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SAMS

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  1. SAMS
    1981-04-02 AJPW - 9th Champion Carnival - Day 7 Wayne Ferris vs. Bruiser Brody Champion Carnival 1981 Match Civic Gymnasium, Mito, Ibaraki, Japan Card Honky Tonk in All Japan! Brody nailed him with a chained fist right at the bell, busting him open. A few more punches and a couple knee drops later and Ferris was out for the count. The seconds at ringside dove in to try and fend off Brody but he cleared house until one of them decided to come in wielding a steel chair. Nothing Brody actually did conveyed wild violence, but the image of his face plastered in Ferris’ blood and him being warded off by someone with a chair, made him look like a wild animal to say the least and was a cool visual. 1981-04-02 AJPW - 9th Champion Carnival - Day 7 Giant Baba vs. Jumbo Tsuruta Champion Carnival 1981 Match Civic Gymnasium, Mito, Ibaraki, Japan ★★★ Card This was measured and deliberate, a real old school affair. It was a slow burn, but they ramped the heat up for the finish with both men pulling out the stops for that win. I can see how some would find this relatively dull, and at points it might very well have been, I would only really recommend this to a devout disciple of that traditional mat style. But I thought they worked this in a way that the 30 minute time limit draw came off more like Jumbo was really taking the fight to Jumbo and pushing him to the limit, than them merely kicking the can down the road because they couldn’t have either man do the job.
  2. SAMS
    April 1981-04-XX AJW Mami Kumano vs. Tomoko Kitamura Japan ★★ Pretty nondescript match. Kumano handily controlled for the most part, swatting Kitamura’s attempt at fighting back by taking her through the crowd and depositing her in the seats. Kitamura had a little left in the tank though and went for broke and managed to hit the Giant Swing. It only got a two count though and Kumano immediately picked up the intensity with a few mini-powerbomb style slams and locked on a Cobra Clutch variation called the “Gill Special”. 1981-04-XX AJW Jackie Sato vs. Devil Masami Japan I get the feeling this had a chunk of the early match clipped. The announcements of time elapsed over the PA didn’t seem to line up with the video timestamps and I can’t believe that a just being tripped from the outside by Matsumoto (acting as Masami’s second) would be enough to allow Masami to establish such a long heat segment on Jackie. I thought the work during the heat was pretty lacklustre as well and we barely had any sign of a Jackie comeback until way too late in the match. An eventual flurry of offense from Jackie was cut short by an ill advised flying press of the second turnbuckle that she crashed and burned on, then they transitioned to the outside for some light brawling and we finished on a double countout. Pretty uninspiring all round.
  3. SAMS
    1981-03-31 Joint Promotions Mark Rocco vs. Sammy Lee The Pavilion, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, England, United Kingdom ★★★ Is this Sayama’s best match as Sammy Lee? I don’t think it’s a surprise that it took a worker like Rocco (who I think is fantastic) to drag Sayama into a well orchestrated match. All the glitz of Sayama’s usual offense was still present but Rocco fed into it properly and made it all come across as organic. I wasn’t bowled over by Sayama’s selling when he actually did it, but I’m sure he was a bit rusty considering he hadn’t had to do any for about 6 months. But those aforementioned big offensive spots, in this context, made him come across like an even bigger star/athlete than he had previously. There’s one thing to just steamroll a helpless opponent, but using these flashy kicks to mow down a calculating and seasoned wrestler like Rocco is a different story entirely. For his part Rocco, as I mentioned, did a fantastic job of sequencing Sayama’s offensive moveset and then peppering in his own attacks to apply the heat. He showed a lot of ass but he also didn’t just lie down for it. He forced Sayama to apply and maintain that pressure before he gave it up. Rocco’s strategy for the most part was to match Sayama’s flash with big home run bombs of his own. The problem was that his backfired more often than not, getting caught on the tope rope and slammed to the mat, which he sold like death superbly, or missing elbow drop, and these ended up breaking any momentum he had built up. Recently there had been a lot of talk about the referees cleaning up matches in WoS and it played into the finish here. Rocco picked up two swift public warnings, one for a pretty nasty suplex in which he just dumped Sayama on the ropes. Then in only the third round, Sayama springboarded off the middle turnbuckle and got a fist straight in the stomach. That was it for Rocco and was handed the DQ. 1981-03-31 Joint Promotions Dave Bond vs. Tom Tyrone The Pavilion, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, England, United Kingdom ★ Card “Not a tremendous first round but it’s almost done” - Kent Walton. Now just imagine that for four rounds. Tyrone came across like a create-a-wrestler, but when every attribute was left on the default setting. Bond seemed like he gave Tyrone the time in the first 2 rounds or so to “do his stuff” but I guess Tyrone had no stuff to do. Eventually it seemed like Bond was just like, fuck it, and starting applying the pressure, upping the ante on offense, and while Tyrone grabbed a soft equalising fall in the third, this really felt like a run of the mill victory for Bond. This could have been them sparring in the gym in front of zero people for all the energy they put into it. 1981-03-31 Joint Promotions Jon Cortez vs. Bobby Barnes The Pavilion, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire, England, United Kingdom ★★★ Card This was such a tonally strange match. Definitely felt like they zagged from my expectations going in and perhaps due to Cortez winning a title from Breaks earlier in the year they wanted to give him a particularly strong showing here. The first couple rounds were quite subdued. No striking or slams. Just chain wrestling through and through. I wouldn’t say Barnes was getting embarrassed but Cortez literally looked like he was floating on air with some of his escapes and transitions, repeatedly handstanding effortlessly out of a manoeuvre, or some other equally fanciful athletic trickery. I was surprised by how on the level things were though, as Barnes just kept going with it and we didn’t get any little aggressive digs in that you’d expect from him. In fact the one to up the ante was actually Cortez. He began playfully swiping at Barnes’ head, rubbing and brushing his hair, as if peppering him with harmless boxing jabs, and even received a little admonishment from the referee for it. Now this did get a rise out of Barnes which led to him making a mental error in the third, resulting in a Cortez fall, and by the end of the fourth he was visibly frustrated. Barnes’ attempts to increase the rough play and really take it to Cortez were mostly for nought though. Everything he tried, Cortez seemed to have scouted, which both made Cortez look even more capable than usual, but also served to cut Barnes’ knees out from under him. Ultimately he had to go the whole nine yards and resort to sneaky punches to the ribs in the referee’s blind spot, and managed to tie things up that way, but he easily succumbed in the sixth and final round to a pretty anticlimactic press slam. From a technical perspective this was very impressive. The early exchanges were incredibly fluid, almost balletic. I just found it incredibly odd how passive Barnes was and that it was Cortez who played the role of antagonist, which felt a bit jarring. Cortez being able to handle Barnes’ colouring outside the lines tactics made him look good from a kayfabe perspective, and added some level of grit to his character that perhaps has been absent before this, but he usually excelled at really selling for his opponent, and here that whole element was essentially missing. I also think Barnes was too good to just be made such a fool of, but I have suspicions there were booking reasons at play here as an answer as to why it played out the way it did.
  4. SAMS
    1981-03-23 CWA Terry Funk vs. Jerry Lawler No Disqualification Match Mid-South Coliseum, Memphis, Tennessee, USA ★★★★ ¾ Card Compact and intense. This was so tightly structured, they hit all the main points they needed to and left the crowd aching for more. Terry Funk did Terry Funk things. Within the first minute he managed to oh-so organically trip up over a rope re-entering the ring to garner a massive crowd pop at his misfortune. But he wouldn’t play the fool for long, he was prepared for a fight and both Terry and Lawler were throwing haymakers before long. I loved how they weaved Jimmy Hart into this, giving him only a few cameos, but reframing the match to remind the audience that at the heart of all this was the Lawler v Hart dynamic and Funk was merely the instrument of pain. Any time Hart found himself too close to Lawler on the floor he dove beneath the ring which I thought was fantastic. Those more familiar with Memphis perhaps have seen this ad nauseam, but I don’t remember seeing him do this before. I often find forehead biting to be a somewhat rote wrestling sequence, something people do just because they think they should in a bloody brawl, but often it’s executed so lazily. Here though both men worked together to not only make it look sick as fuck, but also made me think the bite itself was what actually opened up Lawler. Does anybody embody a wild man more than Funk once he’s fully in gear? He kept working that cut and it really stood out was how much he was revelling in it. He leaned back against the ropes and just spat Lawler’s blood into the air once, then twice, and let the horror on show really sink in. Terry perhaps was enjoying tormenting Lawler a bit too much. He beckoned for Calhoun to ask Lawler if he wanted mercy, letting up his attacks to heighten the humiliation and gloat. But it was these moments that gave Lawler a reprieve and gave Lawler the opportunity to recover and then work an absolutely killer comeback sequence, pulling down the strap and everything, but a Jimmy Hart interference and a bright orange chair later, Lawler was suffering. Terry went after the leg, the formerly broken leg, and once again we were playing into the narrative of the feud. Hart wants Lawler’s leg broken once again and Terry will deliver. Perhaps my only critique would be that Terry was perhaps too deliberate when attacking Lawler with the chair. He could have been more fast paced and vicious, to really hammer home the damage he was inflicting. He moved on to wrenching Lawler’s tights apart around the knee, removing the knee pad and going for the Spinning Toe Hold. Lawler held on just long enough to uncork a final, desperate punch which sent Terry reeling. Lawler intercepted Hart, with the chair, and this time it was Lawler’s time to tee off on Terry’s leg. Swinging the thing like a baseball bat, Lawler again and again hit double after double on Terry until he fell from the ring. Lawler followed him and the attack never relented. This was the energy I wanted from Terry earlier when he was swinging the chair. Lawler splattered Funk into the concrete of the Coliseum as those in the front row looked on in shock and awe. Lawler returned to the ring just in time as Calhoun counted the 10. This was my front runner for match of the year and seems to have retained that position for now upon rewatch. Not only is this a match of the year candidate, but a match of the decade candidate as well, and would comfortably make a GME list for me if I ever got round to making a ballot. 1981-03-27 AJPW Abdullah The Butcher vs. Jack Brisco Champion Carnival 1981 Match Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan Card Abby jumped Brisco during his entrance through the crowd. I’m pretty sure they actually managed to get into the ring very briefly, but before long they were entangled on the floor, wading through the swathes of fans, and we got a double countout. The crowd were heavily for Brisco during the bulk of this, but much like his matches against The Sheik, Abby managed to garner his own strong crowd reactions before it was all said and done. However I do get the sense that he was veering towards the over-familiarity stage with the All Japan audience at this point. They seemed all too keen to get up and close to him while he was brawling amongst them, like the mystique and fear he should have been eliciting had worn off, which explains the babyface reactions he was able to generate, but I’m not sure how good it was from a booking perspective. I thought this dynamic worked wonderfully when he was up against a heel, but against babyfaces everything might get a bit too muddled. 1981-03-30 CWA Dory Funk Jr. vs. Jerry Lawler Mid-South Coliseum, Memphis, Tennessee, USA ★★★ Card If I’d just watched this in isolation I might have enjoyed it a little less, but following up so shortly after Lawler’s match with Terry, seeing how Dory approached this was intriguing and it was a nice change of pace. Lacking the no disqualification stipulation of the Terry Funk match they began this far more measured. Dory used his NWA champion wiles to wrestle Lawler to the mat, wrenching him over a couple times with slow, bruising looking side headlock takedowns. Lawler returned in kind with an armbar of his own. The stakes hadn’t quite been raised yet. For the time being things were pretty civil. The spice level ticked up a notch as soon as Dory started uncorking his patented uppercuts in the corner. They really seemed to rock Lawler so he resorted to what he knew best, the fist. I actually really loved how Dory sold Lawler’s punches here, at least at this early stage in the match. His more subdued demeanour made these punches come across like death blows. He didn’t over bump on them, but they would stagger him and drop him to a knee, giving the impression that they were shaking the very foundations of his being instead of straight up blowing him away. During the final stretch I think that Dory selling in the exact same way may have been a bit detrimental though, where slightly more exaggerated selling would have served the finish better. Things slowly started escalating over the next 5-10 minutes, with Lawler chasing Dory down the aisle with a wooden plank at one point and Dory working over Lawler by the announcer’s table. The referee, Calhoun, increasingly needed to get involved and perhaps my favourite spots were Dory coldly kneeing Lawler in the balls twice while Calhoun was caught up with them in the corner. I forgot to mention that Jimmy Hart was suspended up above the ring, you know, because why not?! He dropped a chain down for Dory who plastered Lawler in the face with it. A near fall later and Dory was lazily caught choking Lawler with it. Lawler came prepared though, knowing Jimmy Hart’s dastardly ways, and pulled out his own chain from his tights. We got the big cathartic right hand straight to Dory’s noggin’ but Calhoun was again right up in the action and was thrown to the floor for his efforts by Lawler before he straight up ate a forearm strike from Dory and that was the final straw. I think this worked on a fair few levels, but it certainly was a step down from the mayhem that was the Terry bout. Dory’s a completely different animal though so I understand why they worked this in the way they did. Dory’s selling was pretty one note, and at times, like during the first third, I thought it was perfect, but his inability to switch things up and exaggerate those reactions later on I think hurt this. Lawler was pretty good in this too but what I’m waiting for though is for him to really imprint himself on a match. So far it feels like he’s the canvas upon which his opponents are carving out the match, and while they obviously heavily incorporate Lawler traits, I want him to really grab a match by the throat and be its defining feature.
  5. SAMS
    1981-03-22 AWA Nick Bockwinkel vs. Pat O'Connor St. Paul Civic Center, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA Card It’s hard to know what to make of this. The footage only ran 7 minutes long, and while I couldn’t find any timestamps for the match online, I’m sure at least half of this is missing. It was cool to see O’Connor in action. I can’t recall if I’ve ever seen an O’Connor match before. Commentary mentioned some form of boxing background and that presented itself in a few sequences where he began hitting body shots to Bock in the corner like he was working a heavy bag. He was also pretty liberal at manipulating the referee to get illegal punches in at the head, so I guess the vibe here was fight fire with fire, considering he was up against heel supremo in Bockwinkel. O’Connor went for his patented roll up but Bock was able to roll through, and perhaps with a handful of tights, was able to nab that win from the clutches of defeat. 1981-03-22 AWA The East-West Connection (Adrian Adonis & Jesse Ventura) vs. The High Flyers (Greg Gagne & Jim Brunzell) Non Title Steel Cage Tag Team Match St. Paul Civic Center, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA ★★★ Card We got some pre-recorded promos from both teams. Gene interviewed the East West Connection first and broke the news that the tag titles won’t be on the line in the cage. They were furious and wondered how they'd been screwed by the top brass at the AWA. This feels so counterintuitive to what I’d expect the setup to be, with now the heels coming across as the hard done party and the babyface champions appear to have had the odds stacked in their favour. I’m missing a lot of context to this so the only reasonable explanation I can think of is if the heels had a series of heinous acts in the bank that the crowd felt they needed punishment for. We joined this JIP. Sometimes this doesn’t seem to hurt matches, but in this case I think it dings it somewhat. Missing the early stages and the slow build to the wild finish felt like it blunted the impact of the finale somewhat. Gagne was already bleeding when the footage starts but it wasn’t long before the rest in turn followed suit. Brunzell looked motivated and each time I’ve seen him he comes across like a solid, credible, fiery babyface. Gagne and Ventura were absolutely fine but there really was nothing to highlight from either. What pushes this match up a level is Adonis though. Just an absolute beast pinballing all over the place. In the WWF they had Slaughter, well, in the AWA they had someone nipping at his heels in the bumping department, and literally everything he did here was golden. No surprises that he was involved in the finish. Gagne took a knuckle duster shot to the back of the head from Ventura and Adonis took the opportunity to climb the structure and make the leap. It looked crazy, but even more so due to the fact this was 1981. I couldn’t quite tell if Brunzell pulled Gagne to safety or if he managed to move under his own strength, but either way Adonis crashed and burned, handing the win to the champions. Watch this for the quadruple juice, a nifty Brunzell display and a fantastic Adonis showing, but I’m not sure this was better than their match earlier in the month to be honest.
  6. SAMS
    1981-03-17 WWF Rick Martel & Tony Garea (c) vs. The Moondogs (Moondog King & Moondog Rex) WWF Tag Team Title Match Agricultural Hall, Allentown, Pennsylvania, USA ★★ Card This aired on the 4th April episode of Championship Wrestling. Not a fantastic match or anything but notable for the changing of the belts from Martel & Garea to the Moondogs, and also Martel’s excellent babyface performance. Martel and Garea held the early advantage, which is unsurprising as this was the trend at the time, but slowly the Moondogs gained a foothold and were able to pretty successfully cut Martel off from his partner. Martel from the off had been a burst of energy and he was able to keep those fires burning throughout, but never more importantly than when he was getting worked over. He made being choked seem legitimately threatening and that constant motion was instrumental in building the tension during the back half of the match. The finish was an unsurprising fuck finish, with Garea getting frustrated and accidentally knocking the referee down, allowing the Moondogs to clobber him with their bone and steal the win. 1981-03-21 WWF Bob Backlund (c) vs. Sgt. Slaughter WWF Heavyweight Title Steel Cage Match Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA ★★★ Card There were aspects of this that I thought were really great, but it hammered home my opinion that this style of cage match isn’t for me. The very final desperate attempt by Slaughter to escape, with his face a crimson mask and Backlund clinging on for dear life to haul him back in, was pure anxiety filled drama, but the dull tug of war that was the earlier escape attempts stuck the match in a quagmire of sorts. I also never understood why you would try and climb over the top when you could just ask for the door to be opened for you, so any and all over-the-top attempts lack realistic drama. The qualms above are more directed at the general escape the cage match structure than about this match in particular though. Backlund arrived to the ring all smiles, which I thought was strange considering how pissed he was at the finish of their last bout. But perhaps he was just gleeful at the thought of getting Slaughter alone in the cage. As soon as the action started Slaughter was up two turnbuckles and attempting his first escape. Unsurprisingly that didn’t go so well for him. A back bump off the top later and Slaughter was eating steel. Backlund himself took some pretty glorious bumps face first into the steel mesh though and this certainly wasn’t as one sided as I expected going in. There were a couple different occasions where it looked like Slaughter was going to start bleeding, and Kal Rudman was as eager as I was to have the bloodletting begin. Finally Slaughter was opened up and Backlund went through those classic cage match routine moves like raking his face into the mesh. We had the aforementioned final Slaughter escape tease, and he got a solid 80-90% of the way out before Backlund was able to haul him back in which brought the crowd to a fever pitch. A final flurry from Slaughter sent Backlund into the cage and he desperately attempted to climb the turnbuckles once again, but this was the nail in his coffin. Backlund made chase, his attack sending Slaughter plunging to the mat, but he had his leg caught on the top turnbuckle. I honestly don’t know how Slaughter didn’t wrench out his knee. He made the full drop from the tope rope with only his tangled up foot to catch him and it looked pretty grim. Triumphantly Backlund excited the cage and all was right in the world. As far as working this specific stipulation I thought they did an admirable job. Slaughter’s main aim was to escape early and often, which made sense, and his best route to gaining any advantage was to go low and hit Backlund where it hurt. In pure Backlund fashion he returned the favour on Slaughter tenfold and each ball shot in this match felt like a high spot. I would have preferred Backlund to have brought the fire and intensity of his previous match right from the start. This felt a little too carefree from him, especially early on. Overall the idea of having this cagematch was to prevent Slaughter bailing like he did previously and to allow Backlund the opportunity to tee off on him. They sort of played up to that idea but I would have liked some more brutality on Backlund’s part. Call me a sadist but this is what I came to see. 1981-03-21 WWF Hulk Hogan vs. Andre The Giant Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA ★★★ Card The two big boys collide once again. We got some dynamic bumping from Hogan off the strikes and headbutts from Andre and he liberally bailed to the outside to recompose himself. I love the spots whenever Andre and his opponent can really emphasise Andre’s size. Hogan tried a double choke in the corner, but instead Andre just did the same back, making Hogan look like a puffed up baby trying to fight with an older sibling. Hogan showed he was the real deal though with a big body slam on Andre, but Andre swept the leg and began to work it over. The weakest part of this match, and the weakest part of Andre’s overall package, is that I don’t think he has enough compelling offense to fill up a middle portion of a match. He has what I think of as “shine” offense, when he overpowers or humiliates the heel, but when you just need to work over a guy, that’s where he starts coming up empty. Here he worked the leg and it was okay - but it was just okay. Hogan felt it was time to go to his secret weapon and he started loading the elbow pad for the Hogan Hammer. Unfortunately for him Andre had it scouted and caught him in the act, ripped off the pad and put it on himself. We essentially got a sneak peak of Andre/Hansen six months before release here, as Andre whipped Hogan into the ropes, nailed him in the top of the head and Hogan was dripping with the red stuff. The beatdown continued until Hogan pulled his final card and went for the body slam again. The problem was that now he was tired, worn out and bleeding, so at the apex of the move his body gave out and he found himself crushed under 470 lbs of Frenchman. 1, 2, 3.
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    1981-03-17 Joint Promotions Clive Myers vs. Young David Ashington, Northumberland, United Kingdom ★★ Considering the size that he eventually became it was initially jarring for me to see Young David so slim in his early years. By this point in time I’ve kind of gotten used to that version of him but here he seems to have levelled up and filled out a considerable amount since he turned 18. Myers looked like he removed basically all of the martial arts strikes from his repertoire since February, limiting himself to the usual wrestling holds or the odd judo throw, and I think he was the better for it. There were some decent sequences in this, and they filled the time without it getting boring, but I think they got far too cute at times; tried too many spots that were overly co-operative or designed merely to pop the crowd in the moment; or overstretched themselves and tried things that they either didn’t have the timing or technique to pull off properly. I think both of these men could very easily have a good match with the right opponent, but between them they weren’t able to construct the match to give it any sort of narrative momentum. It was just things happening in sequence with no rhyme or reason. In the end they looked to have botched a routine back body drop of sorts with David landing awkwardly and lying lifeless on the mat for a few moments. This forced Jeff Kaye to hand down a decision of No Contest. They did get David up on his feet within a few minutes but I wasn’t sure if this was a shoot injury or planned. But with WoS, they run these injury angles so often that I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the intended finish. 1981-03-17 Joint Promotions Keith Haward vs. Mal Sanders Ashington, Northumberland, United Kingdom ★★ This was a cagey one. Perhaps what you could even describe as “scientific”. I thought Haward was really impressive in his series the previous year against Cortez, but while he still clearly has the physical tools, against a relatively lesser wrestler, I didn’t get the sense that he was able to leverage his attributes in the best way. Nothing much really happened until the third round when strategies finally started to emerge. Sanders targeted the left arm, which was nice, but my problem was that Haward already had a bandaged up right arm that was previously injured. I feel like overlooking low hanging fruit like that is just not good. In turn Sanders started focusing his efforts on Sanders’ left hand, and while Sanders’ approach on the arm petered out pretty quickly after a round or so, Haward kept returning to the hand as his best point of attack, which I liked. Sanders, to his credit, was good at selling the hand intermittently, hiding it behind his back to keep it away from his opponent, but with just one arm available he left himself open to other Haward advances which I thought was a nice little touch. They went back and forth with the classic WoS pin attempt sequences but Sanders got a bit too cocky after one escape and ended up being surprised with a backslide which levelled things at one a piece. Reeling from losing his advantage Haward was able to go into his bag and unleash his pet move - according to Walton - which looked like two gut wrench suplexes in a row with the second leading into a pin. Haward perhaps had the more consistent strategic focus but Sanders was overall better at selling and projecting character throughout. Haward still came across like a legitimate athlete who was still finding his feet in this whole “professional wrestling” sphere, which is exactly what he was. 1981-03-17 Joint Promotions The Royal Brothers (Bert Royal & Vic Faulkner) vs. King Ben & Lee Sharron Ashington, Northumberland, United Kingdom ★ I find Vic Faulkner a joy to watch and I’d rather this had been a singles match between him and King Ben than this tag match. Lee Sharron was absolutely terrible. I guess the idea was to have an odd pair of him and Ben together, with Ben the rule abiding face and Sharron the rule breaker. The problem was that Sharron was too inept to heel properly until the latter stages of the bout. I guess Bert Royal wasn’t bothered about changing plans on the fly so he went ahead with the standard “babyface” gets retribution act but it just felt like he was bullying this poor, chubby, ill-coordinated man. Things only got mildly interesting when Royal ended up toppling through the ropes and catching his ankle between them, wrenching it in the process, and this gave Ben, and specifically Sharron, an attack point to exploit. But again, Sharron’s kicks and knee strikes were soooo appallingly bad that I just couldn’t take him seriously. When he did actually decide to heel it up, or show that he was supposed to play the role I expected of him coming in, it was only in arguing with his own partner rather than any underhanded tactics in the ring. Despite operating on only one leg Royal managed to win things for his team with a nice roll up on the big oaf.
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    1981-03-16 WWF Bob Backlund (c) vs. Stan Hansen WWF Heavyweight Title Match Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York, USA ★★★ Card The fact that the last match between these two ended in a double stoppage and an all out brawl, I loved the fact that Backlund carried over that energy and jumped Hansen immediately and we went straight back into things, hot and heavy. This is probably the closest Hansen has gotten to wrestling himself. He’s always about forward motion and forcing his opponents to earn their moments on top. Well here Backlund was the immovable object and it was Hansen who again and again ended up getting knocked to the outside or having to reset himself. The action was somewhat seesawed, but Backlund never seemed in trouble for long and always had the fortitude to force Hansen to relent. It was the repeated knocks to the outside though that were Backlund’s undoing. So consumed with taking the fight to Hansen he couldn’t resist following him out there where Hansen finally had opportunities to make a dent. The third time, Backlund’s overzealous pursuit resulted in him eating the ringpost which allowed Hansen to set up the Lariat and he absolutely killed him on the apron with a shot right to the head. It was pretty clear immediately that he wasn’t going to beat the referee’s count and Hansen was all too happy to take that countout victory. 1981-03-16 WWF Sgt. Slaughter vs. Andre The Giant Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York, USA ★★★ Card This is about as good as a match can get without being great with both men putting in absolutely stellar performances. While his matches with Backlund have highlighted his ability to do big bumps over and through the ropes, this time around Slaughter showed that he was a master at the impact bump when taking offense. There must have been at least five separate occasions where he took a punch, kick or headbutt from Andre and made it look like Andre absolutely obliterated him. Sometimes Andre’s offense can look a tad light but this whole match made him look like he was operating with weapons grade equipment. Slaughter didn’t get much offense in but he was able to creatively carve out a few opportunities, but often just the act of attacking Andre, for example trying for the Cobra Clutch, only served to emphasise Andre’s massive size. Andre really is a singularly unique wrestler in wrestling history. He was an attraction and whoever promoted him would get the most bang for their buck by making him come across as special. The opponents that can do that well are his best and Slaughter here undoubtedly did that in spades. This gets dinged a bit for the dodgy finish, Slaughter pulled the referee into Andre’s path on a turnbuckle bump leading to the DQ, but this was never less than wildly entertaining and feels like one of those matches you could chuck on in a pinch and just know 100% you’re gonna have a fantastic 15 minutes watching wrestling. 1981-03-16 WWF Hulk Hogan vs. Tony Atlas Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York, USA ★★ Card They worked this around the battle of strength between the two, with Hogan getting a solid early advantage due to his larger mass. Atlas did a good job bumping on the shoves into the corner or on a few shoulder blocks but slowly he got more and more frustrated and it was clear the comeback was on. Atlas tapped into some hidden reserves and power slammed Hogan and now it was Hogan’s turn to bump admirably for his opponent. When Atlas really got it going he even cupped his ears to the crowd, doing a Hogan before Hogan! They tried to do a mirror crocheting spot on the ropes with Atlas blocking Hogan’s attempts before delivering the move himself, but it all looked a bit awkward and contrived rather than organic. Atlas used this crotch spot to pin Hogan, and while Hogan’s foot was clearly on the ropes the referee gave zero fucks and counted 3 anyway. Hogan decked the ref after the match, and he can’t really be blamed considering the circumstances, before indicating to the crowd that his leg was indeed on the ropes.
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    1981-03-12 CWA Austin Idol & Dutch Mantell (c) vs. Bill Dundee & Tommy Rich CWA World Tag Team Title Match Rupp Arena, Lexington, Kentucky, USA ★★★★ Card This was a match that just built and built. The faces got a delayed shine and really were able to show their stuff and get the crowd into it but then we got an extended FIP sequence with Dundee under the collar and he was just so excellent in that role. He’d sell a move like it killed him but you never felt like he was totally down and out. He would be so scrappy and come back with a punch or a kick or something else that made you feel like he was fighting for his life, then he’d get mowed down once again. Idol and Mantell both worked fantastically as a team, keeping the pressure on Dundee and the crowd noise swelled to a cacophony as they continued to put their metaphorical foot to his throat. Mantell just looked like a wolverine, completely covered in that back hair but also how he moved. He had an almost stalking-like quality and certainly came across like a guy you wouldn’t want to mess with. My only quibble would be that I think Idol was maybe a little overzealous with his bumping and selling - he bumped in the corner, did a 360 spin and acted like he’d lost his bearings one too many times for my liking - but he got across his pompous, cocky attitude very well, especially when going for pin attempts, always showing off and preening. Things got a little too rambunctious and the action fell to the outside. Dundee looked to have Mantell pinned in a cradle but the referee was otherwise engaged. After he went to grab him and get him back in I wondered if there was gonna be a swerve, but Dundee saw Mantell coming for him and managed an O’Connor Roll for the win. The crowd erupted and it was one of those pure feel good moments where the faces pull through. Really great stuff all around. 1981-03-13 NJPW Gran Hamada vs. Anibal City Gymnasium, Fukuyama, Hiroshima, Japan ★★ Card Cagematch doesn’t mention it, but I’m pretty sure this was part of a tournament for the WWF Light Heavyweight Title (not to be confused with the Junior Heavyweight version that Fujinami held at this time). Gran Hamada is such a coordinated and dynamic wrestler. Whether he’s doing a move or receiving one he always really makes the most of it. This went a little too short for it to be truly “good” but it was definitely entertaining. After eating not one, but two tombstone piledrivers, Hamada turned himself into a human gyroscope and did a nifty victory roll to put Anibal away. I’ve never seen Anibal before but he looked pretty decent. There wasn’t enough here to make a proper judgement on him but he moved well and had some very good offense so I’d keep my eye out for him in the future for sure.
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    1981-03-07 PNW The Destroyer vs. Jay Youngblood Non Title Indian Strap Match Sports Arena, Portland, Oregon, USA ★★ Card Buddy was threatened with a suspension by Dutch Savage before the match and a challenge from Youngblood for a strap match of their own was enough for him to turn tail and head back to the dressing room, leaving The Destroyer all on his lonesome. I thought his jittery behaviour beforehand was excellent, clearly overwhelmed by his leader leaving him, the crowd roaring at him, and even Sandy Barr trying to attach the strap to his wrist triggered a massive jump out of him. The match itself was all brawling with Youngblood taking the most of it and using the strap constantly as you would expect. He used the time keeper’s chair at one point, which opened up Destroyer, and after ripping his mask a bit you could see he was bleeding quite a bit. They teased going to all four corners a few times, with the Destroyer even getting to three at one point, but this definitely felt like a foregone conclusion and Youngblood really didn’t have to do too much to secure the victory. My most memorable moment actually was Youngblood’s first attempt to get the fourth turnbuckle and Destroyer thwarted him with a not so subtle kick to the balls. There were two young women in the front row and they couldn’t have been more gleeful at seeing Youngblood hunched over in pain, which I thought was an unusual zag from them considering face/heel dynamics. 1981-03-12 IWE Animal Hamaguchi & Mighty Inoue (c) vs. El Cobarde & Herodes IWA World Tag Team Title Match Fuchu, Hiroshima, Japan ★★ Card This is one of the few occasions where I thought Hamaguchi shone brighter than Inoue. The stronger sections of this involved him and Herodes, who himself was far better than his showing a couple weeks earlier. Herodes was more willing to use his large body mass to inflict damage, was particularly aggressive at times, but also bumped big when required. In contrast Cobarde felt a bit too much like a blank slate who was just going through the motions and I can’t recall much that he did that really pushed the match forwards. Overall my biggest complaint with this was that this lacked any defined structure. Perhaps they were too subtle with it and I was missing key details, but I like big, obvious transitions and switches in momentum, whether that’s in tags or in singles, and this didn’t have any of that. Inoue and Hamaguchi would be on top for a couple minutes, then suddenly Cobarde and Herodes would be in control and there was nothing really that stood out to signpost these changes. Tags were made far too easily, allowing soft resets, and it summed up to make it feel less of a struggle than it should have. The champions won the thing when Cobarde, fist wrapped with brass knuckles, inadvertently nailed his partner in the head, handing Inoue the opportunity for the easy pin. So to compound the issue, the finish was pretty bleh as well.
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    1981-03-06 Houston Wrestling Abdullah The Butcher vs. Ivan Putski Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, Texas, USA ★★ Card You know the drill by now. Abby uses the fork, makes Putski bleed like a pig, Putski makes a comeback, then we go to the finish. This was totally by the book. Putski’s weapon of choice in retaliation to Abby’s onslaught was the bear hug, and while him lifting the larger man up off the ground was a cool visual, the Bear Hug is not the move of a rousing comeback - it’s far too static and lacks both the impact and cathartic value of a slam or a strike. For the most part Abby was pretty steadfast in hiding his weapon from the referee, but when the opportunity to tie Putski up in the ropes reared his head, he didn’t hesitate. He jabbed the referee in the throat to get him off him, then with Putski incapacitated, he just went to town stabbing him in the top of the head as the crowd looked on in concern. Finally Wahoo came down to make the save, eating a prong or two for his troubles, and the referee recovered to pass down judgement and DQ the Butcher. I find Abby such a fascinating character and I still feel like I’m only starting to peel back the layers to truly understand him. Here it wasn’t about wins or losses, but inflicting bloody carnage on his opponent and striking the fear of God into the paying audience. One thing is for sure, those in attendance will never forget that final savagery on Putski.. 1981-03-07 CWA Bill Dundee (c) vs. Tojo Yamamoto & Wayne Ferris AWA Southern Tag Team Title Two On One Handicap Match WMC Studios, Memphis, Tennessee, USA ★★★ Card I’m not sure whether they set it up this way or whether they were blindsided by a turn of events, but Tommy Rich had to be in Georgia, leaving Bill Dundee to forfeit the titles, fight alone to defend them, or hope that Jimmy Hart would agree to postpone the match to another time when Rich would be available. Dundee chose to go it alone and we got a hell of a match out of it. For the first 8 minutes or so Dundee was in charge. Despite a few tags here and there he was able to get the jump on the fresher man and re-establish control over the match. Fighting against the odds though meant that sooner or later he would make a mistake and Ferris caught him in the gut with a high knee and he was in trouble. The stroke of genius here was to have Dundee work the clock. When he got the chance he bailed out of the ring, checked with Russell how much time he had left, then managed to eat up over a minute by breaking the referee’s count, circling the ring, all in an effort to recover and catch his breath. Once the action resumed Dundee was the stronger of the three but yet again, 2 on 1 is difficult for any man, and Dundee again found himself on the back foot, but yet again he bailed from the ring to eat up more of the clock. This became a war of attrition, trench warfare, and it was fascinating to see how long Dundee could keep this up and whether he would last until the 30 minute time limit to retain those belts. Unfortunately it was never meant to be as a Ferris distraction on the referee gave Yamamoto the opportunity to fling salt in Dundee’s eyes and, despite his best shot, it was too much for him to overcome. Hart, Ferris and Yamamoto gleefully continued the beatdown on a bloodied Dundee until Dream Machine, unhappy with his recent treatment within the Hart stable, came to make the save. In lesser hands this could have been pretty bad. Yamamoto is no great shakes, and while I’ve quite liked what I’ve seen from Ferris so far, he’s not a super worker by any stretch of the imagination. This match’s success hinged entirely on Dundee’s performance, and what a performance it was. From taking the fight to both men, to taking a beating, to making the comeback, to the stalling tactics, it all was quite a masterclass. On a rewatch I might be tempted to go even higher on this one.
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    March 1981-03-01 AWA The East-West Connection (Adrian Adonis & Jesse Ventura) (c) vs. The High Flyers (Greg Gagne & Jim Brunzell) AWA World Tag Team Title Match Minneapolis Auditorium, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA ★★★ Card Classic bumping from Adonis while Ventura brought the psychology, repeatedly targeting Greg’s back with a variety of different attacks. The High Flyers had the energy and verve you’d want from your babyface team, and while Greg comes across a little like an underdeveloped runt in the ring, he’s not unathletic and is pretty fluid around the ring. Brunzell felt like the main man of the team though, bringing all the qualities Greg does but with a more stereotypical “look”. It wasn’t ever explicitly stated, but I’m sure there was a stipulation in place here that if the non-legal man interfered, for example to break up a submission or pin attempt, their team would be disqualified. They teased this a few times with Greg and Brunzell desperate to get in and help their partner but being admonished by the referee and ultimately staying put. It wasn’t enough of a narrative hook though, or they didn’t work the match around it enough, so while the action was good, and I liked all 4 guys in it, it probably will end up being pretty forgettable for me due to the lack of standout moments or story points. The finish had Greg lock the Gagne sleeper on Adonis and they tumbled over the top to the outside. Ventura immediately went in for the attack and Brunzell followed suit. The referee barely gave them a couple seconds to separate and restore order before he threw in the towel and declared a no-contest, which when announced to the audience, received a pretty hearty chorus of boos. 1981-03-03 AJPW Giant Baba (c) vs. Karl Kox PWF Heavyweight Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Chiba Park Gymnasium, Chiba, Japan Card We joined this in progress for both the first and second falls, skipping a lot of the build for each fall. The first finished pretty quickly with things looking 50/50 between the two on the mat then Baba breaking out a neat little cradle to snatch it. In the second, Kox got busted open by a hammer blow of a chop from Baba. After headbutting the turnbuckle several times to psych himself back up he decided his only course of action was to use a foreign object. This levelled the playing field enough for him to drop Baba on his neck with a particularly savage Brainbuster which looked like Kox barely got Baba up off the ground, and Baba landed like a sack of potatoes on the mat. The final fall was pretty nondescript with Kox continuing to use the object but Baba was too strong and put him away with the big boot. This felt like a pretty formulaic Baba ⅔ falls match to me. Kox was on the downswing of his career and his waistline looked like it.
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    February Recap WWF television was all about Sgt. Slaughter and the Cobra Clutch Challenge. Week after week it was the centrepiece of the entire show and they executed it perfectly. These segments were never rushed, but instead lovingly eked out, and Slaughter continued to be elevated to the absolute top of the list of the territory's heels. I quite like Hansen throughout his run here, and he always delivered solid, if xenophobic, heel promos, but nobody generated a crowd reaction like Slaughter. By the end of the month the subtle hints they had been dropping about Patterson’s involvement in the angle were confirmed and Slaughter officially challenged Patterson, offering him, and him only, double the usual reward at a big $10k. As we finished the month the challenge had yet to be accepted. There was both a Spectrum and an MSG show in February as well, with Morales cycling through whichever heel Backlund wasn’t up against that night. Slaughter vs Backlund: Part 2 wasn’t quite as electric as their first encounter, but delivered all the same, and was perfect in setting up the final cage match between them. The opening salvo in the Hansen vs Backlund series at MSG was solid, if unspectacular. In Georgia the two focal points continued to be the DiBiase/Fuller vs The Freebirds feud and all the happenings around the TV title with Sullivan, Keirn, Eaton and Steve O. We started the month with DiBiase and Fuller regaining Fuller’s Lincoln, but they required the help from a newly arrived Junkyard Dog to achieve it. With DiBiase, JYD and the Freebirds all in Georgia it wouldn’t be long before they started running back what happened in Mid-South the previous year. Week by week this feud simmered along but there weren’t any major escalations yet. The TV Title stuff was far more enjoyable, with Steve Keirn in particular able to put on a couple of quality TV matches. While Eaton and Steve O got themselves involved at points, the core struggle was always between Sullivan and Keirn. Sullivan’s tactics slowly got under Keirn’s skin and you could tell that as time went by he was getting to the point of bursting entirely. While Keirn excelled in-ring, Sullivan continued to hit it out of the park as an entire package, delivering excellent interviews and general interactions with Solie whenever given the opportunity. Elsewhere Jim Duggan, recently a mere jobber on WWF television, got some minor prominence, highlighted by a match in which he donned a football helmet during a match. And Atlas unsurprisingly was unable to defeat Race for the World’s Heavyweight Title. In Memphis we were still on the Lawler comeback tour. Ron Bass and Hulk Hogan came in and were easily dispatched, but the big fish was Austin Idol. They’d faced each other back in January, and Idol was still sore at how he felt he’d been treated, and boy did he have a surprise in store. They set up some kind of award ceremony where Lawler received an honour from Mexico, but in fact the luchadore they sent was merely Idol in disguise (okay maybe not that surprising). Idol destroyed Lawler in one of the best angles of the year to set up a run in the territory for the next month or so. The new big tag team was the Bounty Hunter, who were two large burly men with subpar wrestling capabilities, but from what little we saw, Dundee and Rich teaming together was reaping rewards. The 9th February match between them and the Bounty Hunters was clipped, but Rich put on a clinic selling his hand throughout. To round up, Lawler defeated Valiant for the Southern Title, Tony Charles got one over on Billy Robinson, which seemed to conclude their nice little mid-card feud, and we got the addition of Dutch Mantell to the roster by the end of the month. World of Sport was all peaks and troughs for me. The likes of Clive Myers and Sammy Lee, popularising a more martial arts fighting style, failed to deliver any actual good matches despite really strong pushes for both. Dream matches in Grey/Saint and Cortez/Breaks were very good, but not quite great. However the ongoing rivalry between Marc Rocco and Marty Jones delivered an absolute banger of a match that was easily the MOTY up until this point. Another goose egg from New Japan, with hardly any footage of note and All Japan was limited to Harley Race popping up in a couple extremely disappointing matches. For the second month running All Japan Women had the better of it, with the 25th February show acting as a passing of the torch event, Hagiwara taking the All-Pacific title from Yumi Ikeshita and the big one, Jaguar Yokota defeating Jackie Sato in a match that didn’t quite match the peaks of 11/80, but was still very good.
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    1981-02-28 IWE Isamu Teranishi & Mach Hayato vs. El Cobarde & Herodes Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan ★ Card Cobarde and Herodes seem to be the new Lucha team brought in for this tour. Compared to the last team they brought in, Cobarde might be a tad better than Doberman and Carlos Plata I think was better than Herodes, but there wasn’t much in it and it felt very much like for like. My partner told me that El Cobarde translates to “The Coward”, which seems like a strange name for a wrestler, especially as he didn’t wrestle in that manner at all, but maybe there’s some deeper meaning that I’m overlooking. In regard to the match, it was pretty boring. Everybody except for Teranishi seemed content to just meander their way through and the finish was another cluster fuck with Mach Hayato going for and failing to execute a sunset flip. He got caught up on Herodes back and received a kick in the back of the head from Cobarde. He and Herodes were both lying on the mat, but Hayato was on his back with his shoulders flat to the mat. The referee began the count despite it not looking like a real pin attempt, Teranishi made to lift up his partner but was too late and the Lucha team got the decision. It was a real WTF moment, as 999/1000 times that would never result in a pin, and the crowd clearly didn’t know how to react as there was literally no response from them until Herodes’ arm was raised by the referee. 1981-02-28 IWE Animal Hamaguchi & Mighty Inoue vs. Ray Candy & Red Devil #2 Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan ★★ Card Ray Candy certainly was imposing. He had some nice clubbing blows, could throw either Hamaguchi or Inoue clear across the ring, but his kicks looked like shit. Definitely looked like he was scared to lay them in and they ended up looking like itty-bitty pecks. I don’t think Red Devil (aka Bill White) did anything of note here so I’m going to ignore him entirely. Hamaguchi and Inoue did their best to get some serious air when they got thrown through the ropes to the floor (which happened a lot here). The key narrative point was Candy colliding with his partner and getting his arms caught up in the ropes Andre style. The native team used that as an opportunity to double team Red Devil but the referee refused to count any pins and continued to assist Candy to get free. Once Candy was free it was like he became some kind of Godzilla, as he went on an absolute tear and eventually he and his team were disqualified for the over-aggression (at least I think that was the reason). 1981-02-28 GCW Kevin Sullivan (c) vs. Steve Keirn NWA National Television Title Match WTBS TV Studios, Atlanta, Georgia, USA ★★★ Card Keirn clearly had gone over the edge here and Sullivan was the man to push him there. Sullivan’s entire heel turn came about when he went to the dark side between a prior TV Title match between these two. Since then he’s won and lost the title to Steve O, and Sullivan and Keirn have been running Boston Street Fights on the house show loop. It being a TV Title match though they were still going to try and keep things civil and the working style was the usual amateur wrestling fare I’ve come to expect from GCW. The work itself was crisp and fluid and both guys acquitted themselves well. The extra sauce though was Keirn peppering in extra slaps and strikes, perhaps to goad Sullivan into an all out fight, but this was a clear departure from Keirn’s usual approach. When Sullivan finally felt the need to fight back though I think it caught Keirn by surprise. He went for another cheeky strike and Sullivan popped him right in the mouth which sent him on his ass and gave Sullivan the clear advantage for a minute or so. Keirn gained a foothold once again once the stars in his head had cleared and looked to have Sullivan on the ropes with one particularly nasty shoulder breaker. Sullivan rolled to the outside and proceeded to repeatedly break the referee’s count, each time frustrating Keirn more and more. Keirn had enough and dove to the outside to get himself a piece of Kevin but when the action returned to the ring the referee tried to get involved and we got the classic babyface is too fired up and shoves the referee to the ground spot and he was forced to DQ Keirn. Another action packed, tightly worked, compact TV match from GCW. They really were on a roll with these TV title matches.
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    1981-02-24 Joint Promotions Pat Roach vs. Caswell Martin Derby, Derbyshire, United Kingdom This was a lot closer to how I’d like Roach to work all the time. He was big and burly, far more aggressive than usual, and right from the opening bell. The sound quality on this was atrocious, so I couldn’t gather whether this started from round 1 or 2 but in that first round that we saw Roach just steamrolled Martin and gained the first fall in dominant fashion. Over the next few rounds Martin was able to fashion a strategy of his own, chipping away at the leg when he had the chance, but mostly used his speed to avoid Roach’s attempt at a grounded head scissors again and again, which frustrated Roach no end. Records indicate that Roach ended up winning this 2-1, but the footage cut off before the final round. Martin was decent at what he needed to do, pinballing for Roach’s power and being quick and agile when attacking, but this really did a good job of highlighting Roach’s strengths. 1981-02-25 AJW Yumi Ikeshita (c) vs. Mimi Hagiwara All-Pacific Title Match ★★ Japan Hagiwara was more aggressive than usual from the jump, taking it to Ikeshita, rather than allowing the heel to dictate the tempo. Neither were afraid to transition into boxing sequences, but these didn’t land for me (and hasn’t up to this point) as it just doesn't look credible in any way. I have a strong feeling that a chunk of the middle was clipped here as they very quickly ended up in the final run - Hagiwara went for a cradle and the referee counted 3 despite Ikeshita’s shoulder clearly off the mat. Hagiwara looked happy but confused at the decision, but Ikeshita was gone, no arguing with the referee, no afters with Mimi, just straight back to the locker room, clearly in disgust. The action was fine but I will forever just remember it for the odd finish. 1981-02-25 AJW Nancy Kumi & Ayumi Hori vs. Devil Masami & Mami Kumano WWWA Tag Team Title Two Out Of Three Falls Match ★★★ Japan AJW just love a babyface who can overcome stacked odds. A very bland opening led into Kumi and Hori levelling up and going all Wonder Woman on the heels. Hori tried a sunset flip which failed, but Kumi came out of nowhere to hit one on the interfering Kumano. The referee couldn’t count the pin because neither were legal at the time, but it was a spectacular display of agility. Hori had this rocking side slam which she’s pulled out a few times recently, and both her and Kumi were planting huge powerbombs (in 1981!) on their opponents as well before handily taking the first fall. The heels needed to take drastic action and drastic action they took to level things up. Using what I can only describe as a spanner, they went to town on Hori until she capitulated and she ended up having to be carried to the back leaving Kumi all alone. And here we arrived at the stage where the babyface must overcome the odds. The match continued, but essentially we were in a handicap situation. Masami made a fatal error and took Kumi to the outside for some extra curricular action and ate a series of chair shots for her trouble. Having picked one off it was now womano a womano for the finish and Kumi was able to lock on a Romero Special (seemingly her newest finisher) to claim the tag titles for herself and her injured partner. Perhaps a tad overbooked and the use of the spanner veered into Triple H with the sledgehammer territory, but the faces during their shine and the heels during their heat both showed that they were potentially excellent teams, and this match could have been very good actually if a few more things fell into place. 1981-02-25 AJW Jackie Sato (c) vs. Rimi Yokota WWWA World Title Match ★★★ Japan Jackie carried herself like an ace but she wrestled like the queen bitch. The extra force and torque she put into her moves gave the impression she was trying to inflict pain and not just a means to winning a wrestling match. That suplex into a backbreaker of hers - when she pushes her opponents lifeless body off her knee, she dismissively shoves it off instead of just letting them drop to the mat. She even pulled out a unique move here, a torture rack, which I can’t recall seeing from her before. She bounced around the ring, and with each undulation, wrenched in the hold a little more, such a great offensive display. Yokota herself was no slouch either. She showed off some of her athleticism here, again using a nifty cartwheel to avoid a collision on a rope running sequence, but her defining characteristic was her scrappiness. She wouldn’t take anything lying down, any pin attempt and she was squirming away, and her tenacity paid off when, tussling on the mat for position, Jackie was able to avoid a couple amateur style pin attempts which garnered shrieks from the girls in attendance, but eventually Yokota succeeded, got the shoulders down just long enough to register the three count, get the win and the title. It perhaps was a bit of a damp squib finish for such a passing of the torch event but what preceded it was good enough even if it wasn’t top tier great.
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    1981-02-20 AWA Jerry Blackwell & John Studd vs. The High Flyers (Greg Gagne & Jim Brunzell) St. Paul Auditorium, St. Paul, Minnesota, USA ★★ Card JIP 5 minutes in. Greg was very good FIP, his build and mannerisms lend themselves well to just dying when faced against the mass of his two opponents. Brunzell was fantastic working the apron, giving that energy and cheering on his partner, then when it was his turn with the hot tag he was great, especially his dropkicks, which is probably the only thing I knew about Brunzell going into this. Studd looked a bit better than I expected actually, when he went for clubbing blows he looked pretty mobile and they had zip, but both he and Blackwell were far too eager to lock on a Bear Hug and that sapped any kinetic energy the match had. Studd and Blackwell had Greg tied up for the heart punch behind the referee’s back but he dodged at the last minute and Blackwell took the fist straight to his chest to give the High Flyers the victory. 1981-02-22 WCCW - Star Wars 1981 Mil Mascaras vs. Tim Brooks Reunion Arena, Dallas, Texas, USA ★★ Card Brooks looked like he spent more time dumpster diving than in wrestling rings and he certainly wasn’t a fan favourite here. Mil Mascaras, donning a gold theme this evening, got a warm reception, and 1981’s Star Wars card was underway. This was a neat little opener, Mascaras was keen not to let Brooks get too much in before he went right back at him. Brooks himself was a little more comedic than I was expecting, but without going overboard with it. He took a poor man’s Slaughter bump over the turnbuckle and tried to convince the referee that Mascaras had thrown him over the top rope, which was one example of him trying to pull a fast one. In the end Mascaras came off the top with a fancy looking crossbody and it was light’s out for Brooks. 1981-02-22 WCCW - Star Wars 1981 Fritz von Erich vs. The Great Kabuki No Disqualification Match Reunion Arena, Dallas, Texas, USA ★ Card Now, while this wasn’t really that good at all, it doesn’t mean it didn’t have its merits. Granted, Kabuki came across more like a sideshow attraction, lots of smoke and mirrors to conceal a slightly overweight man, wearing face paint and doing pseudo martial arts, but my enduring takeaway from this match will be how good I thought Fritz was. At 52 or so here, he was slightly younger than Verne Gagne, slightly older than Nick Bockwinkel, and while he’d retire the following year in ‘82, he showed that he still had something in the tank and I’m very keen to seek out matches from his prime. I mean, just comparing him to Kabuki, his selling was lightyears ahead, just little things like registering the pain in his hand after a punch or choosing the right reaction to whichever attack Kabuki had thrown at him. I really hate the Claw as a move, but in one instance they set it up in a pretty interesting way here with Fritz looking like he was trying to drive a stake through Kabuki’s face, his free hand locked onto his wrist and pushing downwards with all his might while Kabuki had to use all his strength to prevent it. I also loved how Fritz would make a landed punch, or even a missed punch, feel like a big spot rather than just a throwaway move. Ultimately, this was dragged down by Kabuki being terrible, the shenanigans with Gary Hart at ringside and David von Erich interfering, but I’ll always have my first Fritz experience to look back on fondly. 1981-02-22 WCCW - Star Wars 1981 Ali Mustafa & Hercules Ayala (c) vs. The Von Erichs (David von Erich & Kevin von Erich) NWA World Tag Team Title Match Reunion Arena, Dallas, Texas, USA ★★ Card The von Erich boys came out and it was like the Beatles had arrived in Dallas. The champions, Mustafa and Ayala, made their entrance with this massive trophy and they barely got a second look. Now this was a world tag team title match, but it’s not clear to me where these belts came from or who actually competed for them. A little digging indicates that Paul Jones and the Masked Superstar were the real “World’s Tag Team” champions around this time, so maybe World Class tried their hand at establishing their own version but it appeared to be short lived. Both David and Kevin look so similar I really struggled to keep track of them throughout. By the end I could tell that the one in white was a little shorter and kept going for the Claw (Kevin) whilst the other in blue was longer and lankier with a Sleeper finisher (David). Both seemed like they had the tools to be able to work as a face in peril excellently, the problem here is that neither allowed the match to breath and build that tension. Whenever either von Erich found themselves in any trouble his brother would dive in and break things up. Alternatively if they seemed threatened and had the chance they would bolt to their corner and tag out. It showed good teamwork between the siblings but the champions couldn’t build any real heat at all and they really came off as generic, throwaway opponents. The finish was spectacular though (in 1981 terms) with Kevin coming off the top rope and absolutely nailing the execution on a sunset flip. 1981-02-22 WCCW - Star Wars 1981 Harley Race (c) vs. Kerry von Erich NWA World Heavyweight Title Match Reunion Arena, Dallas, Texas, USA ★★ Card With all the talk about how it was David who was set to win the NWA Title before his death and with Kerry actually being the 3rd oldest of the von Erich brothers, it’s curious that here it was in fact Kerry, and not David, that got the nod to face the World’s champion. I had always wondered whether Kerry grew into what he became due to the vacuum his brother left, but he is, by a large margin, the most physically imposing of his siblings and was able to marry his physique with the willingness to sell enthusiastically and with gusto, which is a pretty good combination. Much like his brothers though this match also shows him to be pretty green and underdeveloped from a match structure and psychology point of view. The story here was that he’d put Race out with his Sleeper previously in a non-match setup, so that was going to be his weapon of choice here. He went for it early and managed to cause heavy damage to the champion, the issue is they were never able to build on that foundation and progress throughout the match. Within less than 5 minutes both men were out on their feet already and it kind of felt like they sleep-walked to the finish. We got a ref bump on a reverse irish whip, and when Kerry tried to help Bronko Lubich back into the ring, he got hammered from behind and Bronko took the best bump of the whole night, falling sideways straight off the ring steps straight to the concrete below. A power slam and elbow drop combo gave Kerry a pinning opportunity, but with no referee there was no count and Race ended up lying on his back for a good 10 seconds or so before David Manning rushed to the rescue to take over refereeing duties. Race body slammed Kerry onto the time keepers table before going for a diving headbutt (which missed of course) in a proto ECW style sequence. In the end all he could do was cling onto Kerry’s leg and await the double countout. Kerry’s display of disappointment at how things played out was excellent here, unfortunately the actual finish felt like shit and the crowd were clearly in stunned silence after witnessing all that had unfurled before them.
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    1981-02-16 WWF Pedro Morales (c) vs. Sgt. Slaughter WWF Intercontinental Title Match Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York, USA ★★ Card I loved the opening moments with Slaughter repeatedly gaining a hold on Morales but being distracted by the crowd chanting “Gomer Pyle” sending him into a tizzy. What dragged the whole match down though was that once he managed to push through that initial barrier his main tactic was to latch on a front facelock then…nothing. Morales did little to nothing to break the hold for several minutes, they finally worked towards Morales breaking it, we got a very brief flurry during his hope spot, then back to the front facelock we went for another several minutes. By the time this reached the 15 minute mark we’d probably had only a couple minutes of any action that wasn’t completely static. I increasingly feel like Morales is far too happy to let the heel beat up on him and only when it’s time for his comeback will he up his intensity. Some may say that he’s being really giving but I just think it’s lazy. He’s a willing seller I’ll grant him, but he’s not a very good seller during these stretches and I think it’s just a way for him to eat up time during his matches without having to expend much energy. Finally Morales managed to turn the tables on Slaughter and we got a few intermittent moments of Slaughter doing Slaughter things. His bumping and woozy selling were on full display but it never came together properly. In the end he resorted to using some knuckle dusters and wound up getting caught by the referee for the DQ finish. There was potential here for something pretty good but for one, they could have replaced Morales with any other decent babyface on the roster and it wouldn’t have made a lick of difference, and they just needed a bit more direction during that front half. After this opening sequence they would have had to do something pretty spectacular to reel me back in and this match shows the importance of having a strong beginning, or rather, the detriment of having a bad one. 1981-02-16 WWF Bob Backlund (c) vs. Stan Hansen WWF Heavyweight Title Match Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York, USA ★★★ Card So interesting how Slaughter and Hansen, two big guys in the 300lb range, both operate so very differently as Backlund challengers within only a matter of weeks. Whereas Slaughter was all too happy to bounce around for Bob and accentuate his own personal deterioration over the bout, Hansen is like this unkillable machine. Backlund would attack, Hansen would sell briefly, then he’d come right back at him. Most of the time a Backlund opponent would allow that space for Backlund to move forwards and capitalise and gain a strong foothold in the match - not with Hansen. He’d give a tiny window and unless Backlund followed up instantly with a second or third move then he’d come right back at him and try and take control himself. It’s decidedly unusual in the context of a Backlund match in ‘81 WWF. One of Backlund’s greatest strengths is, well, his strength. He’s one of the few guys who can work a specific spot that would come across as rudimentary if somebody else did it but it feels like a superhuman act from him. Here Hansen had him in a front facelock and Backlund teased the slam. His arms were in an awkward position due to the hold being applied on him and it didn’t seem like he would have leverage at all to pick the big man up. But after a few moments and repositioning, suddenly Backlund was upright, Hansen in tow, and he made it look so effortless. Backlund’s ability to do these kinds of bonkers strength spots is nothing new but I thought I’d highlight this one as a particularly good example. Hansen hit a sneaky Lariat while Backlund was caught up on the apron which led to Backlund being opened up. They milked this for a long time as Backlund spent an age reeling on the floor. Hansen ended up eating the ringpost himself and we had double juice, then they transitioned into the finish with both men going toe to toe in the ring, before I knew it the bell was ringing and multiple referees were in there trying to break it up. They decided to go for the double blood stoppage here with an eye to future matches, but for those in attendance it must have been deflating. The brawl that led up to it was fine but it didn’t manage to reach the intensity or brutality you’d want, with a few subpar punches flying here and there at points. Overall this definitely beat their previous matchup in New Japan late in ‘80. Hansen’s perpetual forward motion gave this a real tug of war feel. Both men had moments where they showed off their strengths but Hansen’s control segments, where he went with the arm hold as his move of choice, didn’t look good at all. I couldn’t see how he was applying pressure to make it painful, and it forced Backlund to sell something that shouldn’t be working. On top of that the finish was somewhat heated but tapped out at a low simmer rather than a roaring boil.
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    1981-02-14 PNW Jay Youngblood vs. Rip Oliver Non Title Indian Strap Match Sports Arena, Portland, Oregon, USA ★★ Card Rose was initially at ringside with Oliver for support but Dutch Savage, acting as referee, indicated that if Rose interfered at all he’d have his wrestling licence revoked indefinitely. Rose then offered to take Oliver’s place in the match, to which Youngblood, Savage and even Oliver seemed all too happy for, but he backed out saying that he just wanted to know if Youngblood would do it. He gave Oliver the proverbial thumbs up before disappearing to the dressing room. Oliver seemed a little thrown by this series of events, perhaps he thought the plan was for Rose to take his place all along, but now he was in there on his lonesome and I’m not sure he ever recovered. Other than a couple of moments here and there Oliver never really gained a foothold in this match. Youngblood took it to him early, used the strap liberally, and the finish was never in doubt. Oliver hit a low blow to very briefly get a reprieve and showed some resistance the first few times Youngblood went for the four corners, but otherwise this was just Youngblood laying it in on him. We also got one of the most casual and indiscreet blade jobs of all time from Oliver, as he just chilled on the apron in full view of the camera and all the fans while he did the act. Overall this was pretty fun. They never let it drag too long and it was over before it could wear out its welcome, but there were no interesting wrinkles or swerves here, essentially it was just an extended squash. 1981-02-15 AJPW Harley Race (c) vs. Giant Baba NWA World Heavyweight Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan ★★ Card Baba launched out of the blocks with a big boot off the bat and from there he was in control of the first fall. There were times where he took Race to the mat in a side headlock but he did enough to press his advantage and went for those early bombs and it paid off when he secured the fall. The crowd were right there with him, urging him on, which added to the sense or urgency and occasion. The issues began to emerge in the second fall. The fact that Race didn’t even hit a single move until well into the second fall can be explained by how the first one played out, but once he did finally get his moment on top, both he and Baba really failed to generate anything of merit. Race’s offense was uninspiring and Baba’s bumping was even worse. Most of the second fall was worked on the floor outside and it was clear Baba had no interest in taking any hard bumps on either the floor or the tables that surrounded the ring. After hardly any time at all Race had Baba back in the ring and a simple suplex managed to level things up. I’ll give them credit, they leveraged the crowd’s investment to ratchet the excitement up again in the final fall as Baba pressed hard for that decisive fall. They eked out a few little near falls that had the fans on the edge of their seats, but the actual finish was a real dud. First Race tried to get disqualified by just punching Joe Higuchi in the face. Baba managed to calm him down enough for the match to continue but when Race delivered a low blow only moments later Joe had no choice but to call it then. This is obviously by no means an isolated incident, but I feel like it really devalues a title when the champion can just outright sidestep the rules to retain the title, and a finish like this would make me feel so furious as a paying fan in attendance. Like what was the point?
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    1981-02-12 AJPW Harley Race vs. Dick Murdoch Non Title Match City Gymnasium, Tsu, Mie, Japan ★ Card If I’d spent my hard earned money on going to a show and this was the main event I would have wanted my money back. Zero urgency whatsoever. Felt like both guys were in it to just get the match over with and go home. Even the most “violent” spots - like Murdoch nailing Race with chair shots to the head - clearly had cooperation to the extent that Race was essentially hitting himself in the head with it. I’ve yet to see the best of Murdoch so far in this project but I know he’s capable of far more than this. He did have a rather impressive press slam on Race though, which shocked me both because Race is a big boy himself, and also because Murdoch doesn’t give off “I live in the gym” vibes. So a nice feat of strength from him. In terms of Race, I’ve come to expect all his matches to be worked like this now. He offered very little, like almost nothing, on offense. Being the NWA champion it makes sense he’d come into a territory and let the local challenger look good, but this wasn’t a title match, and he’s coming into Japan not some backwater territory, AND he’s facing another foreigner. There comes a time when you need to remind people why you’re the champion in the first place. If there ever was a time to kind of flex your credentials, this was it. But I’m not sure he’s able to work any other way. He sold far too much far too easily and yeah, overall this wasn’t good. 1981-02-14 WWF Hulk Hogan vs. Dominic DeNucci Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA ★★ Card A very basic but clear storyline to this one that they presented in a pretty digestible manner. Hogan was in control, mostly using holds on the arm, and DeNucci again and again tried the slam Hogan to no avail. Finally DeNucci got his second wind, capitalised on Hogan’s complacency, and managed to rebound him off the ropes, using that momentum to get him up for that slam. Some light choking later from DeNucci and Hogan really was on the ropes. His selling was pretty good here, but a Hogan Hammer (or two) took DeNucci down for the finish. The story was clear, the crowd were hot, Hogan’s selling during DeNucci’s brief run on top was great, but both men suffered from a lack of credible offense. DeNucci was even more afflicted as he was also a pretty abysmal seller, including when he took the Hammer at the end, as Hogan felt the need to hit him a second time on the way down because he was so wooden after the first. Ultimately technical execution was the major failing here but this was pretty serviceable. 1981-02-14 WWF Pedro Morales (c) vs. Stan Hansen WWF Intercontinental Title Match Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA ★★★ Card Wow, how a match can flip in an instant. Hansen took the first ⅔ of this maybe, with Pedro all too willing to work from underneath, but he lacked those little hope spots you need to keep it interesting and competitive. Hansen worked the arm, it was a little dull, but once they got onto the ropes he went feral, with one particularly sick headbutt onto the shoulder area. The whole time it seemed like Hansen was daring him, almost goading him, into fighting back. Show me what you’ve got Pedro! But no, Pedro just took it and took it and took it for nearly 10 minutes. The match was just fine up to that point and I thought Hansen was trying his best, but in my opinion like Andre, Hansen needed a certain type of opponent, or for his opponent to work a certain way, to elevate the match, and here Pedro wasn’t pulling his weight and was just too passive. Then, THEN, everything changed. There aren’t many home stretch runs as ferocious as this one. Pedro finally made his comeback and it was absolutely on. What I loved is that Hansen didn’t just let Pedro take over (no surprise there in the slightest) but instead he kept coming back at him. This time Pedro was up to the challenge and they went back and forth. Dick Weorhle tried his best to intervene and I honestly felt a bit fearful for him trying to break these two up. He got slammed a couple times and the double DQ finish was a foregone conclusion at that point but damn, that final minute or so was electric. 1981-02-14 WWF Bob Backlund (c) vs. Sgt. Slaughter WWF Heavyweight Title Match Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA ★★★ Card This may be a quintessential bumping performance from Slaughter. Right off the bat he took a front bump into the corner that I’ve not seen anybody else do and it only continued from there, my favourite being a nutty one through the ropes that looked like he catapulted himself and simply defied physics. Other than a brief segment where Slaughter tried to target Backlund’s shoulder, Bob was on top and in control for the most part. I say in control in the sense that he was the one dishing out the punishment, but actually it was Slaughter who was dictating the tempo by the end. For the final 5 or so minutes Slaughter was bailing to the outside every chance he got, trying to collect himself, recuperate, something, just so he could compete. But every time he came in the ring you could see that he wasn’t fully there and Bob would take advantage, hit a move then he’d bail and we would rinse and repeat. This constant diving to the outside was a fantastic way to build towards their upcoming cage match, with no opportunity for Slaughter to escape and nowhere for him to hide. Backlund was good here, he threw a couple nice stiff forearms and he had a fantastic power spot where he held Slaughter in the air on a suplex, rode out Slaughter clawing at the ropes and managed to muscle him back up to properly hit the move, but we’ve come to expect this kind of stuff from him. He also went for the Cobra Clutch a couple times that I thought was a lovely touch. Overall though Slaughter was just amazing. The aforementioned bumping, his exhausted selling and wooziness down the stretch really is the best example of that kind of selling that I can recall and the narrative of Backlund not being able to keep him in the ring is great storytelling for a middle-of-a-series match. Quick shout out to Kal Rudman as well, who had an all-time performance on the microphone - “He’s gonna kill him. It’s death, it’s DEATH!” is still ringing in my ears. 1981-02-14 WWF Rick Martel & Tony Garea (c) vs. The Moondogs (Moondog King & Moondog Rex) WWF Tag Team Title Texas Death Match (Special Referee: Gorilla Monsoon) Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA ★★ Card I’ll admit I had higher expectations for this coming in. When something’s billed as a Texas Death Match you imagine some wild violent spectacle and this really was anything but that. Gorilla as a special referee is always an interesting one. On the one hand he’s very much presented as someone who can handle himself and won’t take any shit, but on the other hand, it means crazy shit isn’t going down on his watch, and in my book that’s a bad tradeoff. The champions started with an extended shine and they really blew the Moondogs out the water. Martel in particular was a whirling dervish, his favourite offensive move being these knee strikes that I can’t remember him using before but they looked snug and brutal. The energy from Garea and Martel were there but the Moondogs were just taking this beating. I’m not really a fan of extended shines, especially when there’s no resistance from the heels. They could have redeemed themselves with some interesting transition into the heat but this was pure laziness. Garea just got bored and complacent, let King tag out to Rex and a stomach punch and a body check was all it took to switch the momentum. The Moondogs didn’t get any better when they were on top though and 5 full minutes with Martel relegated to apron duty was a waste. When we finally got the hot tag though it was excellent. Martel certainly wasn’t resting on his laurels and he really brought the fire. The finish was a bit messy as Martel looked to have the pin but Gorilla was distracted, then King decided, out of nowhere, to come off the second rope and club Gorilla. He was having none of that and chopped King right in the face and the champions hit a double backdrop on Rex for the relatively easy win. This was lacklustre in terms of utilising the match stipulation, the structure and the Moondogs really laid an egg. Garea was decent during that initial run when they steamrolled the challengers but this is worth a watch purely for Martel’s performance. The two best sequences from him bookend the whole match, I’ve never seen his offense look more impactful and gritty, nor has he had a better hot tag up to this point. He gets a lot of love for his 1980 work, but at this point I think he definitely had improved since his time in Portland.
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    1981-02-11 Joint Promotions Mark Rocco vs. Marty Jones Bury, Greater Manchester, United Kingdom ★★★★ ¼ Following on from the draw they had back in December ‘80, the impetus was on Jones to finally get that victory he’d been yearning for. It was a 20 minute single fall match, so no rounds here, just a straight fight to the finish. Only bummer really is that we missed the first 5 minutes or so. As soon as we joined the action one thing was abundantly clear, cheating is akin to breathing for Rocco. It’s a fundamental aspect of his very being. In some ways when he does it it doesn’t even feel like cheating per se, just that he’s working to find the absolute limit of the rules, then repeatedly prods that to see if it’ll break. Here he was absolutely relentless. You could hear Kent Walton’s exasperation at how lenient the referee was being. He should have received a zillion public warnings but didn’t receive a single one until we were well on our way towards the finishing stretch. Seeing what he was getting away with just emboldened Rocco even more and it was glorious. On the opposite side Jones was very subtle with how he played this. He wasn’t constantly whining to the referee about these decisions, he just got on with the job, but you could sense his frustration growing as the match chugged along until he finally snapped. At that point it became a game of one upmanship. Rocco comes off the top, well now Jones comes off the top. Rocco hits a fucking tope to the outside. Well Jones can bloody well do that too! The fact that they were so blatantly breaking from the restrictions of the World of Sport style is what added to this and is why having stringent stylistic rules can be so beneficial - so that when you break them, it means so much more. They went back and forth and the timer started to count down. Jones surely couldn’t settle for a draw yet again? All the while Rocco was clawing at the fringes, taking advantage, sneaking in a dirty punt to the face a split second early, hitting not one, not two, but three elbow drops in a row after a previous move, and any time he hit some resistance his first instinct was always to bail and not give Jones any chance, not even a sliver, of pulling out the victory. In the end Jones once again did have to wait for his win, as a tombstone piledriver that left Rocco sprawled in the centre of the ring came with only seconds left on the clock, so just like in December, he’d have to wait for another day to receive that sweet satisfaction. 1981-02-11 Joint Promotions Mick McManus vs. Sammy Lee Bury, Greater Manchester, United Kingdom ★ For the most part this was fine. McManus had the know-how to actually contain Sammy Lee somewhat, get him to work underneath a little and make sure that it wasn’t a steamrolling. I was somewhat enjoying this until Sammy Lee decided to go super saiyan. A little too much afters from McManus rubbed Lee the wrong way and he flipped and started unleashing a series of sidekicks - left then right, on and on. The issue was that these kicks looked like absolute shit. McManus had to essentially just kneel on the mat, propped up on the ropes and let Lee tee off on him, but yuck. Ultimately the only thing Lee was consistently able to deliver that I actually liked was his mule kick, which had awesome speed and looked cool as hell. But it’s just one move and you can’t build a match around that. Another flurry of shitty kicks later and McManus did what a bevy of competitors had done before him and walked, handing the victory to Lee, who, match after match, was looking cockier and cockier. 1981-02-11 Joint Promotions Johnny Saint vs. Steve Grey Bury, Greater Manchester, United Kingdom ★★★ There was something rather masturbatory about this. Every once in a while they’d ratchet up the intensity and then ease back off, almost edging, if you’ll allow me to continue the analogy, and this went on for the whole 20 minute duration. Even as they approached the time limit I didn’t get the sense that the crowd were enraptured as they should have been and I certainly was convinced this was going to finish as a draw. The style of the match was like they were sparring. The desire or need to win was secondary to putting on an exhibition - exploring the studio space as it were, but I didn’t get the required desperation from either man that I would have liked. Slick and technically excellent as always, but really lacked that emotional edge.
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    1981-02-07 GCW Bobby Eaton (c) vs. Steve Keirn NWA National Television Title Match WTBS TV Studios, Atlanta. Georgia, USA ★★★ Card This kind of came out of nowhere. Eaton has popped up in Memphis and Georgia before on TV, but he still felt like a work in progress. Even the previous week where he won the title against Steve O he had his flaws. Here though, in the ring against a solid worker in Steve Keirn, he looked to have turned the corner and they both were fantastic here. Keirn took control early, a lot of old fashioned mat work, and every time Eaton tried to counter and escape Keirn’s holds they would flow through seamlessly and Eaton would find himself still in the hold or in an entirely new one. After several minutes of struggling Eaton finally managed to make some headway and nailed Keirn with a nasty backbreaker that landed right on the coccyx. Now it was time to show off what he had in his arsenal. The fantastic punches that we’re all familiar with were there, but he could go on the mat too, negating Keirn’s attempts to escape with similar roll throughs of his own that were easy on the eye. Up until this point Eaton hadn’t had to rely on any underhand tactics but as Keirn started to rally he felt that the match might be slipping away - a hair pull here, a trunk pull there, he even tried using the ropes for leverage on a pin attempt, which is apparently how he won the belt in the first place (I still dispute this!) Keirn was rolling now though, hitting one of the sweetest swinging neckbreakers I’ve ever seen, and locked on the Sleeper for the finish. Eaton dumped him over the ropes for the automatic DQ loss but he retained his title. The finish is what it is, but Eaton proved he could really go in the ring, and that’s the key factor when you hold the TV Title, and Keirn once again looked mighty impressive. He’s been on a pretty solid TV match roll recently. Another little TV gem here. 1981-02-09 NJPW Antonio Inoki & Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Bobby Duncum & Tiger Jeet Singh Best Two Out Of Three Falls Tag Team Match Akita City Gymnasium, Akita, Japan ★ Card Really interesting to see Fujinami play the role of Inoki’s lackey so much here. Tiger Singh was his usual unhinged self and early on Fujinami seemed overly wary of getting near him, visibly recoiling when Duncum tried to manoeuvre the two of them to his corner. Then when he had the opportunity he beelined straight to Inoki for the tag instead of standing his ground and fighting. That was about where the interesting aspects finished. Everybody, especially as the match wore on, came across like they were operating at half speed, Duncum in particular was aimlessly hanging around on the apron when he wasn’t the legal man, and any time either team seemed to be making any headway the spare man would dive in immediately to save his partner, which killed any tension they were building. Singh got himself disqualified in the first fall for overzealous brawling on the outside, then only a couple of minutes into the second fall, he went ham on Fujinami again with a beer/water bottle causing the second DQ and a straight falls loss for his team, which really gave the impression that this ultimately was a waste of my time.
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    1981-02-06 Houston Wrestling Ivan Putski vs. Gino Hernandez NWA World Heavyweight Title #1 Contendership Tournament Semi Final Match Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, Texas, USA ★★ Card It felt like Ivan was feeling his way through this. The little things that would generate massive crowd pops in New York were given lukewarm responses here. He displayed such confidence in his charisma however that it didn’t ruffle him one bit and he just kept plugging away with his approach. Gino was keen to take a powder whenever things started to unravel for him, but the moments where Putski was able to get ahold of him and throw a few punches were the spark plug moments of the match. Gino had a nice little thumb to the eye that got him a brief heat segment, but as usual his offense was painfully light and the writing looked to be on the wall when Putski hit the Polish Hammer. However unsurprisingly there were a few twists and turns, a ref bump or two as he took a knee to the face getting too close to a Putski power slam attempt. Gino was able to get a pair of brass knuckles from his trunks, nail Putski and steal the win. Even in defeat though, Putski made sure to kick out at 3.00000001 seconds. Classic Ivan! 1981-02-06 Houston Wrestling Wahoo McDaniel vs. Gino Hernandez NWA World Heavyweight Title #1 Contendership Tournament Final Match Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, Texas, USA ★★★ Card The other semi final match happened first between Wahoo and Terry Funk. Funk got on the mic and demanded that Wahoo apologise for destroying his tag team trophy the last time they were in this arena. Wahoo obviously declined and Funk jumped him to get things going. This was short and sweet but Wahoo picked up the surprise victory after only 2 minutes or so with an O’Connor Roll. In a flash Gino was there and he and Funk administered a beatdown ahead of the final match. Gino did his best to get in as much offense and dish out as much damage as he could before Wahoo gained a foothold in the match, but it wasn’t enough. Finally Wahoo caught Gino on the outside and he motioned that Gino was gonna eat steel. This is when the match elevated for me. I don’t want to attribute it entirely to the blood letting, but I can’t deny that blood adds a special element to a match, and Gino hit a real gusher here. He was constantly wiping the blood out of his eyes and by the end of it his hands looked like he was wearing red gloves due to the staining. He constantly bailed at every opportunity just to catch a breather and his woozy selling here was fantastic. When Wahoo managed to keep him contained in the ring though he was glorious at just annihilating Gino with power moves. I wondered whether another swerve was coming but no, Gino couldn’t overcome the blood loss, the longer it went on the stronger Wahoo became, eventually wrapping him up in a cradle to seal the win and the chance at Harley Race for the World’s Title later on in the month.
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    1981-02-02 Joint Promotions Young David vs. Mal Sanders Civic Centre, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom ★★ On first glance this match seemed to be much of a muchness, but there were little nuggets hidden within which would have been interesting if they’d explored them further. David was consistent with his strategy, targeting the left arm over several rounds and was able to generate the best point-of-attack selling out of Sanders on a number of hard whips into the corner. For Sanders, despite this really being a face vs face matchup, he was happy to heel it up a little more and there was a definite underlying tension that undercut the whole thing, which they teased bubbling over at different points. My main issue was that after the initial selling of the arm by Sanders he would immediately blow it off as they worked into the next sequence which negated any sense that there was a real opening being carved out for David to exploit, especially after he lost the first fall early against the run of play. In the end David did manage to claw a fall back in the fifth and final round, thus we ended up a draw, but it felt like neither man really came out of it better than they went in. 1981-02-02 Joint Promotions Clive Myers vs. Lucky Gordon Civic Centre, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom ★ Myers came across a lot like Sammy Lee, possessing a martial arts offense that stylistically contrasted with the normal wrestling fair, and they played Gordon’s confusion on how to counter it up for a few laughs throughout, but consequently they were never able to actually get any sequences going. Myers would do a few moves, the crowd would pop, Gordon would be a bit bewildered and then they would reset and repeat. Again, like Sammy Lee, Myers felt like more flash than substance. His strange poses drawing woos from the audience and his array of kicks were fun crowd pleasers, but overall his offense felt light, his strikes were often off their mark, and his punches and chops especially were pretty bad. By the fourth round Gordon had had enough and after being unceremoniously dumped to the outside, after receiving an Enzuigiri, decided it wasn’t worth it after all and didn’t bother trying to beat the count, handing Myers the win. 1981-02-02 Joint Promotions Mal Sanders, Lucky Gordon & Steve Peacock vs. Clive Myers, Mick McMichael & Young David Six Man Tag Team Match Civic Centre, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom ★ So the participants of the previous three singles matches were all bundled together into this tag match. Other than Sanders and Young David ending in a draw, the face team came into this with a 2-0 lead apparently, indicating this was some kind of tournament or challenge, but even winning this tag match the heels could only finish 2-1 losers at best. This all screamed a waste of time to me. I bet this was a lot of fun for those in attendance but this was really just a platform for the heel team, and specifically Peacock and Gordon, to look foolish, and to give the faces some shine. There was an interesting dynamic with Sanders being the odd man out on his team, clearly not vibing with their overall approach and tempers flared more than once with him turning on his teammates. The action went thick and fast and lasted a good 12 or so minutes before the faces sealed the 2-0 straight falls victory. But I couldn’t really discern any strategy from the heel team or a path for victory for them which meant that this had zero stakes whatsoever. It didn’t help that the same issues that cropped up in Myers’ previous match existed here, such as his opponents needing to feed his offense in overly cooperative and contrived ways. In addition David kind of faded into the background, and after some early tags, Sanders seemed pretty content to just chill on the apron and watch his team implode. The highlight for sure was Myers going to the top and nailing a vicious splash right on Peacock’s head. From a viewer standpoint it looked amazing but I wouldn’t have been surprised if he actually botched this and was actually aiming for the body. And I bet Peacock was none too pleased about nearly getting his noggin spattered across the mat. 1981-02-02 Joint Promotions Sammy Lee vs. Johnny England Civic Centre, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom ★ I’ll give Johnny England credit here, he had enough offense and athleticism to really take the fight to Lee and force him to earn his shine. The crowd were used to Lee just straight up overwhelming his opponents but England was able to stand his ground for a couple rounds, or at least until Lee got into a groove and then just began showboating. Lee was undeniably impressive, but the more he was let off the leash the more his matches just devolved into meaninglessness. His move where he runs up his opponent in the corner and backflips to the middle of the ring being a perfect example of doing a move just to do a move. As many of his opponents have done up until now England decided that getting embarrassed with a series of kicks and arm drags wasn’t for him and took his ball and went home. 1981-02-02 Joint Promotions Jim Breaks vs. Jon Cortez Civic Centre, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom ★★★ Fantastic selling of the arm and general fatigue from Cortez but this was simply a singular performance from Breaks. There’s a lot of talk about broomstick workers and I think Breaks absolutely is one of them (not implying that Cortez is a broomstick by any stretch). This was Breaks pushing with all his might against the rules and boundaries of the match, working against the referee, and even ending up at odds with Kent Walton, who felt the need to inform the referee of Breaks pulling Cortez’s trunks to win the final fall. It’s a shame that this only went 10 or so minutes when it would have been even more fantastic to get a 30 minute barnburner between these two.
  24. SAMS
    February 1981-02-XX AJW Devil Masami vs. Chigusa Nagayo Japan ★★ Short little match that allowed Masami to show off her great facial expressions, she really revelled in torturing the newbie. For Nagayo, she only had fleeting moments where she had the chance to attack but mostly she was just a punching bag. I will say she made the most of those moments though. I felt like she exuded a lot of character, really projecting energy and determination, and above all she came across as scrappy, which is a good quality to have as a babyface. Masami finished her off with a Torture Rack after 7 minutes. 1981-02-XX AJW Rimi Yokota & Tomoko Kitamura vs. Wendi Richter & Leilani Kai Best Two Out Of Three Falls Tag Team Match Japan ★ Had its moments but never came together. Wendi seems to have really slipped, with Leilani Kai clearly looking to be the better out of the two. Kai’s bumping and stereotypical American style stooging jumped out and gave the home team something to work against. Kitamura really felt like a warm body, just there so Yokota could have a partner. Speaking of Yokota, she was the bright spot. She didn’t do anything amazing, and I don’t think she was able to raise the ceiling of the match, but she’s always supremely competent and raised the floor enough to prevent this from being completely terrible. The best part was the midpoint of the second fall after Kitamura and Wendi both tagged out (after botching a sunset flip awfully) and Yokota and Kai were able to have a run with Yokota running through her offense. The Americans got set up in the corner for Yokota’s patented flying cross body but Masami came in to block it for her friends, and for a couple minutes this was extremely fun. Overall though supremely forgettable. 1981-02-XX AJW Rimi Yokota & Jackie Sato vs. Ayumi Hori & Nancy Kumi Best Two Out Of Three Falls Tag Team Match Japan ★★ This definitely felt like an “A” team facing off against a “B” team, and I never got the sense that the B team had a chance. They managed to steal the second fall due to some outside-the-ring brawling, but in the middle of the ring, matched straight up against their opponents, they never really made much of a dent. In fact the whole thing was chugging along rather aimlessly until Nancy finally upped the ante and showed some aggression, and ironically all it did was spur on Yokota and Jackie to finally up their own game, delivering a series of fantastic tag moves and easily secured the first fall. Overall I actually couldn’t point to much that either Hori and Kumi did all match - they could have been replaced by any other pairing on the roster and I wouldn’t have noticed. The same couldn’t be said for the two stars though. Yokota had flashes - and spectacular flashes at that, like a springboard off the turnbuckle into a flying splash and a out of this world handspring to avoid her opponent’s attack during a rope run - but Jackie still feels a step above her as an overall worker, with everything she does in the ring carrying more weight and coming across as more impactful and important. It doesn’t hurt that she herself has a bevy of killer moves and we saw her amazing suplex into a backbreaker once again. It’s a real shame that her retirement match is coming up as it seems like a real waste to remove her from the roster at this point in time. Yokota has a little ways to go to put it all together but she certainly had the tools to make that leap in due course.
  25. SAMS
    January Recap On WWF TV they gave ample TV interview time to a couple guys throughout the month. Pedro Morales was repeatedly interviewed, which I feel was purely because he was Intercontinental Champion and they wanted to give him that boost. Stan Hansen also got a lot of time on the mic and this was a great opportunity for him to try and get across his “I hate everybody and don’t give a fuck” character to the audience in preparation for his upcoming MSG series with Backlund. Blassie at this point managed not only Hansen, but Hogan, Killer Khan and the Hangman, and Patterson and Vince would always ask about dissension in the ranks of Blassie’s Army which were all readily dismissed. At the very end of the month they finally got Sgt. Slaughter’s Cobra Clutch Challenge underway after talking about it for several weeks. The Gomer Pyle chants were in full effect and Slaughter was no doubt the number one heel in the territory at this time. His first victim actually was Jim Duggan, who gave a valiant effort but was summarily dispatched and the challenge was up and running. There were no MSG shows in January but we did get one Spectrum show. While Hansen was to be Backlund’s opponent in New York, they did begin a Philly series between Slaughter and Backlund, and they began it with a bang. Moving down to Georgia, the two main storylines that the show revolved around were The Freebirds vs Robert Fuller & Ted DiBiase and the chase for the TV Title between Kevin Sullivan and Steve Keirn with a couple cameos from other contenders. We kicked things off with Fuller putting up his 1979 Lincoln Continental in order to get another crack at the tag titles after the Freebirds had wormed their way to retaining the tag titles at the Omni. The no DQ stipulation in this upcoming match was supposed to be in the faces favour (or at least they seemed to think so) but all it did was allow Hayes to interfere with impunity and they proceeded to lose yet again. The following week on TV Fuller and DiBiase announced that they had raised $10,000 for yet another rematch but the Freebirds weren’t interested. By the time we got to the end of the month there’s clearly some footage and context missing but DiBiase and big boy Stan Frazier appeared as new champions after a match in Columbus, Ohio. The word was that they’d injured Terry Gordy at the event so the title match on TV would have the Freebirds as a duo only with Hayes forced into the ring. No surprises when Gordy appeared to tip the scales in the Freebird’s favour. The match ended in a big to-do with a “legitimately” injured Fuller joining the fray and the referee ultimately holding up the belts as we entered February. Sullivan continued his heel tour de force performance by delivering both in the ring and on the microphone. I’m not even sure how I would describe his character at the moment, but he was simultaneously arrogant, delusional, eager for approval but he kind of also had good points at times. His wrestling was always initially on the up and up but he would absolutely never hesitate to cut a corner and do whatever it took to win. He wasn’t a chickenshit heel, he was the world’s greatest weasel. Sullivan’s entire turn came about from a title match against Keirn and these two would go back and forth for the entire month. Keirn interfered to aid Steve O in winning the title from Sullivan at the Omni and they would face up against each other a couple times on TV as well with tempers bubbling over each time. Eventually it looked like matters would be settled in an upcoming Boston Street Fight (Sullivan’s pet match) that would take place in February. Beyond these two feuds, the Mongolian Stomper was the National Champion. What I saw of him was very minimal but none of it was good, like at all. Atlas was the Georgia Champion, recently demoted from being the territory’s top singles championship, and he pivoted from an original bitter confrontation with Ole Anderson (in which I got the sense there was legitimate bad blood between the two) and a scuffle with the aforementioned Stomper after he ruined a bench press demonstration Atlas had set up. The big deal though was Atlas challenging Harley Race for the NWA Title. They brought Dusty Rhodes in for some words of encouragement and Atlas delivered a couple blistering fired up babyface promos (this is something Atlas has been able to do everywhere actually. When he’s fired up he’s good, when he’s trying to be sombre he’s pretty bad). Further West in Memphis the Jimmy Hart/Jerry Lawler feud was getting into full swing. Feeling like his friend had left him in the lurch after his injury, Lawler was on a mission to rid wrestling of Jimmy Hart. To counter this Hart lined up a who’s who from Lawler’s past as a series of obstacles between him and a fist in the face. Lawler was forced to match up against Dream Machine, Paul Ellering, Austin Idol and Joe LeDuc in turn before he got his hands on Jimmy Hart. They didn’t devote too much studio time to this, in fact the TV contained far more video packages and Mid-South Coliseum clips than I recall ever seeing in 1980, but it got the message across. Lawler cut through this array of challengers and they really were able to re-establish him as THE man in Memphis without ever having to wrestle on TV at all. Another little aspect of Memphis at this time I enjoyed was Billy Robinson returning and starting up a little something with fellow countryman Tony Charles. They had a 10 minute draw at the Coliseum and Robinson delivered a fantastic promo, subtly throwing shade Charles’ way, hinting that no matter how skilled Charles is, given enough time the bigger man, i.e. Robinson would always win. This was definitely leading somewhere and felt like a far better use of a man with Robinson’s talents than what I was able to see from the previous year. Heading even further West all the way to Portland, the Rose/Youngblood feud was top billing. To the side of the main event Jonathan Boyd met some misfortune in a parking lot (this looked legitimate as his face was pretty messed up) and in kayfabe it was some of the other wrestlers. They ran an angle where he realised it was Rip Oliver and The Destroyer but this just resulted in him getting absolutely destroyed by the two. I really feel like Boyd has run his course in Portland. He had his chance as the main babyface but he never managed to build any real traction in a feud with Rose and now he’s been supplanted by Youngblood it’s time for him to go. Rose and Youngblood started the year with an excellent title match and ended the month of January with the Army putting Youngblood’s dad on a stretcher and causing Jay to turn into a blubbering mess. Houston in one month did more than they did for the entire year of 1980. Bringing in a wave of new wrestlers like Tilly Blanchard, Wahoo McDaniel, Billy Robinson and the Funks was such a shot in the arm for the promotion and delivered some excellent matches and potential angles. When I started this project this really was what I was expecting from the Houston footage based on how everybody was talking about it. In World of Sport the light heavyweights were the focus, getting a televised tournament dedicated to them. It was nice to see guys like Steve Grey and Johnny Saint get prominent TV exposure right off the bat. Otherwise it’s obvious that they are giving a monster push to Sammy Lee (Satoru Sayama in Bruce Lee cosplay), even teaming him up with everybody’s favourite(!?!?) walking marshmallow Big Daddy! New Japan had nothing at all in January and AJPW was limited to a tour revolving around Baba reaching the 3000 match milestone. AJW however had their annual 4th January show and the footage from January indicates some new developments. The Black Pair appear to have moved away from each other, with Ikeshita focused more on singles (being the All-Pacific Champion) and Mami Kumano ended up with a new partner in Devil Masami (which I’m not complaining about). Jackie Sato is not long for this world (at least in the ring) but I feel like she really established herself in this period as THE ace of the promotion. She came across as so controlled and at ease and gave some killer performances. While her moving on would open up spots for others on the roster it really is a shame as it feels like she was nowhere near done.
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