job of putting over Jumbo in vanquishing him. He had to resort to tactics like biting Joe’s cut that you normally don’t see from him. Joe brought out a side of Jumbo that I didn’t know he had at this time, but he went to that dark place, did what he had to do, and put away the monster. And that, in my eyes, elevated Jumbo a lot. 1981-09-04 NJPW - Bloody Fight Series 1981 - Day 13 Tatsumi Fujinami & Tiger Mask vs. El Solitario & Pete Roberts City Gymnasium, Toyota, Aichi, Japan` Card ★★ Pretty flashy and worked at a fast pace, but kind of the epitome of doing a lot of stuff that results to nothing kind of match. Solitario continued to be a complete neutral and Roberts is more solid than special in my eyes. Tiger Mask did Tiger Mask things, but he's the biggest culprit of doing stuff that doesn’t mean anything. The greatest disappointment here was Fujinami. In these tag matches with Tiger Mask he’s tended to fade into the background and allow his partner to take centre stage. This kind of leaves him as an afterthought and it’s still very clear that he could be one of the best in the world, but in my view, you can’t hold that crown unless you actually bring the goods once in a while. Outside of their tag partnership it feels like his prominence on the cards, and in the promotion as a whole, has receded due to Tiger Mask’s emergence and his overall output has been way off what he managed in 1980. 1981-09-04 NJPW - Bloody Fight Series 1981 - Day 13 Andre The Giant, Bad News Allen & Stan Hansen vs. Antonio Inoki, Riki Choshu & Tiger Toguchi Best Two Out Of Three Falls Six Man Tag Team Match City Gymnasium, Toyota, Aichi, Japan Card ★★★ Grumpy monster heel Andre is the best kind of Andre. Just from their entrances alone you could see this heel team were a mean bunch and Andre, usually jolly and smiling, had his mean mug on and you knew this was gonna be great. Bad News Allen and Hansen were great at roughing up their opponents, but the first fall was completely about positioning Andre as a complete menace. In the ring as the legal man, nobody on the other team had any chance at handling him. Inoki’s attempts at throwing a blitz of strikes and staying on the move was about as close to success as any of them got, but the fact that he often ended up in the wrong corner with Allen and Hansen pawing at him kind of nullified any advantage he had managed to carve out. Outside the ring working the apron as well though, Andre made his presence felt in a big way. I always love him reaching over and using his length to impact what’s happening in the ring, but he also subtly would get in shots whenever an opponent was lying on the mat near him, including a savage stomp to Choshu’s ankle while it was draped on the rope that looked like he’d snapped it entirely. The heels unsurprisingly took the first fall, Andre crushing Toguchi with a splash. The Japanese team resorted to some underhand tactics of their own to try and get a foothold in the match, targeting Allen, the most obvious weakest link, sending him to the outside to allow Toguchi and Choshu to double team while Inoki ran interference in the ring. Allen came right back shortly after, pretty much none the worse for wear, but I appreciated the strategy even if it didn’t pay off. The underlying thread of the second fall was the miscommunications between Andre and Hansen though. Twice Hansen inadvertently rocked Andre with shots and this was how the whole thing ended, Hansen accidentally nailing Andre with a Lariat out on the floor, Andre saying enough was enough and the two going at it as the referee either threw the match out or called for a double countout. I was always curious how the famous Andre/Hansen match came about and seeing them tag together so close to that match certainly piqued my suspicions that we’d see something like this here. It wasn’t particularly original, but it didn’t have to be to be effective. Great all round match that delivered on what it set out to do and a real star performance from Andre in particular.
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1981-08-28 NJPW - Bloody Fight Series 1981 - Day 7 Bad News Allen, Pete Roberts & Stan Hansen vs. Riki Choshu, Seiji Sakaguchi & Tatsumi Fujinami Six Man Tag Team Match City Gymnasium, Isahaya, Nagasaki, Japan Card ★★ Generally liked the heels' rough housing but other than Sakaguchi the faces were working at a serious size disadvantage here. My yearning for a Hansen/Fujinami singles match continues to grow as the sequences with Hansen outright mauling him were a fucking joy. This was most notable for Hansen projecting an air of menace and nobody on the other team having any kind of answer for him and also him getting sucker punched by a random dude in the crowd with a perm, which pissed Hansen off something fierce. I’m not sure whether security or anybody else caught him but Hansen was ready to jump the barrier if it weren’t for some savvy interference from Sakaguchi. Overall this was a bit of a mess structurally, but an enjoyable 15 minutes, and Hansen was a force, or as they called him on commentary, a typhoon. 1981-08-28 NJPW - Bloody Fight Series 1981 - Day 7 Antonio Inoki vs. Dick Murdoch City Gymnasium, Isahaya, Nagasaki, Japan Card ★★ Murdoch might very well have thrown the most savage punches of all time. Lawler has a great punch but it’s a spectacle punch. I love Dundee’s punches too. But Murdoch looked like he was throwing savage potatoes left, right and centre that just connected with this deadened impact and made them feel so brutal. Inoki looked like he was willing to take them for the sake of professionalism if nothing else, but when it was his time to start throwing haymakers in return he didn’t hold back one bit, connecting with a couple nasty strikes. In a standup battle though, Murdoch was always able to retain the advantage and it was only when Inoki took things to the mat and started working Murdoch’s knee that he got any luck. Inoki and matwork is never a completely thrilling adventure but Murdoch sold the damage to the leg so well afterwards that it was almost worth it. Things turned into somewhat of a slugfest, with perhaps Inoki gaining some steam, but Ueda Umanosuke came out only to be headed off by Strong Kobayashi, calling the match at ringside, and before I knew it the referee had thrown the match out due to the resulting brawl involving all four men. Not the most riveting of finishes but the heels got enough heavy shots in to make their point. Inoki was good enough here, and he brought the necessary intensity to counter the early onslaught he faced to make that whole sequence feel impactful and meaningful, but this was really all about Murdoch who was essentially note perfect. Loved his selling when he was called to do so and just terrific bone jarring offense.
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1981-08-25 AJW Mimi Hagiwara (c) vs. Leilani Kai All Pacific Title Match Japan ★★★ Mimi wasn’t taking any shit this evening. Leilani tried to get a cheap shot in at the bell and Mimi fired back with several forceful kicks which set the tone for the entire match. This essentially was a sprint, and in some ways it was almost like an extended squash, just without the definitive finish. Mimi controlled 90% of this match. Kai would somehow mount a sequence of offensive moves here and there but it was never long before Mimi would come roaring back and regain control. Mimi has never looked as good as she did here. All piss and vinegar, really taking the fight to Leilani and never letting her foot come up off the pedal. Kai played her part well enough, good selling, especially when her arm got snapped off the ropes, but generally she was game to do the go-go-go thing and just make Mimi look like a killer. Yes, the finish was a bit shit, both women getting counted out during a ringside brawl, but Mimi clearly looked like the one in charge, defended her title without Kai necessarily having to do the job. 1981-08-28 AJPW - Super Idol Series - Day 8 Dos Caras & Mil Mascaras vs. Chavo Guerrero & Ricky Steamboat PWF Cup Tag Team Tournament Final Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Welfare Hall, Sanjo, Niigata, Japan Card ★★ Nothing offensive but far too long for what it was. They worked this as an ultra-sportsmanlike bout, always going overboard to break clean, but the issue with that is where is the heat going to come from? Unless you can put on some sort of technical masterclass it just starts to feel like an exhibition and there were elements of that here, and at 30 minutes long it just went on, and on, and on. A few things I liked however were the finishes to the first and third falls. The first had Ricky grab Dos Caras in a full nelson, roll onto his back and allow Chavo to hit a Snton from the top and squish them both. I felt bad for Caras cause he got the full force of Chavo right in his face. The third involved the masked team taking advantage of their opponent’s mix ups and Mascaras hit his flying crossbody for the win. Otherwise some neat leg selling from Steamboat was the only real notable thing that happened for the whole match.
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1981-08-22 AJPW - Super Idol Series - Day 3 Mil Mascaras vs. Ricky Steamboat Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Omiya Skate Center, Omiya, Saitama, Japan Card ★★ Worked in a mat based style with two classic baby faces squaring off. They each grabbed an arm or a leg and worked a hold but it never felt like it really ever went anywhere. This ended up lasting just shy of 30 minutes and at the very least I wasn’t hating it by the time it was all said and done. There may have been a time when I would have been inclined to like this, but those days seem to have passed. Ultimately it was just quite dull and Steamboat’s expressive selling style still feels out of place in a Japanese context. You really feel like they should have been able to pull something more exciting out of the hat considering the time they had to work with. With things tied one apiece, Gypsy Joe and Gino Hernandez rolled out from the back and we got a brawl finish. 1981-08-23 NWA St. Louis - Wrestling At The Chase Harley Race vs. David von Erich Chase Park Plaza Hotel, St. Louis, Missouri, USA Card ★★★ It’s actually quite jarring how lanky David is compared to his brothers. Kevin is compact but built, to say nothing of Kerry, even at this early stage in his career. But David feels like the least developed physically which kind of takes something away from his legitimacy for me, especially when matched up against a burly guy like Race. Having said that, I thought they did a great job of slowly simmering this match, ratcheting it up slowly, then peaking just at the right time for the finish. So in terms of pacing, this was spot on. David controlled Race pretty solidly for the first half of the match as they struggled over a side headlock. Race managed to escape a couple times and mount some offense of his own, only to get rebuffed each time and David was able to regain the advantage. The little flurries from Race though really got across how dangerous he could be. In general I’ve found Race to be a bit weak as an offensive wrestler, especially as NWA champion, but here he was far more liberal with his headbutts, he bust out a greater variety of them, and they just looked far more deadly than I remember them being before. This meant that when he finally did manage to turn the tables and get some time on top it felt like a huge momentum swing because it felt like he had some KO shots in his arsenal. Tombstone piledrivers, regular piledrivers, headbutts, dirty stomps and elbow drops, just a vast array of attacks and it seemed like it might be lights out for David. He rallied though with my least favourite move, the Iron Claw, but a classic move by Race, pulling the referee into the wrestlers to cause the break, allowed him to dump David to the outside and hit a suplex on the concrete. This prompted Kerry to come out and make the save and the referee called for the DQ anyway handing the win to David. There were elements to this that perhaps weren’t to my taste but I think the exemplary pacing easily puts this in the “good” category for me. A nice alternative look at Race which made him feel more like the bruising hardman that he’s presented as being.
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1981-08-21 NJPW - Bloody Fight Series 1981 - Day 1 El Solitario & Tiger Mask vs. Los Brazos (Brazo de Oro & Brazo de Plata) Omiya Skate Center, Omiya, Saitama, Japan Card ★★★ Wasn’t too impressed with Solitario here, he felt a little hesitant and lost at times, but the Brazos did an admirable job of keeping Tiger Mask in check and the sequences where they got extended heat on him were by far the best portions of this match. There wasn’t much to distinguish either Brazo, but both were rough and tumble, nice hard hitting elbow strikes, and they worked well as a team to cut Tiger Mask off from his partner and really laid in the shots. Tiger Mask to his credit actually sold in a traditional manner, playing a standard FIP which felt out of character for him, but it helped serve the match no doubt. It also meant there were less standard showy Tiger Mask™ spots that he just ran through, and the big bombs he did hit carried some weight, including the nice looking double arm suplex he used to finish off Oro. Nice quick pace and action packed, if Solitario had slotted in a little more seamlessly instead of dragging down everything around him that would have been even better. Not sure I’ve seen any Brazos before but this was a really fun introduction and I thought they acquitted themselves really well in this context. 1981-08-21 NJPW - Bloody Fight Series 1981 - Day 1 Dick Murdoch vs. Tiger Toguchi Omiya Skate Center, Omiya, Saitama, Japan Card ★★★ This was a real blast. Just a straight slugfest from start to finish. I’d say that Murdoch had the best of it and it felt like he was slowly chipping away at Toguchi, wearing him down bit by bit and it was only a matter of time before Toguchi succumbed. In the end though Umanosuke Ueda came out and blindsided Toguchi with a cane. It lost Murdoch the match but it sent a message for sure. Murdoch is a guy with a hefty reputation but from what I’ve seen so far it hasn’t really connected with me. This however may be the turning point. Really fantastic, crisp offense and a killer punch in his locker. Considering that this was mostly just them wailing on each other for 15 minutes it never got boring and that’s a testament to Murdoch. Toguchi was no slouch either though. I think the only thing holding this back is that they reached their peak early and then just stuck with it. You could argue the tone was pretty one note throughout and it could have been improved with a more explosive climactic stretch, but otherwise a ton of fun.
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You’re doing God’s work here @El McKell I’d been procrastinating on posting something here for Barnes. But I thought that seeing as I stumped so hard for him on Discord I’m kind of obligated to do the same on PWO. But you beat me to it!
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1981-08-20 AJPW - Super Idol Series - Day 1 Giant Baba vs. Gypsy Joe Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan Card What fuck got in Baba’s bonnet here?!? This was handheld footage and these guys started off just chopping the shit out of each other. It was a bit disconcerting because Joe seemed to not realise he was in there with the boss and he was giving as much as he was taking and no-selling everything while he was at it. I can’t remember the last time I saw Baba look so motivated and if he worked like this more often I’d be all for it cause I thought he was awesome. The footage didn’t last long before it got clipped but we saw the finish as the action inevitably spilled to the outside and Baba ended up just clubbing Joe over and over and over again with a steel chair, only to get jumped from behind by someone (Gino Hernandez???) who proceeded to decimate Baba with a giant cane. Baba finally emerged from the mass of bodies with the cane and managed to ward off his assailants, with Joe ducking out into the crowd leaving Gino to do the stand off all by himself. This was barely anything in the grand scheme of things but it was nice to see Baba be an ass kicker for once. 1981-08-20 AJPW - Super Idol Series - Day 1 Mil Mascaras vs. Gino Hernandez Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan Card ★★ I can’t remember Mascaras receiving such a strong crowd reception at a similar point in time. Whatever the reason the fans in Korakuen Hall this evening were going absolutely bananas for him that he could hardly even make his entrance down to the ring without getting mobbed. Gino felt way more competitive here than I’m used to seeing from him in Texas. They worked some neat little hold exchanges and reversals on the mat for the most part and it was all pretty interesting and engaging but the escalation to the finish felt a little rushed and then suddenly it was over. Gino thought it was a good idea to get airborne, not once but twice, and both times he crashed and burned. This only put ideas in Mascaras’ head, but at least he landed his diving crossbody, and that was all it took to secure the victory. Kind of felt a bit half cooked really, but for 7-10 minutes or so I thought this was pretty decent.
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1981-08-11 WWC Carlos Colon (c) vs. Abdullah The Butcher WWC North American Heavyweight Title Match Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago Card ★★★ Some of it was the blood and some of it was the uneasy, volatile atmosphere, but there was a lot of good to take from this match. Carlon jumped Abdullah to start and was hyper focused on the ear which I thought was fantastic. Abdullah let Carlon have a bit too long of a shine and the first 5-8 minutes kinda dragged because of this, but I think that would be my single biggest complaint of the whole match. Once Abdullah decided it was time to go on offense Colon was able to show off his really good vulnerability selling and I never stop enjoying seeing a fat man dig deep into his karate bag. Abdullah was already bloodied up from the beating he received from Colon earlier but he returned the favour in kind by ramming Colon into the ring posts and we had double juice. From that point on Colon was fighting tooth and nail to just keep his head above water. He could get a sequence of strikes in but he was fighting against an unstoppable monster at that point, and while I didn’t know it at the time, the ending was inevitable. Slowly the resistance broke, piece by piece, and Abdullah became an avalanche. Elbow drop after elbow drop until finally the referee intervened and called the match in Abdullah’s favour. He wouldn’t stop the bombardment though and this is when things started to get dicey. The crowd had been shuffling closer and closer to the ring as the match wore on and at this point the ring was almost entirely surrounded. Some local wrestlers (apparently) tried to intervene to get Abdullah to cease his attacks, scuffles broke out in the crowd here and there, and at one point it looked like mob rule would win out as several arms went to grab Abdullah at the same time and I was concerned about how he would make it out of the situation. However, just like in Japan, as soon as he made a move for the crowd they scarpered, a mass of bodies just evaporating from his personal space, giving him the opportunity to high tail it with his title. 1981-08-15 PNW Buddy Rose vs. Steve Regal Non Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Sports Arena, Portland, Oregon, USA Card ★ Other than being well built, being blonde (real or not) and being able to do a nice looking victory roll, I’m not sure exactly what Regal brings to the table. He hardly exudes any charisma at all, at times it felt like Rose may have well been wrestling a broomstick. There were a few moments here and there where Rose would inject a little flourish, but on the whole this was dull as dishwater. There was nice symmetry between the finishes to the falls of the first and second, but they were just plain cradles that came out of relatively nowhere. The finish to the third was good, to their credit, with Regal inadvertently knocking down Sandy Barr, hitting a Victory Roll but Barr being unable to count the pin, then Rose caught him with a roll up of his own to steal the win. The second fall had WAY too much struggle over an abdominal claw and I wasn’t into Rose’s king of the mountain routine either. Overall pretty pedestrian.
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I'll admit that I'm not as familiar with him pre-gimmick change, but he's one of my key under-the-radar UK workers out of the guys who made tape a decent chunk of the time. I'm just a sucker for his working style. I've been considering heading further back in time in the near future so if I do I'm looking forward to seeing what he was like in the 70s. Okay, with that I'll cease diverting this WWF thread with WoS talk.
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Was it a punk rocker vibe that Barnes was going for? The change kind of just happened and I don't recall Walton ever really addressing it, but I always got the sense that his new look was emulating Freddie Mercury to an extent, switching from something androgynous to that short hair and bold moustache combo. I do think it was a positive change though as it prevented him from feeling dated with his old 70s look and instead gave him something that felt decidedly 80s.
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1981-08-09 AWA The East-West Connection (Adrian Adonis & Jesse Ventura) vs. The High Flyers (Greg Gagne & Jim Brunzell) Minneapolis Auditorium, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA Card Joined in progress over halfway through. From what we got I wouldn’t say this was very good at all but for two things: Adrian Adonis being Adrian Adonis and Brunzell continuing his really strong run in ‘81. Ventura’s selling here was almost comedic in its ridiculousness. Greg was at full “blah” levels and overall there were some blown spots and sequences that just made this feel a bit like a mess. Adonis had a few fun big bumps to punctuate the bad with some good, but the shining star was Brunzell. Every time he got in the ring it felt like he had a purpose, his offense looked great, he was intense, and most importantly, he felt like the most legit guy of the four. Through 80 and 81 I’m not sure if it’s always been clear if either Greg or Brunzell were better than each other, and often they could kind of blend into each other, but the past few months, and especially coming off his World Title match with Bockwinkel. I think it’s clear, without a shadow of a doubt, that by this point Brunzell had definitively surpassed Greg and was the better worker of the two High Flyers. 1981-08-09 AWA Nick Bockwinkel (c) vs. Sheik Adnan Al-Kassie AWA World Heavyweight Title Match Minneapolis Auditorium, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA Card Joined in progress right at the part where things had devolved into the punch and kick portion of the match. It all felt wild and out of control, in a good way, but it’s hard to get invested when you’re missing the buildup. Sheik pushed Bock a little too far and he snapped, smashing him with a chair for the DQ then had to be restrained to prevent him from going after Sheik any further. I really enjoyed Bock’s intensity here, but there’s only so far you can go with essentially a clip.
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1981-08-06 NJPW - Summer Fight Series 1981 - Day 30 Tatsumi Fujinami (c) vs. Stanley Lane WWF Junior Heavyweight Title Match Kuramae Kokugikan, Tokyo, Japan Card This was joined in progress so this is maybe two thirds of the whole match. Stan Lane continues to impress and he showed he was a worthy challenger here, getting the best of Fujinami a number of times - like reading his Dragon Rocket attack to pull him to the outside and mount an attack, but also laid in some heavy bombs as well, with his suplexes in particular looking excellent. But, and in a completely organic fashion I must say, Fujinami was too much to overcome. He rallied like only a champion can and sealed the deal with a somewhat new move for him, a Torture Rack. Fujinami feels like he’s finally hitting his stride in ‘81 and they’re really nailing the whole “true sport” dynamic with his matches, at least for a pro wrestling context. 1981-08-06 NJPW - Summer Fight Series 1981 - Day 30 Masked Superstar vs. Antonio Inoki Kuramae Kokugikan, Tokyo, Japan Card ★★ Wasn’t listed as such on Cagematch but they advertised this match as a $30,000 vs Mask match. Considering the stakes, I kind of expected this to be a bit “more” than it was. It wasn’t bad by any means, but it didn’t feel like the match stipulation added anything extra from what I would expect from a match between these two. The best parts of this were the roll throughs on holds. Early on Superstar had Inoki in a headlock, Inoki tried a counter but they would roll through and Superstar would keep the hold locked on. Later on they did the same in reverse, but this time with Inoki having locked on a Hammerlock. I thought this was a neat couple of sequences that projected a certain kind of technical expertise you don’t always see. Otherwise though I’d say, especially through the first half, Superstar seemed way too content to focus his strategy around choking Inoki, very similar to Bad News Allen in his match against Inoki. Considering the common denominator was Inoki it could have been his decision instead of theirs, but once again I wasn’t much of a fan of it. It wasn’t done in any particularly interesting way, Inoki wasn’t very good or interested in selling it, and it dragged down the pace of the match. When Superstar did get the opportunity to lay in some moves he delivered them with thudding velocity and I wished we’d seen more of that. There were flashes here of something good, but they never sequenced anything in the right order to feel like we were escalating properly. Inoki ran off his sequence of patented moves before grabbing the win with a German Suplex pin. Superstar did in fact have his mask stripped but Lane and another blonde foreigner I couldn’t identify were on hand to drape a towel over his head and usher him back to the dressing room leaving Inoki alone to stand tall once again.
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1981-08-02 NJPW - Summer Fight Series 1981 - Day 26 Tiger Mask vs. Scorpio Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan Card ★★ Essentially just another enhancement match for Tiger Mask but I was surprised by how much I liked Scorpio here. He’s got a budget Mario vibe going on with his square bodied physique and bushy moustache, but he had a bunch of real fun bumps and on the whole made Tiger Mask look pretty good. He never really came across like a credible challenge though, and I guess that may have been the point, overall though I got the sense that Sayama was going through the motions and all the things I liked about this were coming from Scorpio and not from him. They capped this off by botching a Sunset Flip off the turnbuckle, with Tiger Mask overshooting and Scorpio having to awkwardly roll back into position for a laughably fake looking finish. I think this is another example of Sayama trying things, or being asked to do things, that perhaps he’s not quite able to execute consistently. 1981-08-02 NJPW - Summer Fight Series 1981 - Day 26 Abdullah The Butcher vs. Tatsumi Fujinami Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan Card ★★★ Abdullah brought his A game here. I’m not sure whether it was just being in the ring with a dynamo like Fujinami but he looked like he was going double speed to start this. Fujinami really didn’t have much recourse here as he kept coming up against the immovable object that is Abdullah the Butcher. He’s a dynamic bumper so he made Abby’s offense look crisp and impactful. Eventually though Fujinami thought “fuck it, enough is enough”, dived under the ring, brought out some form of weapon and did an Abby on Abby and started stabbing away at his head. It wasn’t long before there were streaks of blood pouring down Abdullah’s face and Fujinami was on a roll. He gave it everything he had, even nailing a running headbutt, but the moment he hesitated and gave Abdullah a second to compose himself that was it, he got cut off and Abdullah was finished with his shit. A desperation Dragon Rocket just resulted in Fujinami getting plastered on the ringside railing and an absolutely thudding elbow drop left him squished on the mat as Abdullah rolled back in for the countout victory. That wasn’t to be the end of it though as these two went back at it for a few more minutes, their resulting brawl spilling out into the stands. 1981-08-02 NJPW - Summer Fight Series 1981 - Day 26 Bad News Allen vs. Antonio Inoki Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan Card ★★ This was ultimately less than the sum of its parts. Allen spent too long going for blatant chokes, and specifically at times that killed the organic momentum the match was building, which resulted in this feeling choppy and disjointed. The more static periods did mean however that Inoki’s flurries of offense felt like grand punctuations, with the crowd being really up for this in general and adding a ton of atmosphere. Overall I would say that when he was on offense, Inoki was able to bring his patented charisma and fire, but on the selling front he was too much of a dead fish and it never felt like Bad News was making any real headway. All the more disappointing because Allen has some pretty nice, hard hitting strikes of his own. I think these two had a really good match in them, but with an upcoming match against Masked Superstar and presumably a big spectacle match against Abdullah, Bad News may just have been small fry so Inoki couldn’t put him over too strongly. At least that’s the justification I’m going with.
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1981-08-01 WWF - PRISM Network Pat Patterson vs. Sgt. Slaughter Alley Fight Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Card ★★★★ Not quite the spectacle they had at MSG, but they actually managed to deliver another banger. They went at it as soon as Slaughter came through the ropes and we got an excellent example of why the Spectrum was such a fantastic venue for wrestling with the crowd going absolutely nuts, especially when Patterson whipped off his belt and began choking Slaughter in the corner. There was a woman at ringside who was losing her shit and a row of guys slightly further back who were so into it they must have felt like they were doing the choking themselves. Slaughter turned the tables before too long and delivered a killer blow right to Patterson’s face that drew an audible gasp from the crowd before a brief hush descended. Then he unveiled some tape of his own and it was Patterson’s turn to sell being choked. Patterson did a great job here, flem and spittle being ejected from his mouth as he desperately gasped for air. Eventually he ran Slaughter back into the turnbuckles to break the hold. I was wondering whether this would actually end up being a bloodless encounter when a crazy slingshot into the ringpost didn’t draw any, but I shouldn’t have been concerned as Patterson signalled for the finish by doing what he did last time, taking off his cowboy boot and nailing Slaughter in the head with it. The boot did the job and Slaughter was crimson in no time at all. As a side note. Slaughter is one of the best at knowing how to wring the most out of the image of him bleeding. He’ll arch his body and position himself so that the audience gets a great look at it from all angles. Patterson went a bit overboard, taking off his other boot and alternately clobbering Slaughter with each one, but they got the point across as Slaughter high tailed it to the back handing Patterson the victory. Another great blade job from Slaughter, excellent delayed fatigue selling from him throughout, fantastic bumps - of course onto the ringpost, but also eating Patterson’s punches, catching a stray boot and flying across or even out of the ring, another really great Slaughter performance. I’ll admit that I attribute more of my admiration for the original match to Slaughter, but here I think Patterson deserves his fair share of the credit for the success here. There was the aforementioned selling of being choked, but I think he kept the pace ticking along a bit better here and I just believed in his fire to a far greater extent. When he amped things up for the finish the emotion and energy came as much, if not more, from him laying into Slaughter with those cowboy boots than from Slaughter selling for those hits. I might go as far to say this was my favourite Patterson performance of the decade. 1981-08-01 WWF - PRISM Network Bob Backlund (c) vs. Angelo Mosca WWF Heavyweight Title Match Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Card ★★ These Backlund/Mosca matches just keep on coming and they never seem to get any better. This was pretty by the numbers as Backlund dominated Mosca for the most part. He was all riled up because of the spitting angle they ran on TV it seems. They avoided any painfully dull static holds here so at least the action was ticking along. When Mosca finally got some shots in was when this actually got a little interesting. He caught Backlund with several nasty looking elbows in the corner which rocked Backlund, unfortunately it couldn’t have been more than a minute later that Backlund somehow reversed a body slam into a cradle and the fast count to beat all fast counts saw Mosca defeated in around 10 minutes. From what they showed here this might have been, dare I say good(!?) if they’d leaned more into Mosca getting some actual real heat on Backlund, but instead they shortchanged it and we got yet another terrible finish in a series that has stood out for terrible finishes. I really hope this is finally over, and seeing as Mosca has begun popping up on Georgia television, I have a sneaky feeling it might be.
