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SAMS

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  1. SAMS
    AUGUST 1981-08-XX AJW Ayumi Hori vs. Devil Masami Kaminokawa Sports Center, Kaminokawa, Tochigi, Japan ★★ Coming off the back of two rookie matches earlier in the show, this certainly was miles better in terms of execution, but this lacked any kind of hook for me. They battered into one another for 15 minutes, with the final few leaning more in Hori’s favour, then Masami caught her with a surprise cradle for the win. I’m really not sure there was much more to this match really. Perfectly “fine”, but no story, no killer emotion, nothing to separate it or help it stick in the memory. 1981-08-XX AJW Jaguar Yokota & Noriyo Tateno vs. Mami Kumano & Hiroe Ito Kaminokawa Sports Center, Kaminokawa, Tochigi, Japan ★★ I think they nailed the dynamic they should have been going for in this match - two brawling, scrappy heels matched up against the talented champion and her inexperienced apprentice - they just whiffed a bit on the execution. Kumano to start was having none of Jaguar, not in the sense of avoiding her, but in the sense that she knew that Tateno was the weak link and she beelined right to her. Despite Tateno minding her own business hanging out on the apron, Kumano dragged her into the ring and got some shots in. When Kumano and Yokota squared up again she matter-of-factly tossed Jaguar over the top rope and once again dragged Tateno in. When Tateno finally legally tagged in they hauled her immediately over to their corner to isolate her as much as possible from Yokota and got to work. This set up Yokota’s hot tag where she could come in and display her athleticism, wow the crowd and show everybody why she’s the champ. The problem was that she was only back in the ring for a minute max before she happily tagged her overmatched partner back in and from then on the match was lost. I believe this was Tateno’s first televised match, so I’ll cut her some slack in this case, but both her and Yokota were way too passive and far too happy to let the heels dictate the tempo and dominate the match. That’s even considering that I thought Kumano’s performance here was absolutely terrific, fully back to her best from the previous year. She was savage, calculated, and has a particular way of movement that organically feels like she’s a predator stalking her prey. There was a moment late on where we’d had a bust up in the announcer’s table and everyone had dusted themselves off and were returning to their respective corners, then Kumano stealthily shifted her way across the apron just within striking distance, then pounced on Jaguar again to gain the advantage. With such a strong heel performance on one side, I thought this match really could have been something if the faces had been able to counter with strong performances of their own, but it wasn’t to be. In the end a costly mistake saw Yokota accidentally cross body her own partner allowing Ito to pin Tateno for the win. A finish which didn’t do the champion any favours at all. 1981-08-XX AJW Nancy Kumi vs. Mimi Hagiwara Kaminokawa Sports Center, Kaminokawa, Tochigi, Japan ★★★ Slightly clipped, as the match ran 15 minutes but this went to a 20 minute draw. I haven’t been too high on Hagiwara from what I’ve seen. She seemed rough around the edges, lost at times, lacking any real substantial offense, and lacking in other areas to make up for it. However after watching this it seems like she’s turned a corner and is set to inherit Lucy Kayama’s mantle as queen of the plucky underdogs. This was still nominally a face vs face match, however Kumi, being the bigger woman, set the tone in aggression and dishing out damage. This set the stage for Higawara to absolutely sell her ass off. It wasn’t over the top or hammy, but she appears to have tapped into leveraging her slender build to garner that sympathy required for the audience to buy into the match. It really felt like the slams Nancy was handing out were taking their toll. Then to top it off, Nancy applied the figure four and we got some awesome leg selling as well. Now, I love a good spot of limb selling, and while you could say it was a bit patchy at points, I thought Mimi did a great job of keeping it to the foreground, despite Nancy’s follow offense being almost exclusively slams and forgetting about the leg entirely. This isn’t to say that it was a one way street. Mimi had her moments where she was able to get a stretch of offense in, but it was never sustained, and lacked the oomph that Nancy’s had. But she was feisty and resourceful, which was paramount in selling the desperation they built to for the finish. With the clock counting down it can often feel rote, but despite the draw being the only way this was going to finish, I at least believed that they were really exhausting themselves to try and steal that winning pin. It wasn’t to be here, but just getting across the idea that they were pushing themselves to the end without resorting to cheesy near fall spamming was a victory in my eyes. 1981-08-XX AJW Yukari Omori & Tomoko Kitamura vs. Las Galacticas (Pantera Surena & Reyna Gallegos) Two Out Of Three Falls Tag Team Match Kaminokawa Sports Center, Kaminokawa, Tochigi, Japan ★★★ These Mexican women came to play! They weren’t taking any shit and looked intent on kicking piss out of their Japanese opponents from the very first bell. I loved how gritty everything was in this match. Whenever either of the Galacticas laid in a strike it felt more like a straight up slap to the face. Whenever the action spilled to the outside they seemed to have the distinct advantage. They just overall seemed like the more cohesive team with the requisite “moxy” to take firm control of the match. To put it bluntly, Omori and Kitamura got punked. It took losing the first fall and several more slaps to the face for Kitamura to finally get fired up, and it took the Japanese team to finally match the Mexican’s aggression and find some more synergy in their own team makeup to level things up, deciding the second fall with a lovely combo attack of a Giant Swing and then an Airplane Spin. Things didn’t cease being rough and ready in the third stanza either, the action constantly ending up on the outside and it was no surprise when this finished in a double countout. Nonetheless the Mexican team had firmly planted their flag and you got the sense that if this had been allowed to continue it would have been them, and not the Japanese team, who would have emerged victorious. They certainly were the ones who set the tone from the off and they never let up for the whole 20 minutes this lasted. A really fun, visceral match and I’m hoping Las Galacticas pop up again soon.
  2. SAMS
    1981-07-30 AJPW - Summer Action Series 1981 - Day 22 Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta (c) vs. Bill Robinson & Genichiro Tenryu NWA International Tag Team Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Korakuen Hall, Tokyo Japan ★★★ Card One of those matches that consistently delivers, even if it doesn’t manage to reach any lofty heights. The first fall was all about who could get in offense against who. Eventually a murky hierarchical order emerged with Baba at the top, Robinson and Jumbo as 2A and 2B respectively, and Tenryu at the bottom. Baba and Robinson showed off their pet sequence of duelling chops and blocks, which once against drew appreciative murmurs from the crowd, but it felt like we were in a stalemate until Tenryu of all people upped the ante and managed to catch Baba by surprise with some plucky offense, then Robinson followed up with a backbreaker to steal the first fall. Robinson relentlessly targeted Baba’s lower back to begin the second fall but when Jumbo came in he was all business and broke out some bombs which put his team in the ascendancy again. The finish to both the second and third falls were pretty chaotic and messy (likely by design) with Baba taking advantage to hit a big boot on Robinson to win the second and a skirmish on the outside was won by the champions allowing Jumbo to make it back into the ring and win the whole match via countout. Jumbo showed more vigour than I’ve seen from him in a long time, and he seemed to relish the opportunity to pile on the damage to his opponents. Robinson, despite being his team’s de facto leader, actually took more of a back seat. He did plenty of selling, and all of it was very good, but overall this felt like a match designed to put a spotlight on Tenryu and elevate him somewhat. Being the guy at the bottom of the pecking order meant that any offense he was able to mount meant more than if it came from any of the other three, plus, because of his hierarchical positioning, when he finally came up against a brick wall, it was natural that he’d get his ass whooped, so he could be the most expressive and giving when selling as well. All of this naturally meant that he stood out more and felt like the participant you’d root for most fervently. I quite liked the synergy between Robinson and Tenryu actually, despite them feeling like an odd-pairing. Baba and Jumbo, despite teaming for aeons at this point, feel more like a “Super Team” rather than a real tag team and appear happy to go my-turn-your-turn, which makes their matches come across as less than the sum of their parts sometimes. 1981-07-31 NJPW - Summer Fight Series 1981 - Day 25 Abdullah The Butcher vs. Seiji Sakaguchi Seaside Sports Center, Takaishi, Osaka, Japan Card I’d say to this point Abdullah’s re-introduction to New Japan had been a rousing success. He jumped Sakaguchi here and really bruised him up like the thug he was. Sakaguchi in recent weeks has shown a greater willingness to show vulnerability than I ever expected from him and once again here he was happy to take the punishment from Abby wholeheartedly. This didn’t last too long, ended with a DQ on Abby after they jumped the steel ring fence, and Inoki had to make an appearance to finally scare Abby away and save Sakaguchi from a continued beatdown, but it was maybe what you would describe as punchy and carried on the great work they’d done so far in putting over Abby in this new context after he began to feel a little played out in his last few months in All Japan. 1981-07-31 NJPW - Summer Fight Series 1981 - Day 25 Bad News Allen & Masked Superstar vs. Antonio Inoki & Riki Choshu Seaside Sports Center, Takaishi, Osaka, Japan Card ★★ Superstar and Bad News leaned too hard into the cheap heel tactics for my liking in this one. Choshu took a beating, setting the stage for the big Inoki comeback. They subverted expectations though as Superstar rallied against Inoki’s hot tag and picked up the pinfall on Choshu against the run of play, with Inoki caught up with Allen on the outside. Superstar’s finisher, what they called a “Running Sleeper” seems to be the move du jour for 1981. They gave the heels the cheap win to build up to Inoki and Superstar clashing to finish the tour, which makes sense from a booking perspective. It’s just that this felt a little too slap-dash and disjointed for my liking and certainly all four involved here could have done better.
  3. SAMS

    Chris Colt

    SAMS replied to Grimmas's topic in Nominees

    PNW 5th September 1981. Christ Colt vs Art Crews. Essentially a throwaway mid card match on a random Portland Saturday show. Having said that, this is just a virtuoso performance from Colt in my eyes. I've stumbled across this thread before and like CheapPop1999 said, the comments here make him sound amazing. After watching this one single match, I'm sold that Chris Colt was absolutely incredible. Can't wait to dig in and see more.
  4. SAMS
    1981-07-24 Houston Wrestling Mike Graham vs. Tully Blanchard Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, Texas, USA Card ★★★ Is there anything Tully isn’t good at? Graham hung with him here, and he certainly had skills, but Tully was such a superlative performer that he sort of overshadows whatever his opponent is doing, like a singular force of personality that dominates everything within its orbit. Cheap little shots to gain an advantage, absolutely savage rabbit punches to the face, really good sequences worked around hair pulls of all things, fantastic bumping, stooging, I mean the list goes on and on. This was a twenty minute time limit draw where the action just never stopped. My only complaints could be that it sounded from commentary that this was part of some tournament, and it felt like it, tournament matches always seem to have that kind of throwaway feeling unless it’s the final bout, and Graham, while committed and energetic with his selling, was a little too inconsistent with it. He would borderline act like his arm was broken one second then completely blow it off the other, which added an unwanted choppy element to the proceedings. But generally, a real easy watch and another killer Tully outing. 1981-07-27 Joint Promotions Johnny Saint vs. Johnny Kidd Wembley Arena, London, United Kingdom ★★ This was another extended squash for Saint. Wasn’t really all that competitive and had more the sense he was playing with his food rather going out to finish things quickly, which is an ongoing trend with him. Considering that this was only Kidd’s second television appearance and might even have still been part time and Saint was the World champion, it makes sense that Saint would be dominant. I think my issue is that personally I find bruising, physical squashes more satisfying than technical ones. In the back of my mind perhaps I reserve technical one upmanship the domain of the underdog, or at least the face in a definitive face vs heel dynamic. Here it almost felt like Saint was delivering underhanded humiliation to his young challenger, all the while presenting it with the veneer of gentlemanly sportsmanship. But I’m willing to concede this may be much more a “me” problem. 1981-07-27 Joint Promotions Jon Cortez vs. Steve Grey Wembley Arena, London, United Kingdom ★★★★ ½ Given the way they presented wrestling at this time, showing it on World of Sport and in conjunction with other “legitimate” sports from around the country, I can’t think of a match that better represents what this style of wrestling should look like if it was indeed a shoot and not a work. They played off the stereotype of the style, where usually babyfaces play it by the book, and subverted expectations by having Cortez, from the jump, play the subtle heel and colour outside the lines. In turn this riled Grey up and the simmering tensions just escalated and escalated, until the frustration boiled over at key intervals. Cortez used something as simple as a headlock to set the tone here, but instead of merely applying it, working the hold a little, maybe cranking it, he was especially heavy handed, almost like he was applying a crossface of sorts in the manner of its application. For the first few rounds Cortez was definitely the aggressor and it was Grey’s turn to sell. At first it was his ear, from the vicious headlock he’d endured, then it became his left arm which Cortez brutalised with a series of lifts. Just when it looked like Cortez had Grey’s number and was going for yet another attack on that vulnerable left arm, Grey uncorked a hellacious forearm smash and at that point we knew, all bets were off. Cortez himself proved that he was no slouch in the selling department as, during the back nine, he got caught with a dropkick to the moneymaker, which staggered him enough that he required almost two full ten counts to recover, and later on, after surviving a surfboard attempt, his legs almost gave out from underneath him from the punishment that had been applied. The finish, and really the only knock on this match, had them go the injury route yet again, with Grey getting his ankle caught in the ropes and not being able to continue. I thought it was a copout really, as even a one fall to nil result would have sufficed. After such an excellent bout, I felt that it warranted a more satisfying conclusion. Overall though this was just such a tremendous match on all fronts, from presentation to execution. With it being announced that the European and British champions would face off with a chance to face Saint, the World champion, they set the stakes immediately. Where usually you would expect something slightly more exhibition-y with two babyfaces going against each other, the added reward of the title match meant these two were taking this extremely seriously, and Cortez in particular felt that cutting those corners and slightly bending the rules was his ticket to victory. Hard brutal grappling followed and they escalated the tensions perfectly. We got struggle over every hold, every counter, every exchange, fantastic selling from Grey initially and then fantastic selling from Cortez.
  5. SAMS
    1981-07-21 WWF - Championship Wrestling The Moondogs (Moondog Rex & Moondog Spot) (c) vs. Rick Martel & Tony Garea WWF Tag Team Title Match Agricultural Hall, Allentown, Pennsylvania, USA Card ★★ Perhaps sensing a title switch was in the air the crowd were absolutely nuts for the entrances of Garea and Martel, with them becoming positively unhinged when Martel in particular was announced. The challengers got a massive extended shine to start this and only some threeway trickery between the Moondogs and Albano allowed them to take advantage of Martel and finally start the heat. I’d say this was a generally good TV match, especially by WWF standards, but Martel was the real bright spot who really shone here. Whenever he’s asked to sell it’s almost an event, just so good. Albano threw the bone in when order had crumbled and all four had piled into the ring, then amidst the chaos Martel hit a sunset flip for the win and the titles. The crowd erupted and the new champions were ecstatic. It really came across like a fantastic, momentous moment. Actually I’d say both times these guys won the tag titles felt like seminal, feel good moments, perhaps a step above anything else in regards to pure feel good vibes that have happened in the promotion over the whole ‘80-’81 period. 1981-07-24 NJPW - Summer Fight Series 1981 - Day 19 Stanley Lane vs. George Takano City Gymnasium, Kariya, Aichi, Japan Card ★★★ This was a classic back and forth, worked at a breakneck pace, with both men pretty flawless with their execution. Overall I’d say that Takano had the better of it, but Lane has proven on this Japanese excursion that he could certainly hang. This was all about going for a hold and his opponent figuring a quick and decisive counter, rinse and repeat for 10 minutes. As I said, Takano slightly edged the body of the match, but a spectacularly whiffed elbow drop off the top - and seriously, this was a thing of beauty as he put his whole body behind his driving arm just to splat into the mat - this miss was the turning point upon which Lane was able to capitalise, hitting a brutal follow up clothesline and then a Russian leg sweep on a woozy George for the solid victory. Really fun sprint that defies any real analysis but an absolute blast to watch. 1981-07-24 NJPW - Summer Fight Series 1981 - Day 19 Abdullah The Butcher & Bad News Allen vs. Antonio Inoki & Tatsumi Fujinami Best Two Out Of Three Falls Tag Team Match City Gymnasium, Kariya, Aichi, Japan Card I only had the first fall of this, but a hell of a fall it was. This started with a bang as, while Abby and Inoki locked up, Bad News came flying off the top with a knee to ambush Inoki, then they chucked him to the outside and continued the beatdown. Eventually Fujinami managed to tag in to give Inoki some reprieve but he ended up receiving an even greater beatdown, which required Inoki to come round to the opposite side of the ring to pry Fujinami from the clutches of Abby and Bad News. Bad News and Abdullah were a pretty fucking fun tag team. I’ve barely seen any Bad News before but he’s really shone in the footage I’ve watched of him recently. With the surprise advantage they carved out and subsequently working on top he looked spry and credible, then when it came time for the home country boys to take over he was a really great heel in peril. It’s a fine line to sell well for your opponents but not garner too much sympathy, but he did a fantastic job of making this stretch from Inoki and Fujinami feel dominant from their perspective without you feeling bad for him, and without him having to be all foolish and show too much ass. Abby this whole time just chilled on his apron, like a mafia boss watching his underlings trying to take care of business. After Fujinami hit a victory roll on Bad News to secure the first fall, Abby’s first action was to attack Fujinami and dump him, then set up Inoki for a series of nasty double team shoulder blocks. Again, they spilled to the outside and the heels continued the savage beatdown. What I love from Abby is that he was entirely unconcerned with winning and losing, everything was psychological warfare. His team may have been pinned here, but who are the chumps laying beaten and battered on the floor after it’s all said and done? Not his team. Unfortunately the footage cut off there, but with the match listing showing a double DQ for Abby and Inoki as the finish I’m sure this was a real barnburner.
  6. SAMS
    1981-07-18 GCW Jimmy Snuka & Terry Gordy (c) vs. Steve O & Ted DiBiase NWA National Tag Team Title Match WTBS TV Studios, Atlanta, Georgia, USA Card ★★★ This started off with the usual Gordy problem of him bumping too big too soon, but it was only a brief shine for the faces here before we settled into a routine of Gordy and Snuka isolating Steve O and really working him over. This match got an unusual amount of TV time, which enabled the drama to build and as the minutes ticked by things looked more and more dire for Steve. I really loved the heat from Gordy and Snuka as they both looked like killers. This is the Gordy I’ve been wanting to see this whole time. He went to plant Steve with a piledriver, which was initially blocked, but he couldn’t avoid the second attempt. What he could do though was reach out and finally tag Ted from where he landed and the hot tag was on. I wasn’t too enamoured with Ted here, he had by far the least amount of ring time, but he also did the least with it. What should have been a whirlwind of a hot tag kind of petered out and the heels regained control. This was when the reemergence of Michael Hayes came into play. Steve O was out of commission after that piledriver leaving Ted isolated. When Gordy and Snuka finally got him back under control they looked to put him away with a splash off the top, but Hayes flew in from off screen and launched Snuka off the top turnbuckle to splat in the middle of the ring. The rest was just a brawl with DiBiase and Steve O looking perplexed and annoyed that they’d lost their chance at the titles, but to be honest, they were on the verge of defeat anyway. 1981-07-18 PNW The Destroyer vs. Buddy Rose Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Sports Arena, Portland, Oregon, USA Card ★★ After the explosion of Rose’s Army the previous week, Destroyer was desperate to get his hands on Rose and Rose was eager to steer well clear of the Destroyer. The opening few minutes was all Rose stalling. As the Destroyer desperately tried to get a hold of him, Rose would constantly roll from the ring, circle it, roll back in - rinse and repeat. Anything to avoid having to engage. Then he’d pounce on him entering the ring after him and strike, then chuck him from the ring and be king of the mountain. I liked the energy Rose displayed playing keep away, and Destroyer was committed to selling his back throughout the first fall after a hard landing sailing through the ropes, but the eventual finish, with Destroyer piledriving Rose, kind of came out of nowhere. I wish they’d built Destroyer up a little more here because in my opinion I don’t think he showed enough fire and Rose equally didn’t show enough fear to really get the dynamic across enough. The crowd were fully in support of Destroyer, but it was more because you ought to cheer whoever Rose is matched up against, than they really wanted Destroyer to win. The second fall began with Destroyer foolishly getting caught walking to the ring and eating a ringpost for his trouble. Then Rose, in classic Rose fashion, targeted his injured back relentlessly. Again, I liked Destroyer’s selling and I liked the focused approach from Rose, but this just made me feel like the match was veering into the routine and Destroyer was losing heat by the second. A backbreaker from Rose put him away and levelled the match. In the third we saw Destroyer return the favour and catch Rose unawares and he ended up eating steel. This busted Rose open and from then on he was not interested in continuing, bailed to the crow’s nest and on the mic handed the match to Destroyer. Talk about deflating. I guess the idea is that they wanted to build up the chase. The next match would be a tag match and Rose would have Oliver as his own personal human shield, but this felt like they just cut Destroyer’s legs out from under him with the finish. There were some nice moments in this but the overarching idea seemed ill-thought out to me and both delivered an underwhelming match and didn’t serve the feud either.
  7. SAMS
    1981-07-16 AWA Nick Bockwinkel (c) vs. Jim Brunzell AWA World Heavyweight Title Match Winnipeg Arena, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada Card ★★★★ ¼ Brunzell controlled the first 20 or so minutes, but in doing so he got over the fragile nature of his control. They worked several cool escape/reapplication spots over an armbar and a hammerlock and Brunzell was positively desperate to reapply the moves to prevent Bock from getting free and potentially turning the tables. There was also a sense that Bock, if he were to get any sustained offense in, would be able to deal a knockout blow. His punches and strikes looked brutal. By the time Bock did finally get some control of his own, he spent half as much time trying to re-energise and recover from the damage he’d taken that he couldn’t put 100% into killing Brunzell. It didn’t take anywhere near as much to brutalise Brunzell’s leg, 5 minutes as opposed to 20 for Bock’s arm, but Bock had taken enough damage that Brunzell wasn’t immediately wiped out and could stay in the fight. So in that sense his initial strategy was paying off even when he fell behind and was taking damage of his own. The second half of the match was a war of attrition. Neither man could really stamp their authority on proceedings. Bock had taken too much damage, and in some ways it felt like Brunzell just didn’t have enough in his locker. Just as I was thinking though that things had become too predictable, with Brunzell’s only real silver bullet being the figure four, they worked a series of roll up pinfalls that I thought were suitably believable as match enders. The accumulated damage meant that they were both out on their feet, and the stretch from around the 45th-55th minute dragged a tad. This felt like extra time in a World Cup match, where both teams would like to win before penalties, but really just not losing has become their primary goal. Both men would hit a move and go for a pin, but whether the application of the move was lacking due to fatigue or they spent too long to make the follow up pin, it never came across like we were getting a three count. However in the final couple of minutes they managed to dig deep and actually generate some real drama. Brunzell finally dusted off his trusty dropkick and planted a couple right in Bock’s mug. Gene’s call of “Oh my God” really carried the gravity that Brunzell may have dealt the killer blow. If Bock hadn’t been so obvious in positioning his bump so close to the ropes and Brunzell hadn’t spent so long crawling over to Bock’s prone body, that would have been an all-time near fall. With less than a minute remaining Brunzell went back to the figure four. Not long left, but a whole minute in the hold is adequate enough time to force a submission, even for a man like Bockwinkel. Bock writhed in pain but he held out until the bell rang, but they got over the sense that he escaped this by the skin of his teeth. 60 minute matches are always tough to execute, and often it’s just too easy to lose interest, get distracted, and get pulled out of the immersion. But here there was always something going on, they were almost always building the narrative, and it was just two terrific performances culminating in an excellent match.
  8. SAMS
    1981-07-15 Joint Promotions Jim Breaks vs. Sammy Lee Morecambe, Lancashire, United Kingdom ★★ Sammy Lee had returned from New Japan, his disappearance from UK small screens being explained away due to him having a bereavement and not instead, you know, launching the Tiger Mask gimmick. I thought it would be interesting to see how Breaks would handle him, as Tiger Mask matches always seem to hinge on whether his opponent can reign him in, and somebody with Breaks’ credentials seemed a likely candidate to be successful on that front. Unfortunately I felt they let this opportunity slide, and apart from a few particularly interesting moments, this was just Lee steamrolling Breaks with superior speed and agility. I was disappointed with the two falls Lee got, as both were just him hitting a flurry of kicks and then folding Breaks for the 3. Pinfalls in WoS aren’t always as satisfying as the work that surrounds them, but these felt particularly lazy and unimaginative. Overall it was probably a good thing for the promotion that Lee actually left, because he’d been presented almost like a cheat code, with nobody being able to hang with him, and it rendered a lot of his matches moot in terms of stakes or intrigue. Breaks’ equalising fall was at least a little cunning, as he’d bent the rules and frustrated Lee enough to get a rise out of him. Enough of an outburst that the referee deemed it worthy of a public warning. As Lee complained to the referee about the warning Breaks capitalised with a roll up from behind and crucifix pin to snatch the fall. In the end they weren’t interested in deviating from the usual Sammy Lee formula, and running at a little over 10 minutes, they were forced to blitz through the action anyway, so it didn’t have enough time to breath or develop any kind of engaging narrative. 1981-07-15 Joint Promotions Pat Roach vs. Romany Riley Morecambe, Lancashire, United Kingdom ★★ Little more than an extended squash for Roach. Despite Riley being a big man himself, Roach towered over him and seemed to have the weight advantage as well. He dispensed with most of his moves on the mat and leant heavily into his power moves - the uppercuts, slams, body checks, and was handily in control for the most part. Being a heavyweight in his own right, Riley had a few bombs he could throw Roach’s way, and the high points in this match were the uppercuts he landed that slightly rocked Roach. They weren’t momentum changers, and he was barely able to capitalise on them, but Roach registering their effects prevented this from being one note and in general I thought Roach was spot on with how far he went with the selling here. This didn’t last too long, with Roach hitting his patented move, the Brummagem bump, in the third round, and Riley was unable to answer the referee’s count for the KO loss. 1981-07-15 Joint Promotions Mark Rocco. vs. King Benn Morecambe, Lancashire, United Kingdom ★★★★ What I’ve come to expect from Rocco matches. High intensity, scrappy rule bending and voracious crowd heat. Rocco did Rocco things but this was great because of what Benn brought to the table. Right from round one he wasn’t averse to mixing it up with Rocco, getting right up in his face during rope breaks and really taking the fight to him. I think it made it clear that Benn was all too aware of what he was in for and was adequately prepared to fight fire with fire, which gave him a sort of fighting hero kind of vibe, made all the better because he had an awesome collection of moves to back it up. The first two rounds built to Benn grabbing that first fall by almost surprising Rocco with his aggression - and when he wiped Rocco out with a flying headbutt and a follow-up slam, it was thoroughly earned. He even looked the more likely to put things to bed in the third as well, still keeping Rocco at bay, but slowly and surely Rocco worked his way back into it and when Benn flew over the tope rope and injured his hip the writing was on the wall. Rocco hauled him up into a tombstone position but the yanking on the midsection aggravated the hip enough to force Benn to submit, then it was easy pickings for Rocco to finalise the win with a Boston crab in the following round. Really fun, enjoyable match with excellent performances from both men. Benn’s scrappy attitude really helped to get the crowd behind him and positioned him as a realistic challenger, and even when it was his time to sell, it never came across like he was rolling over. Rocco was the prick he usually is, always looking to get illegal follow up moves in, and prepared to do whatever it takes to pick up that win. Similarly though, he showed a lot of ass early on, making Benn look like a real stud in forcing him onto his back foot. 1981-07-15 Joint Promotions Clive Myers vs. Keith Haward Morecambe, Lancashire, United Kingdom ★★★★ This is by far the best Myers has looked in the martial arts gimmick and this might be my pick for best “technical” match of the year to this point. I thought the opening two rounds were absolutely electric, even if they didn’t work at a blistering pace. It’s easy to get over the idea of two wrestlers being equally matched, it’s significantly harder to project the idea that the two in question are equally matched AND masters of the craft. While my previous exposure to both wouldn’t cause me to put either men here in that lofty bracket, if I’d been dropped in blind, that would have been my takeaway from this match. Both men had counters on counters, with Myers being the more aggressive, and more successful offensively on the whole, but Haward was able to display resiliency, the ability to absorb punishment, and when given the chance, he had the power advantage and the potential to perhaps hit a killer knockout blow. Things got a bit wobbly in the third round. I felt that Haward was perhaps a bit too passive in letting Myers lead the action, and a couple of times he lay there a tad too long waiting for Myers to get into a move when I thought he should have made for a counter or an escape. If you’re just laying there for 5-10 seconds waiting for your opponent to grab a leg or an arm it just makes you look inept. In the second half of the bout they reverted back to the cat and mouse game that they started with, but this time with pinfalls. This was again pretty good, for a truly excellent match you’d want slightly more escalation and a ramp up of intensity, whereas here things kind of plateaued on the way to the draw. I don’t want to be too critical though, as mostly the complaints above are mere nitpicks, as I thought both men gave their best performances of the decade through mid-81. Hawards’ technical skills are always evident when he wrestles, but it’s not always clear that he can leverage his physical gifts into a cohesive whole. For Myers, I’d generally say that his martial arts gimmick was a dud, and the more he shifted away from it and focused on plain wrestling the better his matches were. Here he basically abandoned the gimmick entirely apart from a few stylistic flourishes and we really saw what he was made of, which really makes me eagerly anticipate checking out his 70s work, which I know is highly regarded.
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    1981-07-10 NJPW - Summer Fight Series 1981 - Day 6 Tatsumi Fujinami (c) vs. Stanley Lane WWF Junior Heavyweight Title Match Nakajima Sports Center, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan Card ★★★ Fujinami hasn’t looked better this year at any point, and by a large margin. Everything he did here was crisp and focused and brimming with intensity. Lane wasn’t flotsam by any means, but in comparison to Fujinami his offense looked a little loose and slow, and Fujinami just looked like the supreme champion that he was presented as being, There was great struggle over a side headlock to start, a few killer body checks by Fujinami, Lane managed to get a foothold in the match using his karate style offense, then we got a Dragon Rocket and a big German on the floor to give Fujinami as decisive a countout victory as you can really have. This was short and sweet but worked at a hell of a pace and was a great advertisement for Fujinami. 1981-07-13 AJPW - Summer Action Series 1981 - Day 8 Genichiro Tenryu & Giant Baba vs. Bill Robinson & Victor Rivera City Gymnasium, Sunagawa, Hokkaido, Japan Card ★★ Come in, show the fans a little something something, then go home, that was the vibe. This match didn’t have much urgency, and didn’t feel like anybody involved was taking things too seriously, but they treated those in attendance to a nice little sequence between Baba and Robinson where they duelled over chops and blocks - Robinson in particular didn’t seem particularly interested in going overboard with the bumping and selling this evening, but Baba looked unusually spry and this was at least fun. Rivera didn’t get much of a look in at all but Tenryu managed to piggyback off the work Baba had put in, held his own against Robinson enough to force him to tag out, then took advantage of Rivera with a pretty matter of fact O’Connor Roll for the win. 1981-07-13 AJPW - Summer Action Series 1981 - Day 8 Jumbo Tsuruta (c) vs. Dick Slater NWA United National Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match City Gymnasium, Sunagawa, Hokkaido, Japan Card ★★ This was just about okay when they were throwing bombs at each other, but fell really flat when they worked the mat. Early on Slater let Jumbo take the lead, and honestly neither guy distinguished themselves at all. It was a little better in the second fall with Slater being more aggressive, his offense focusing on a variety of different headbutts, but overall the match suffered from a lack of logical escalation which meant that the finish to each fall kind of just happened and failed to mean anything. As far as I could discern there was no narrative being woven here, and with 25 minutes and 3 falls to work with, these two should have been able to pull something better out of the hat.
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    1981-07-03 AJPW - Summer Action Series 1981 - Day 1 Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta vs. Bill Robinson & Dick Slater Best Two Out Of Three Falls Tag Team Match City Gymnasium, Kumagaya, Saitama, Japan Card For a fall and a half this just felt like all four men were going through the motions, putting in just enough effort to give the fans what they paid for. Disappointing, but these things happen. The reason for the lack of focus was revealed though when Tiger Jeet Singh hit the ring, accompanied by Bobby Heenan, and proceeded to cause mayhem. With Abdullah making the switch to New Japan it looks like Tiger Jeet Singh went the other way, perhaps in an attempt to keep both their acts fresh. I’m pretty sure this ended up in a no contest, but this match really just served as a prelude to the Singh angle anyway. 1981-07-03 NJPW - Summer Fight Series 1981 - Day 1 Tatsumi Fujinami (c) vs. Les Thornton WWF Junior Heavyweight Title Match Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan Card ★★ Nothing really to gripe about with this match, but it just didn’t connect with me and I had a few nits to pick. They structured this around the man working from underneath struggling to escape whatever hold they were in, which meant whoever was on top was static and entirely reactive, giving the impression they had no plan of action. Some of the sequences were cool and they repeatedly went back to Fujinami using the same reversal to cut Thornton off, a neat little bridge out, snapmare then reapplying a cravat. But each time they did it, he would then just lie there and wait for Thornton to mount his next challenge. Thornton’s offense was more bruising than I was expecting. From what I’ve seen previously he’s usually quite “scientific” but he was happy to lay in some heavy handed forearms. Overall though he didn’t do too much that would stand out in the memory. The first 18 minutes felt like the first third of a much longer match, then suddenly they transitioned to a somewhat rushed finish. Fujinami finally made some inroads, hitting a big legbreaker and then going for the figure four. He could never properly apply it in the ring, but when they collided and both fell to the outside (which didn’t look organic at all), he stuck it on Thornton outside instead. But we all knew where this was going - Fujinami released and tried to beat the count, only for Thornton to cling on to prevent him, resulting in the double count out. Fujinami was suitably pissed at himself, and quite rightly, at squandering the opportunity at getting the victory. 1981-07-03 NJPW - Summer Fight Series 1981 - Day 1 Abdullah The Butcher & Bad News Allen vs. Antonio Inoki & Seiji Sakaguchi Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan Card ★★★ I guess people’s mileage on this match will vary depending on how much you buy into Abby. If you’re cold on him I can see this not doing much for you, if you like him then there’s a lot here to sink your teeth into. I can’t remember a match, especially a match involving Inoki, that was constructed in such a way to get over someone other than him to this extent. Inoki and Sakaguchi both went above and beyond to make Abby look like a million dollars here, Inoki uncharacteristically looked incredibly vulnerable as he took a beating from the off. Bad News, almost as Abby’s henchmen lackey, played his role well during the flashes he was in there, with his offense looking sharp and punchy. For the first half actually this was mostly Inoki getting his ass handed to him and it took Sakaguchi coming in with the tag rope as a weapon to briefly level the playing field. But Abby dug his heels in and a few timely headbutts was enough to cut Sakaguchi off and send him to the mat, with some more excellent selling of Abby’s offense on display. The Japanese team had signs of life late on, finally dishing out some damage that registered with Abby, something I would highlight as fantastic selling from Abdullah as well. He no-sold a lot early on, when it was his time to shine, but here he pitched it just right in terms of when to sell and how much, and the mere fact that he was slightly rocked meant everything for Inoki’s team. Inoki and Sakaguchi couldn’t dish out enough damage to really capitalise though and an ill-advised trip to the top rope by Sakaguchi saw him eat a strong right and straight to the floor he went in a somewhat crazy bump for a man his size. Inoki tried his best, but he was caught up with Bad News, and Sakaguchi was ultimately counted out for the standard 80s finish. All four men here played their roles to an absolute tee, Inoki for once was 100% motivated in elevating his new acquisition in Abdullah, and the two supporting acts, Sakaguchi and Bad News, did exactly what was required of them. This is no hidden classic, but in context was a fantastic bit of pro wrestling.
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    JULY 1981-07-XX AJW Mami Kumano vs. Mimi Hagiwara Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan ★★ Kumano, with the help of Masami at ringside, dominated Hagiwara for the majority of this, using her long hair against her, liberally tugging and yanking at it to keep her under control. I liked the savageness of Kumano’s approach, even if the referee was as completely useless as usual to curb the rule bending. Hagiwara made a nice little feisty comeback though, even if the finish did kind of feel premature - she hit a backdrop suplex as her first major move of the match, then followed up with a good looking splash from the top rope, which was enough to put Kumano away. 1981-07-XX AJW Rimi Yokota vs. Hiroe Ito Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan ★★ Essentially a workrate sprint. Both women were up to the challenge though and Ito certainly was able to keep up with Yokota’s relentless pace. I wouldn’t say that either woman displayed a clear strategy in the traditional sense. This was more the case of Ito trying to swarm Yokota, using her bruising and aggressive style, and Yokota using her speed to counter and apply pressure of her own in return. This gave the match more of a formless feel than I usually prefer but there was enough energy and intensity here to keep things engaging. Looking at the big picture I think this did an excellent job of presenting Yokota as a champion. Sure she took a beating from Ito here and there, but ultimately she was able, using her skill and athleticism, to soundly defeat her opponent. I’m not sure they’ve done a great job with Yokota at all since she won the singles title but this was a good first step. For Ito, she definitely has been learning well at the feet of Kumano and Masami, slotting right into their ethos and adopting their rough and ready working style. Kumano in my eyes has dropped off somewhat since ‘80, but maybe it’s time for Ito to supplant her? 1981-07-XX AJW Nancy Kumi vs. Devil Masami Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan ★★★ We had the usual heel ref bullshit to start this with Nancy getting ganged up on. They gave this a little more room to breathe than usual so it didn’t feel so egregious but there’s a ceiling on how far this type of thing goes with me. Things really went up a level though when Masami started targeting Nancy’s knee. She had a bandage support on it, so she may have been carrying a previous injury, but regardless this was the turning point of the match for me. Masami was focused and relentless on the joint, and with help from Kumano was able to remove said support and really dig in with her attacks. The standout aspect though, and what really got this over for me, was Nancy’s superlative selling. When she was being attacked, she got over the pain and damage she was receiving, when she managed to wriggle free, she got over the desperation of the situation she found herself in. Essentially operating on one leg she darted about the ring, frantically trying to evade Masami, even diving to the outside and circling the ring at one point, only to get swallowed up by Kumano. All this meant that when she finally did manage to mount some kind of comeback it felt earned and had that strong emotional underpinning. The action spilled to the outside again and she managed to lay into Masami and smash her into the ringside chairs. She was unable to beat the referee’s count however and the match ended in a double countout. Instead of this feeling deflating, it actually made it feel like a moral victory for Nancy. She fought against the odds, didn’t take it lying down and showed real guts and determination to fight back and finish in the ascendancy.
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    1981-06-27 AWA Jim Brunzell vs. Adrian Adonis St. Paul Civic Center, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA Card ★★★ Only the second match on the card, and they clearly didn’t set out to steal the show, but what a fantastically understated gem this was. Joined in progress with Brunzell controlling Adonis in an unassuming leg lock, but the way they worked this sequence, with Adonis nearly escaping but getting pulled back in, then Adonis breaking the hold, mounting offense of his own, only to suffer some more damage to his leg later on, allowing Brunzell to get back on top was expertly executed. Even when Adonis finally did manage to free himself from Brunzell’s clutches he continued to sell the leg superbly and I loved how Brunzell’s final gambit, after a long stretch with Adonis on offense, was to go back to that leg and try and get that figure four. A distraction from Ventura on the apron and a handful of the tights gave Adonis the victory, but Brunzell’s strategy throughout was incredibly sound. The standout performer however was Adonis. Brunzell played his role to a tee, with the great psychology that I already mentioned and peppering in moments of fire to liven up the action at the right moments, but Adonis was the one to tie it all together. It’s a refreshing change to see a competent heel. Yes, he cheated to win, and yes he showed a lot of ass throughout, but for long stretches he dominated this matchup, and he didn’t necessarily use underhanded tactics to get into that position either. His offense looked fantastic and the way he tied all the aspects of the match together just completely works for me. He really excels in the connective tissue aspect of constructing a match. Really really good. 1981-06-27 AWA Nick Bockwinkel (c) vs. Baron von Raschke St. Paul Civic Center, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA Card I think as much as 10 minutes of this was clipped at the start so this might be less than half of the actual match. Bockwinkel was flying solo with Heenan absent from ringside and I liked the moments where he showed his desperation with his safety blanket gone, resorting to blatant choking in the ropes for example. But this ultimately fell into a holding pattern of Raschke going for the Claw and Bockwinkel going for his Sleeper. I’m predisposed to dislike Claw-based offense, and here was no different. I also find Raschke’s goofiness off putting in general, especially as a face. The finishing stretch to this was pretty by the numbers, and the fact that Bockwinkel retained merely due to Raschke missing an ill-advised dive off the second rope, allowing him to grab the tights and sneak the win, just made Raschke look foolish and made Bockwinkel look weak. I’m not sure how either man really came out of this looking any better than they did going in. 1981-06-29 CWA Jimmy Hart vs. Jerry Lawler No Disqualification Lumberjack Match Mid-South Coliseum, Memphis, Tennessee, USA Card ★★★ The fact that they got over Hart credibly being on top and in control for over half of this match is a testament to Hart, but specifically to Lawler, who’s selling throughout this was pitch perfect. To start, the First Family were banned from ringside, leaving Mantell, Dundee, Keirn and Rogers as the lone Lumberjacks, which already put Hart at a major disadvantage. But he had a few tricks up his sleeve, flinging a bag of powder into Lawler’s eyes being his first gambit. When the dust had cleared, literally, it looked like it was all over for Hart, but no, he had a chain down his tights and a few well timed jabs took Lawler down once again. But I knew, the fans knew, hell, Hart knew, that this was just staving off the inevitable. Lawler recovered and it was time for the lumberjack gimmick to come into play for the first time. Lawler gave Hart the chance to try and make his escape, knowing full well that he’d get dumped right back into the ring time and time again. It was such a fun and entertaining way to include the match stipulation without it dominating the narrative. In the end Lawler got his vengeance, taking the chain and returning those punches in kind, then switching to the leg and really worked over Hart’s knee with a spinning toe hold. Hart submitted but Lawler wasn’t through, tossing Calhoun to the floor to deliver a bit more punishment before finally calling it a day. Honestly, if they’d managed to drag this out a little longer I could have gone even higher on this match, I thought it was truly excellent for what it was.
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    1981-06-25 IWE - Dynamite Series - Day 14 Ashura Hara & Mighty Inoue (c) vs. Carl Fergie & Gypsy Joe IWA World Tag Team Title Match Shimizu, Shizuoka, Japan Card ★★ Fergie was pretty much dead wood unless he was bumping around, which to be fair he did so cartoonishly that it was quite endearing. Gypsy Joe, while limited, had credible offense, mainly focused around headbutts and chops. The headbutts in particular looked great, unrelenting and could end up targeting any part of his opponent’s body. My favourites being a series that drove straight into Hara’s chest. There wasn’t much in the sense of psychology, the two teams just sort of collided and the guys had to make the most of it. The foreign team took over from the start and worked over Inoue, then after the eventual tag to Hara they did the same to him. But none of this was orchestrated in any meaningful or memorable way. Hara and Inoue though did a great job of keeping this watchable. Great selling and most importantly peppering in those hope spots with enough fire and dynamism to keep things engaging the whole way. Considering the circumstances I thought those two did a pretty solid job here. In the end Joe brought a steel chair into the mix, only for that to bite him in the ass. It ended up in Inoue’s hands and he blasted Joe in the back several times, enough to bend the chair frame itself. A mix up in the corner between Joe and Fergie was enough of an opening for Hara to sunset flip his team to victory. 1981-06-27 WWF - USA Network Bob Backlund (c) vs. Angelo Mosca WWF Heavyweight Title Match Capital Center, Landover, Maryland, USA Card ★ As down as I was on this match, I don’t feel like Backlund comes out of it looking that bad, all things considered. Mosca was terrible, far worse than he was in either of their MSG bouts. All of his offense seemed to revolve around containing Bob in the centre of the ring. Even when he threw Backlund to the floor outside, he was far too content to play king of the mountain and keep him there rather than capitalising and making a run at victory. To compound things, this ended in a tame blood stoppage (considering this happened in Maryland should I have been surprised?) and it made Mosca look like he still had a chance, rather than giving Backlund that decisive victory. Not that the fans cared, they were rapturous afterwards as Bob paraded his belt around the ring. As I said though, Backlund was the lone plus. He was in the ring first and very eager to get his hands on Mosca. He pounced the first chance he got and the energy he injected prevented this from being a complete trainwreck. Unfortunately we didn’t get any of those trademark Backlund power spots, and the highlight of the match was actually Mosca running himself into the ringpost. 1981-06-27 WWF - USA Network Andre The Giant, Rick Martel & Tony Garea vs. Captain Lou Albano & The Moondogs (Moondog Rex & Moondog Spot) Best Two Out Of Three Falls Six Man Tag Team Match Capital Center, Landover, Maryland, USA Card ★★ This was one of Andre’s first matches back after his broken leg and they used him pretty sparingly here. The first fall was more comedy, with Albano desperately trying to avoid tagging in, backing further and further down the ring steps to give the illusion he couldn’t reach for the tag, and the faces picked up the fall with a trademark Sunset Flip from Martel. The Moondogs flipped the script in the second, isolating Garea for a long stretch, making phantom tag switches behind the referee’s back and frustrating Martel and Andre in particular. Martel got a pretty decent hot tag but more double team chicanery put him at a disadvantage and the Moondogs put him away with a double backbreaker. We finally saw Andre in action for the finish, cleaning house and creating a big enough opportunity to splash Rex through the mat for the decisive pin. As I mentioned, Andre wasn’t involved too much here. I always enjoy him as an apron worker, and he had a few moments here doing things only Andre really could do, but they didn’t capitalise enough to make the moments he did get in the ring feel as momentous as I’ve seen in other matches. Martel as well had his little moment during his hot tag, but he felt like an onlooker for most of this as well. Moondog Spot certainly was an upgrade on King, and I’d say he’s comfortably better than Rex here too. I liked what little I saw of Latham in the Blonde Bombers and he continued to shine in a good light as a Moondog as well it seems. Overall this was pretty fun but ultimately skippable. 1981-06-27 WWF - USA Network Mil Mascaras vs. Sgt. Slaughter Capital Center, Landover, Maryland, USA Card ★★ This wasn’t much of anything either really, capping off a pretty lacklustre show. Mascaras gets a lot of grief for being uncooperative, but other than in the early moments, he gave Slaughter enough breathing room to put in a solid beating, and Slaughter’s offense as always looked great. As Mascaras made his comeback though this got a bit woolly, as if stylistically, if not literally, these two were speaking a different language. It wasn’t clear what direction they were going and it all felt very stop-start, and more like a showcase for Mascaras’ Lucha spots, than to serve the match itself. These spots may have been novel to the crowd at hand, and they responded as intended, but the execution was clunky in my opinion and it didn’t really work. Perhaps with an eye to his eventual departure from the territory Slaughter did the job here in rather uncontroversial fashion.
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    1981-06-24 Joint Promotions Marty Jones vs. Dave Bond Shrewsbury, Shropshire, United Kingdom ★★ This was right on the cusp of being something good. The first few rounds were pretty aimless from a matwork perspective but they tried to convey discontent between the competitors, but it didn’t come across as more than handbags really. Bond throughout tried to get cheap shots in and bend the rules, but I always got the sense that he was more playing heel than being a heel. The Roccos and Breaks of the world embody that attitude completely, for Bond it felt somewhat halfhearted and for me at least wasn’t anywhere as effective at generating a reaction. There were moments where Jones looked like he was putting it together, such as a few sudden tugs on the arm which made Bond wince, but they never went back to it. It was the same for Bond, who was the first to throw an uppercut, but he never fully transitioned to the power game at any point, so things kind of meandered. The build to the first fall was nice, with Bond slingshotting Jones into the ring post, trying again but getting caught. The frustration getting to him caused him to become overly aggressive and sloppy with his next few attacks and Jones capitalised with a nice O’Connor Roll. Bond’s equaliser came a bit out of nowhere and didn’t feel earned at all which was disappointing. But the final flurry by Jones to win the thing was excellent, and was the match's high point no doubt. Jones peppered Bond with a couple dropkicks before crushing him with a flying crossbody. The impressive part was the dropkicks though, delivered with pinpoint precision right in Bond’s face, they absolutely came across like killer blows in a way you don’t normally see due to the move usually being reserved for mere transitions. Overall a decent match with some good aspects but generally far too inconsistent for me. Skip to the end for Jones’ absolutely dynamite dropkicks though. 1981-06-24 Joint Promotions Johnny Saint vs. Ken Joyce Shrewsbury, Shropshire, United Kingdom ★★ They finished off the card with a flashy exhibition style match designed to show that the older Ken Joyce still had the goods but not quite enough to upset a champion like Johnny Saint. Saint definitely had a bag full of tricks and they slickly worked through holds and reversals and counters. They would try a cheeky move and laugh together when it didn’t come off. Suitably entertaining, and there was a woman in the crowd shrieking at the top of her lungs who certainly found it so, but there was no struggle at all. Also, increasingly in Saint’s matches, and most glaringly here, I’ve found the artifice of the wrestling painfully evident. A couple times here I saw Saint guiding Joyce’s hands or even putting himself in a headlock. Fun little match, and a comfortable win for Saint, but by no means his best.
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    1981-06-20 PNW Roddy Piper & Steve Regal vs. Buddy Rose & Rip Oliver Best Two Out Of Three Falls Texas Tornado Match (Special Referee: Lou Thesz) Sports Arena, Portland, Oregon, USA Card ★★ Roddy Piper was back in Portland and he certainly looked fired up to be back in his old stomping ground. Being a Texas Tornado we had all four men in the ring at once, and it felt a bit of a disjointed mess for the first 5 minutes or so. They tried to give Regal and Piper a chance to tee-off on the heels, but this didn’t really get going until Rose and Oliver took over and they definitely felt like a more cohesive unit with a more definitive plan of how they were going to approach this match. They were successfully able to divide Piper and Regal and worked Piper over enough to grab the first fall. On the flip side, the face’s big avenue to victory was Piper going full throttle and overpowering his opponents. His boxing style punches had never looked better and he was really working double time to take it to Rose and Oliver. The faces levelled things up in due course but it felt a little rote and predictable. The final third descended into more chaos with the action spilling out onto the floor and Rose bringing a steel chair into the mix. Thesz (who might as well have not been the referee for how much of a non-factor he was here) looked intent on counting out both teams and when Regal rolled back in I was certain that it was going to be a countout victory for Piper and Regal, but no apparently it was a DQ. Ultimately the same result but it feels like somebody got their wires crossed somewhere. This was a fun, rambunctious match carried by Rose being the ring general and Piper bringing the energy. Oliver and Regal were kind of just there to make up the numbers and I wished that they’d leant into teasing a Piper loss a little bit more to build the drama as the crowd were molten for his return and couldn’t have been more behind him in this one. 1981-06-24 NJPW - 10th Anniversary Tiger Mask vs. Villano III Kuramae Kokugikan, Tokyo, Japan Card ★★★ I was really taken with Villano here. Tiger Mask’s matches were always a little bit more style than substance, but given the right opponent who would serve to ground the action, they seemed to turn out better than when he was given complete free licence. In this case Villano was that such opponent. I loved how he sold Tiger Mask’s hammerlock and the figure four, really on point with the verbal selling but without going overboard with it. They worked an excellent hammerlock sequence with reversals on reversals that really popped the crowd. This was competitive but there was always the sense that Tiger Mask could uncork some wacky and wild move that could catch Villano by surprise so you could never tell when the knockout blow would happen. They lost their way a bit with the test of strength stuff in the middle, or at least I didn’t care for it, but Villano’s bumping perfectly set up the finish. He went for a dive in the corner, whiffed completely, bumbled his way to a big drop off the top to the outside which drew a wide round of laughs from the audience. Tiger Mask pounced and faked a plancha, hit a stiff kick right to Villano’s face before nailing a second plancha from the apron that finished the luchador off for good. Given the right dance partner Tiger Mask was thoroughly entertaining. He had his flaws no doubt, but I can see where the popularity comes from. The more opponents he’s fed like Villano the better, because we’ve seen what can happen when the other guy can’t pull his weight. 1981-06-24 NJPW - 10th Anniversary Abdullah The Butcher & Stan Hansen vs. Antonio Inoki & Yoshiaki Yatsu Best Two Out Of Three Falls Tag Team Match Kuramae Kokugikan, Tokyo, Japan Card ★★★★ This was the first match for both Yatsu and Abby back in NJ, so I should have guessed that something wild was about to go down. Yatsu looked like a scared little puppy as they set to start. Inoki was raring to go but Yatsu kept pathetically prompting Inoki to step back through the ropes and offered himself up as sacrificial lamb to the slaughter. Inoki finally registered Yatsu pawing at him, looked him square in the eyes, then straight up just slapped him in the face. On you go son, good luck and all that. The slap must have triggered something because up against Hansen, Yatsu was able to get the better of the earlier exchanges, an arm drag here, an arm drag there. Things were looking pretty great for young Yatsu until BLAM. Hansen absolutely crushed him with a high knee to the face. Down went Yatsu, and with it any chance of him being competitive in this match. I’ll give the guy all the credit in the world, Yatsu never for one second stopped scrapping and clawing to get back into it, but he was thoroughly and completely outmatched. Four punches to Abby’s gut would be definitely cut off by a single headbutt. Abby, debuting in NJPW himself, was clearly motivated to bring his ‘A’ game as well. Full of effort, his strikes were clean and crisp and he worked at a faster pace than normal. Hansen and Abby worked Yatsu over expertly and it was no surprise when they went to the outside, like sharks honing in for the kill, and drew blood. Yatsu tried his best, but back in the ring all that awaited him was a stonking Lariat that took his head right off. Inoki was too slow to make the save and the foreign team had the first fall. Hansen wasn’t finished and Inoki was next in line, eating a Lariat of his own and things looked really bad for them. In fact, the second fall didn’t work out any better for them apart from the result. Hansen ran interference while Abby continued to just maul Yatsu over by the railings. Inoki seemed all too content to just chill in the ring or on the apron, as if he was seeing whether Yatsu would be able to pull himself out of this mess. The referee called for the DQ and things were level and finally Inoki came to life. It felt a tad too late, Yatsu was already a bloody blob of a man at this point, but Inoki was pissed, grabbed a bottle and things were about to get serious. The referee’s (yes there were two for some reason hovering around) tried their best to get the weapon out of his hands but Inoki was not to be deterred. In the end the final decision was a DQ against Inoki and Yatsu, but it didn’t seem to matter as things just completely fell apart and descended into chaos. All the seconds piled into the ring, Hansen was clubbing whoever moved, Abby broke the bottle and used the jagged edge to stab Inoki in the head and amongst the maelstrom, Yatsu appeared, like a zombie back from the dead, merely to be promptly dismissed by Hansen and flung once again from the ring, a large smear of his blood all over Hansen’s chest the only remnant that he was ever there at all. Hansen and Abby were fantastic here in being brutal on Yatsu, and even the moments where either matched up with Inoki they stood their ground and delivered the goods. Yatsu was perfect for his role. The young pup who had no chance matching up with the two titans opposite, but full of pluck and courage. We had chaos, we had carnage. Such fun all round. However, to nitpick some, Inoki just seemed far too passive when Yatsu initially got cut open in the first fall, awkwardly hanging around on the apron on his side of the ring while these guys ruthlessly worked over his partner. Then between falls, they did the same thing again, and he did the same thing again. It didn’t ring true to me when he finally went to Yatsu' aid and got all stroppy. It felt a little too much like faux anger and the timing was all off for me, which dings the match as a whole. But this is definitely something I would thoroughly recommend anybody watch.
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    1981-06-20 WWF - PRISM Network Pedro Morales (c) vs. The Magnificent Muraco WWF Intercontinental Title Match Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Card ★ A lot of this was first Muraco applying a chinlock, once Pedro had powered out of that we switched to Muraco applying his thumb to Pedro’s throat. The referee deemed that it was not a choke, so he was allowed to sit in that for several more minutes. Finally Pedro made his comeback, but the referee got flattened, and Muraco used a pair of concealed brass knuckles to knock Pedro out and win the title. I was looking forward to Pedro losing the title and moving onto some fresh faces in the IC title picture, but from what I’ve seen from Muraco I’m not sure there will be any improvement at all on that front. This was a classic example of Pedro happy to dog it until it was his turn to go on offense, but even then he didn’t have that stereotypical fire he usually does. Muraco looked equally lazy in this, far too happy to apply a static hold and just sit on the mat. 1981-06-20 WWF - PRISM Network Sgt. Slaughter vs. Rick McGraw Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Card ★★★ I absolutely loved this. Barely 5 minutes long but jam packed with action. Slaughter started this by goading McGraw, this little chump in his mind, who stood a good several inches shorter than him. He playfully started whipping him with his riding crop and caught McGraw right in the face. McGraw didn’t like that one bit and it was on. Clearly Slaughter wasn’t taking his opponent seriously and a second whip attempt was blocked, McGraw got control over the crop and proceeded to punch Slaughter in the face. I’m not exactly sure what did it but Slaughter was immediately opened up and once again we had a classic Slaughter gusher on our hands. McGraw was like a little terrier, frantically applying the pressure while he still had the advantage. He tried the best he could but a Slaughter backdrop over the ropes cut him off and from then on it was ALL Slaughter, and he was pissed. His body and ego both bloodied and bruised, Slaughter began laying McGraw out with pure venom, including a killer clothesline that took McGraw’s head off. Savage. Even after the match was done and dusted, Slaughter wasn’t finished by a long shot. He locked on the clutch not once but twice, adding insult to injury and leaving no doubts in the audience’s minds who the better man was. For a guy like Slaughter who had to work relatively weak against the other top babyfaces in the company, he needed matches like this where he could be presented like a killer and he certainly had the goods to deliver when the time came. 1981-06-20 WWF - PRISM Network Bob Backlund (c) vs. George Steele WWF Heavyweight Title Match Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA Card ★★ Steele really had his gimmick down pat. When he walked around on the floor his sudden violent bursts of movement were enough to cause audience members to recoil and flee in terror and his general animalism worked both during the initial King of the Mountain spot they did to start this off, and the subsequent stalling sequence with Steele prowling the outside. The problem was when they actually got down to brass tacks and had to wrestle, Steele’s entire arsenal could be whittled down to 1. Punch without foreign object 2. Punch with foreign object 3. Shoulder nerve hold. Backlund sold the foreign object shots really well, but it’s hard for anybody to continuously sell a nerve hold to the shoulder. Steele’s time on top lasted just far too long. They did however get over the sense that Backlund took a real beating here and it did feel like a triumph when he grabbed the victory after a turnbuckle bump gone wrong for George.
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    1981-06-18 Joint Promotions Alan Kilby vs. Terry Rudge Wembley Arena, London, United Kingdom ★★★ The first round was mostly them feeling out their opponent, but Rudge showed signs of what would come later. The big takeaway from this was what a total bastard Rudge was. As his shithousery built and built, this started to veer towards shoot territory, with a sense of uncooperativeness that was rare in WoS. Kilby was none too pleased with Rudge’s tactics, but as was the norm, the referee was unwilling to dish out the public warnings too quickly, which gave Rudge the strategic edge as he could lean into the underhand tactics to gain the advantage. As the rounds went along there was an undercurrent of real violence as Rudge continued to just be a total prick, but despite the odds seemingly stacked against him, Kilby managed to dig deep and slam Rudge in the final round to at least pull a draw out of the bag. Not a technical masterpiece but a rough, grind it out affair that I thoroughly enjoyed. 1981-06-18 Joint Promotions Mark Rocco vs. Mal Sanders Wembley Arena, London, United Kingdom ★★★ Not as weighty and gruelling as the Kilby/Rudge match that came before it but this actually surprised me by how good it was. I was looking forward to this match before it came up, but running at just 12 minutes, I’m not sure it ever had the chance to be anything truly special. This probably is as close to a spotfest that a WoS match can be, but despite the relentless pace and constant action, they both managed to fit in that sweet sweet character work and not make it seem like they were just blowing through their “stuff”. Rocco was just so fantastic at selling impact, clutching an arm or his ribs and making you feel like NOW, this is the moment for Sanders to capitalise. Here he tweaked his arm early and absolutely whiffed on a turnbuckle collision later on for two really interesting wrinkles. Sanders was by no means a passenger here either. Perhaps he’s a bit more generic and tops out at the B+ range, but nobody celebrates a fall like Superstar Mal and he’ll throw in enough neat little details to prevent his work being by the numbers. This was a big show, being at Wembley Arena, and this clearly was short on time so they felt the need to rush a bit, but I think they made great use of the time they did have and delivered a quality, extremely fun match. 1981-06-18 Joint Promotions Dalibar Singh vs. Pete Roberts Wembley Arena, London, United Kingdom ★★ This was just lacking that little something. We got three pretty exciting falls that I thought they executed really well (which isn’t always the case in WoS) and when they leant into the physicality this was really good, but too often they veered away from that and we ended up with generic holds and generic matwork. Despite Roberts being a big man Singh still had him beat in the height and weight departments, and the times Singh started throwing his uppercuts you could sense that he was threatening to overwhelm Roberts. To counter, Roberts resorted to his speed advantage, and for a heavyweight Roberts was pretty fluid, and he was able to use this to surprise Singh and nail a shuddering clothesline for the first fall. Singh grabbed a flash pin immediately in the following round to tie things up. Roberts making a miscalculation, which opened him up to a big slam to ultimately lose the bout, was a really neat finish I thought, but there were things they left unexplored that dragged this down. I’ve mentioned the somewhat meandering “body” of the match, but just before Singh’s flash pin he tweaked his knee, and even as the referee was raising his hand between falls he was heavily favouring it, and I thought that would be a narrative thread that they would follow, but they blew that off right away. Missed opportunities like that kind of gave this a ceiling of sorts. 1981-06-18 Joint Promotions The Royal Brothers (Bert Royal & Vic Faulkner) vs. Bobby Barnes & Sid Cooper Wembley Arena, London, United Kingdom ★★★ This was in essence a comedy match with an edge. The Royal Brothers specialised in comedy it seems. It’s not my favourite match type, but when the people involved know how to execute, you’ve got to put your hands up and give credit where credit is due. They worked this at a frantic pace and the timing from all four men was absolutely on point. The first fall was all about Barnes and Cooper chasing shadows and getting shown up. They were made to look a little bit too foolish for my tastes but I think Barnes’ offense was good enough and gritty enough to keep things in check. Cooper was happy to play the clown from start to finish but Barnes would show ass one second then be a killer the next. In fact I think it’s safe to say that this whole match rests on his performance. In the second the heels finally got serious and Faulkner got caught in the wrong corner and they really brutalised his arm. We saw heel antics at play, laying in a hold too long when they should have broken, but the crowd got heated, Faulkner laid the selling on thick and this fall was the highlight of the match. The third I wish had leaned further into building off of the third, with Faulkner just getting his arm destroyed even more, but clearly they wanted to send the fans home happy so Barnes slipped on a banana peel and the babyfaces survived. I’ve been a big fan of Faulkner from what I’ve seen so far, but his matches have too light hearted a tone for my tastes. Barnes on the other hand may not be in the top tier of heels like a Mark Rocco, or have the reputation of Rudge, but I wouldn’t think twice about putting him at the top of that next tier down and he has rarely put in a subpar performance.
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    1981-06-11 AJPW - Super Power Series 1981 - Day 17 Ricky Steamboat vs. The Sheik Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan Card ★★ Sheik stalled to start, eventually Steamboat was able to grab a side headlock and took Sheik to the mat. They did that for 5 minutes until Sheik said fuck it, pulled his little pencil thing from his boot, stabbed Steamboat in the head a couple times and we transitioned to the brawl finish. This gets a few bonus points for Sheik beating Steamboat with an old-school witch's broomstick that he found under the ring, trying to choke him with it and simultaneously bleeding all over Steamboat’s face. Also the utterly unhinged finale of Sheik trying to murder Steamboat with a broken glass bottle. 1981-06-11 AWA Jim Brunzell vs. Nick Bockwinkel Winnipeg, Arena, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada Card ★★★ From the AWA footage so far, Brunzell has looked like a decent little worker. He could sell a beating like you’d want a babyface to, he had fire and intensity and that killer move, his dropkick. What he was lacking was that extra dimension or certain intangibles. When Bockwinkel missed a shoulder charge into the corner he sold his arm beautifully and I was begging Brunzell to really go for it, but he merely grabbed a standing armbar, which eventually transitioned into a boring old hammerlock, and that was that. If he’d had more in his locker to really work over that arm it would have added a whole lot to what he brought to the table. Bockwinkel though was full of excellent moments. The aforementioned selling of the arm being one. Later, when he worked to escape the resulting hammerlock, I thought him baiting Brunzell to the ropes before tripping him during the rope break and savagely attacking the leg was absolutely fantastic. Finally, the transition to the finish was Brunzell whacking Bock’s leg into the ringpost, and Bock showed that he could not only sell the arm but he could also sell the leg with equal pizazz. That led to a Ray Stevens interference gone wrong, then several awesome dropkicks later, Bock was flat on his back as the referee counted the 1, 2, 3 for Brunzell’s huge victory.
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    1981-06-10 AJPW - Super Power Series 1981 - Day 16 Genichiro Tenryu & Jumbo Tsuruta vs. The Von Erichs (David von Erich & Kevin von Erich) Hiraka Wide Area Gymnasium, Yokota, Akita, Japan Card ★★ This felt like a match out of its time. Everything from the grain of the film, to the venue, to the ring, made it feel like this match happened in the mid-70s rather than 1981. The von Erich’s, despite being the brother tandem, had the most mishaps, nailing each other inadvertently a couple different times through this. They didn’t really give the vibe of being a top tier tag team, but they did have the Claw, which felt like the great equaliser. Tenryu had the chops down and his selling of the Claw was pretty great. I can’t tell if it was because most of the time they applied the move to the stomach, but it looked way cooler here than usual. Do I actually like the Claw now? Jumbo felt like the big boy on campus, but it never seemed like he felt the need to ramp things up beyond 2nd gear and it was more as if he and Tenryu were allowing the Erich’s to hang around before they finally decided to put them away than they were actually being challenged in any meaningful way. And they were put away in a rather lacklustre fashion as well, Jumbo nailing a run of the mill dropkick and Kevin had no answer. 1981-06-10 AJPW - Super Power Series 1981 - Day 16 Jimmy Snuka vs. Ricky Steamboat Hiraka Wide Area Gymnasium, Yokota, Akita, Japan Card ★★ The opening action was quick and dynamic, but the timing wasn’t quite there and I’m not sure these two actually have the best chemistry together, at least in a singles setting. I really expected this, and their previous match, to be far better than they actually ended up being. This followed a lot of the same patterns as the first, and suffers from a lot of the same problems. Once they transitioned to the heat the pace slowed way, way down. Steamboat did the selling thing, but it didn’t draw me in, and there wasn’t any particular hook. He was just taking Snuka’s offense for the most part, threw a few karate chops in for hope spots, and it was that essentially until the finish. They teased a countout but tumbling back into the ring Steamboat got his leg all tied up in the ropes. Snuka began laying in the kicks, the referee did the normal thing, which was to start the 5 count, Snuka didn’t like that and just headbutted him, then we got some weak chair offense on a prone, defenceless Steamboat before finally all the seconds piled in to break things up. Yet again it felt like they were trying to project some wild finish, and especially from Snuka’s part, he could have been more pointed and vicious with his beatdown at the end, but it all felt very, meh. Both of these guys have the physical tools, and the elements for a great match appear to be present, but it looks like they just couldn’t put it all together.
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    1981-06-08 WWF - MSG Network Dusty Rhodes vs. Killer Khan Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York, USA Card ★ This was just about passable. It operated more like a platform for Dusty to do Dusty things than working towards delivering an interesting or engaging match. For somebody working a monster foreign heel gimmick, Khan is surprisingly happy to do generic heel stuff like pulling hair or tights, I almost feel like he’d rather just go all out and be a full on stooge. This ended with Khan getting disqualified for choking Dusty for too long while caught on the ropes. That wasn’t the finish to Khan’s match against Backlund earlier in the year but I have a suspicion that they have gone to this finish before and I’m not a fan. 1981-06-08 WWF - MSG Network Bob Backlund (c) vs. Angelo Mosca WWF Heavyweight Title Match (Special Referee: Pat Patterson) Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York, USA Card ★ The run of God-awful finishes in this series continues. How they expected punters to keep stumping up to watch these two go at it is beyond me. The fact that fans clearly did is even more confusing. The first half was dull, but at least it was focused. Backlund grabbed onto the arm and he wouldn’t let go. Yanking on it, punching it, wrenching it. Mosca was a bit too on the nose at dangling the limb out there, clearly asking Backlund to attack it, but at least there was strategy. The transition was decent as well, with Mosca finally grabbing hold of Backlund and hot-shotting him onto the ropes. It’s a shame his own offense was so plodding and generic. The final half wasn’t much of anything, Mosca got into it with Patterson a few times and Patterson was all too eager to deliver a quick count despite Mosca’s foot being on the rope. I’m not sure exactly how this was supposed to make Backlund look good at all and it certainly made Patterson look completely incompetent. In fact, why was Patterson even refereeing this match in the first place? The first finished with Backlund inadvertently striking the referee in that one, so is Pat supposed to be invulnerable to getting hit himself? Doesn’t make much sense to me at all. And there’s still one of these to come yet. Sheesh. 1981-06-08 WWF - MSG Network Tatsumi Fujinami & Yoshiaki Yatsu vs. The Moondogs (Moondog Rex & Moondog Spot) Non Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Tag Team Match Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York, USA Card ★ Watch this if you love arm drags and armbars. The first ten minutes consisted of nothing else, just two chubby men getting flipped over again and again by two Japanese guys. For me this was just painfully dull. When the Moondogs finally did get on offense all they wanted to do were chinlocks and basic strikes. And this went on for 30 minutes! Fujinami showed flashes of what he’s capable of, and by the time he came in for the hot tag the crowd were falling out of their seats willing something - anything to happen. Yatsu showed some nice funky aggression towards the finish, but I think it was clear that these two teams had their wires crossed all match and this never came together to be anything remotely resembling a cohesive whole. Moondogs were disqualified in the first fall for using a rope and Fujinami won the whole thing with a pinfall, but not even he or Yatsu seemed to have realised, adding to the general messiness of the match. I do get the sense though, especially in regards to Yatsu and the Moondogs’ contributions, that if this had taken place in Memphis, it would have at least been fun. 1981-06-08 WWF - MSG Network Pedro Morales (c) vs. Sgt. Slaughter WWF Intercontinental Title Match Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York, USA Card ★★ Another mediocre match to conclude a mediocre show. This was a solid to good performance from Slaughter, we got the standard bumps into the ringpost over the turnbuckle, his selling of Morales’ punches was excellent and I was digging his woozy exhausted selling at the end, but there was too much work around the loaded elbow pad for my taste and Morales was just “there”. The finish as well, with Slaughter punching the referee, just felt so very weak. An argument could be made that in his dazed state he attacked the wrong man, but I’m not buying it, felt like another fuck finish to me.
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    1981-06-06 PNW Matt Borne vs. Buddy Rose Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Sports Arena, Portland, Oregon, USA Card ★★ Where this really excelled was in the details. Rose won the first fall with a backbreaker and followed up by relentlessly targeting the back to begin the second. Just before that backbreaker however, Borne had gone for an airplane spin and Rose was able to slip it. In the second fall Borne went for the backbreaker again and this time Rose wasn’t able to slip it and he succumbed to the move. Rose jumped on the microphone between falls and highlighted that fact, suggesting that Borne had pulled his trunks to be able to deliver the move and therefore should be disqualified. He then proceeded to blatantly pull the trunks several times on pin attempts of his own. Just small little things dotted throughout that, all driven by Rose, that gave this match character. Borne however felt a little bland, his shine at the beginning a bit pedestrian, and the intensity didn’t ratchet up until Borne drew blood and Rose was essentially out on his feet with thick dollops of blood smeared above his eye. Borne went for the spin again but Oliver rushed down and I guess a DQ loss is better than a clean loss in Oliver and Rose’s eyes. I did love how Rose sold the blood loss. He had the upper hand at one point, went to attack a doubled over Borne in the corner, but backed off and had to regroup. I’m not sure I’ve seen that style of selling before, really impressive. 1981-06-08 WWF - MSG Network The Magnificent Muraco vs. Rick Martel Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York, USA Card ★★ After the first flurry by Martel in the opening moments I was dead sure this was going to be awesome. Martel was a whirling dervish of fire and energy and the crowd were hyped. Then they settled into a 5 minute long side headlock and the energy just seemed to vanish. Seeing how evidently Martel had his working boots on I can only surmise that Muraco was the one calling things and he was the one pushing to slow the pace down. The tedium of the headlocks aside I can’t fault anything Martel did all match. He was spectacular. Great offense when they actually got into it, great selling when Muraco got some heat. Just really excellent stuff from him. For Muraco, hmmm. I know he’s got a reputation for being boring on occasion, but I was really quite disappointed here. He’s good on the microphone and his pre-match shenanigans where he got on the turnbuckle and worked the crowd indicated that he was motivated for this one, but when push came to shove he fell flat. Muraco was still within his initial run in New York (this was his first MSG appearance for example) so it was no surprise that he went over, crotching Martel on the ropes and winning via countout.
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    1981-06-04 NJPW - 4th Madison Square Garden Series - Day 26 Tatsumi Fujinami & Tiger Mask vs. Chris Adams & Mike Masters Kuramae Kokugikan, Tokyo, Japan Card ★★ This was surprisingly fun for a match where Adams and Masters were merely serviceable and Fujinami receded into the background. This felt like the most complete performance from Tiger Mask as of yet, like he was slowly ironing out the kinks, dropping or tightening up the stuff that wasn’t working and leaning into what was. He was as fluid as ever here, his offense flashy as always, but it all felt a little more like it had a purpose, even if that purpose was to get over the concept of “Tiger Mask” perhaps more than the match itself. I will say there were glimpses of selling here, and he had all the tools to be an excellent face in peril, so it will be interesting whether that aspect of his work develops at all down the line. Thinking on the gimmick though, it might be one of the harder gimmicks in wrestling history to pull off, bringing a comic book character to life in a somewhat believable way. This wasn’t late 80s WWF where anything goes, this was early 80s New Japan. The level of difficulty to get the audience to buy in must have been sky high. And while he definitely does things that he shouldn’t even attempt, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was being urged to push the boat out and overextend himself as well, in ways that other wrestlers in the roster weren’t. Anyway, in regards to this match specifically, I dare say it was a good performance by him and he was by far the most interesting aspect of the match overall. 1981-06-04 NJPW - 4th Madison Square Garden Series - Day 26 Bob Backlund & Dusty Rhodes vs. Bobby Duncum & Sgt. Slaughter Kuramae Kokugikan, Tokyo, Japan Card ★★ By far the most over I’ve heard Dusty be in Japan and by far the best performance I can remember him having in the country as well. In fact I’d say he was the standout amongst all four men here. Not to labour a point, but Duncum might as well not have even been there for how little he did. Slaughter and Backlund did their usual stuff, but it’s disappointing that during this tour Slaughter has felt more like just another guy than the awesome worker he showed he was back in New York. Rhodes had the most entertaining offense, the most expressive and effective selling and generally was the only one to get the crowd invested, so he’d be my vote for MVP. Backlund hit Slaughter with an O’Connor Roll and bridged for the win. Side note: Dusty’s name when translated to Japanese seems to have been based on the assumption that his surname was pronounced Row-Dess. Was it not somebody’s job to find out how the wrestler’s names were actually pronounced and figure out a more true to life translation? 1981-06-04 NJPW - 4th Madison Square Garden Series - Day 26 Antonio Inoki vs. Tiger Jeet Singh MSG Series 1981 Semi Final Match --------------------------------------- Antonio Inoki vs. Tiger Jeet Singh Lumberjack Match Kuramae Kokugikan, Tokyo, Japan Card ★ I like Inoki when he’s throwing hands and is all fired up, when he’s lying around trying to do mat work, not so much. This had a big fight feel, but he spent way too much time doing the latter than the former to elevate this. It would have helped if Singh’s offense consisted of anything more than just chokes and a head scissors. After 20 long minutes the first match ended in a double countout. Riveting stuff. I’m sure that at this point Inoki and Singh were still level on points and therefore they still needed a decision as to who would face Hansen in the MSG Series final. So they decided to have a Lumberjack match, which would prevent a further countout finish. What it didn’t prevent was a bullshit DQ finish, when Singh just punched Inoki right in the balls. I was almost, just a tiny bit, expecting them to give Inoki a decisive finish over Singh here, considering that they went through the whole ordeal of setting up an entire second match, but no, a simple ball shot was what they came up with and Inoki advanced to the final. 1981-06-04 NJPW - 4th Madison Square Garden Series - Day 26 Stan Hansen vs. Antonio Inoki MSG Series 1981 Final Match Kuramae Kokugikan, Tokyo, Japan Card ★★★ This started so well. Inoki, worn down from his previous exertion against Tiger Jeet Singh earlier in the night didn’t exactly look pumped at the start here. The pleasantries were still under way and Inoki was in the process of taking off his robe when BL:AM, Hansen levelled him with a Lariat. Inoki was dead, out, lifeless on the mat and had to be rolled to the floor by the seconds at ringside. Hansen was eager to get the match underway, and who could blame him, but the referee had other ideas and we had to wait for Inoki to compose himself. This seemed to be the wakeup that Inoki needed though with Hansen having rocked him to his senses. Inoki pumped his fist to the crowd and got Sakaguchi to give him a solid slap to the face for good measure before he climbed back into the ring and we were back underway. The intensity from the off here was a level above what we’ve seen from New Japan recently. Hansen was having none of Inoki’s attempts at a lock up so Inoki resorted to his low kicks, which he could unload from a distance. Hansen was all forward motion all the time, but he wasn’t able to deal that final blow. Inoki’s opportunity came when the action tumbled to the outside, first getting the advantage and slamming Hansen’s leg against the ringpost, second when he dodged a Lariat and Hansen collided with the ringpost yet again. Perhaps not the finish I yearned for, but Inoki hit the armbreaker, got out in front of Hansen as the referee’s count grew, and managed to fend Hansen off long enough to secure the countout victory. With 5 more minutes of action and a more decisive victory, this could have slid into the great category, as it stands it’ll have to settle for being very good.
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    1981-06-03 AJPW - Super Power Series 1981 - Day 10 Jimmy Snuka vs. Ricky Steamboat Nakajima Sports Center, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan Card ★★ I expected this to be better than it was. This came across more like a dress rehearsal, with everyone running through the production at three quarters speed, than the real thing. Snuka was channelling his inner early 90s Undertaker with how slow and deliberate he was moving around the ring and Steamboat suffered from never pressing hard when he got the advantage, mostly going for headlocks and sleepers as his tactic of choice. This had its moments, Snuka would suddenly burst to life and do something draw-droppingly athletic, and Steamboat would swing between really great selling and going a bit overboard and it, reading as melodramatic. I think this match definitely would have gotten over better in the US than in Japan, at points Steamboat seemed like he was almost desperately yearning for the crowd to get behind him and they were somewhat reluctant to do it. The finish was worked as if they had had this wild, out of control, nasty battle, as Steamboat lost his cool, attacked Joe Higuchi then continued to pummelled Snuka in the corner, but it just fell flat to me, as if everybody was just going through the motions and they couldn’t really be bothered. That kind of finish really needs to be earned through the narrative of the match and it certainly wasn’t here. 1981-06-03 NJPW - 4th Madison Square Garden Series - Day 25 Bob Backlund (c) vs. Hulk Hogan WWF Heavyweight Title Match Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan Card ★★ Not enough here to truly recommendable, but another great example of Hogan rounding out as a worker. He really felt on the level with Backlund here, and in terms of a Japanese context he perhaps felt like he was positioned as higher in the overall hierarchy. The middle-to-end stretch lost some steam, too long in a bear hug which sapped some of the energy, but the early exchanges were relatively crisp and lightyears better than they’re showing the previous summer where numerous mistimed spots drew actual laughs from the crowd. Considering this wasn’t even the main event on the card and the tour was building towards the MSG Series Final, which neither of these men would be involved in, it was no surprise they weren’t necessarily going all out to deliver that big-time classic. But given the right motivation I think these two, at this point in time, would have been very capable of delivering something really good. 1981-06-03 NJPW - 4th Madison Square Garden Series - Day 25 Antonio Inoki & Dusty Rhodes vs. Bobby Duncum & Sgt. Slaughter Aichi Prefectural Gymnasium, Nagoya, Aichi, Japan Card ★★ Definition of a throwaway match, filled with just “stuff” from each guy involved, with no real focus or destination. Duncum I think has proved that he was pretty useless in Japan, Slaughter doesn’t seem to really be “Slaughter” across the Pacific either, I’ve always had my reservations about how Dusty’s act travels, and Inoki is as good as his motivation, and he was pretty happy to mail it in here until it came for the finish. Okay enough but nothing worth seeking out and I’m surprised it was Slaughter who ate the pin, following a backdrop suplex from Inoki, and not Duncum.
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    1981-06-XX AJW Yukari Omori vs. Hiroe Ito Japan ★★ Very similar to the previous Kitamura vs Hori match but elevated by Ito’s heelish corner cutting and Omori’s scrappiness in overcoming that gambit. They lost a bit of steam by the end but a nice little match from two women who haven’t popped up on tape that often up to this point. 1981-06-XX AJW Rimi Yokota vs. Mami Kumano Japan ★★ Kumano was all too happy to cheat as usual and she had Kaoru Matsumoto at her side to regain the advantage whenever Yokota looked to be gaining any momentum. Kumano was somewhat pedestrian here but the match chugged along, I was always just waiting for the next Yokota moment of athleticism, but unfortunately they were pretty sparse here. The way Kumano worked her meant that Yokota spent most of the time with her back on the mat, selling some kind of hold, which she’s fine at, but I wouldn’t say it’s a strength of hers yet. As Yokota came on stronger near the finish, Matsumoto’s interferences became more common, but it wasn’t enough to keep Yokota at bay, as a kick off the top and a suplex was all it took to put Kumano down. This felt a bit more like the opening 10 minutes of a longer match than a fully developed match in and of itself really. 1981-06-XX AJW Devil Masami & Leilani Kai vs. Mimi Hagiwara & Nancy Kumi Best Two Out Of Three Falls Tag Team Match Japan ★★★ Mimi really reminds me of Lucy Kayama. They both have really slender builds and lean into that to generate their reactions from the crowd. Her patented punches aren’t as good as Kayama’s neckbreakers though. Kai and Masami were a great team. Kai had the mass. She was that stabilising force, but Masami was all King Kong energy here and just tore through the faces, especially during that first fall. I loved the build and execution of the final two falls. The heels had dominated up to that point but the faces made a spirited comeback, and dished out enough punishment to grab the second fall via countout. Now, this wasn’t a quick dash to the ring to beat the count, they put Kai, and Masami specifically, on their asses and decisively won the fall. Masami sold the living hell out of the beating she’d taken throughout the break between falls and into the third, before finding her feet again and body checking the bejesus out of Mimi. At this point the faces had come up against an obstacle and overcome it, but by the heels gaining an advantage in that decisive final fall it meant all the more when they were able to climb that mountain once again and finally secure victory with a pinfall on Kai. Nancy was a bit in the background due to Mimi playing FIP for the majority of this, but the moment she had the chance to hot tag she was all energy and fire. However this was the Devil Masami show through and through, and if you’d replaced her with almost any other woman on the roster this wouldn’t have been nearly as good.
  25. SAMS
    June 1981-06-XX AJW Nancy Kumi vs. Mami Kumano Japan ★ Nancy demanded the microphone beforehand to point out something about Kumano, probably that she had a concealed weapon. Instead of hiding this fact, Kumano decided to dive out the ring and start choking Nancy with a tag rope. And that essentially sums up this match. The referee was wearing some god awful purple trousers and he was blatantly biased towards Kumano. I’m not sure I’ve seen such an obvious heel referee performance outside of the American they brought in for the Guam tour last year. Masami and others would openly interfere and the referee would just turn his back, he might as well have been idly whistling to himself for how useful he was. If their aim was to frustrate the audience, then they succeeded. In fact I thought that Nancy did an excellent job at displaying her own frustration with the whole situation. So at least they were acknowledging the ridiculousness of it all. Eventually the seconds at ringside supporting Nancy were pushed over the edge and they came in to assist, hitting a double team gut buster on Kumano which put Kumano down long enough that even with the referee’s slow counting he still made it to three. He was annoyed, but not as annoyed as those seconds and he got flung around the ring some before he fled the scene. I feel like I could see what they were going for here, and it’s certainly not the first time we’ve seen this kind of booking in AJW before, but the crowd didn’t seem overly engaged in the action, so while they may have been frustrated like I was it didn’t then translate into actual heat. I’m sure I’m missing a ton of context and I couldn’t glean anything useful from the commentary but, as it stands I pretty much hated this. 1981-06-XX AJW Ayumi Hori vs. Tomoko Kitamura Japan ★★ Solid, competitive showing from both women here. Nothing flashy but they displayed struggle and both got opportunities to work on top. I’d say that Hori got the most of it, particularly throughout the first half, and despite a flurry of offense from Kitamura at the end, she was able to pull out the win with an O’Connor Roll. I think it’s pretty telling however that commentary spent more time explaining wrestling as a general concept to a celebrity guest than actually talking about the match, which indicates how unspectacular the whole affair was.
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