William Bologna

Dynamite Kid/Johnny Smith vs. Satoru Asako/Takao Omori (AJPW 7/28/1993) It doesn't take long to see the differences in Kid's and Smith's approaches. Smith starts out with Asako, and they do a bunch of arm holds and flips out of holds and kip ups and stuff. Then Dynamite comes in and beats the hell out him. The Bruisers are unanimous, however, when it comes to Takao Omori. Omori is less than a year in and looks like a gangly teenager. He's in the young lion role here, which means that they give him almost nothing, and most of the match is him being beaten upon. It's odd to see Asako as the team's senior member, but he gets to do some neat, Yoshinari Ogawa-style tricky stuff to gain the occasional advantage. But as he tags in Omori and we see the progress bar reaching its destination, we know what's coming. Dynamite drops his forehead on Omori, and the Brits are victorious.

Dynamite Kid/Johnny Smith vs. Kenta Kobashi/Tsuyoshi Kikuchi (AJPW 4/6/1991) The British Bruisers get a shot at the All Asia Tag Titles. That's not a big enough deal to make television, but fortunately an enterprising if somewhat twitchy fan is there to capture it. This wound up being pretty good, and man was the crowd nuts for it. Dynamite was supposed to be washed up at this point, but I don't know. He didn't do much flying or bending at the waist, but he was still capable of bleeding and hitting, and those are more important anyway. You miss his intensity when Johnny is in there, but Smith and Kikuchi work really well together. Also Kikuchi's tights are extremely cool, and the rising sun on his ass contrasts niftily with the Union Jacks on the asses of the Englishmen. Kobashi does some stuff that he would later remove from the repertoire, and for good reason. He has Smith standing in the corner, and he climbs onto the second rope and DDTs him from there. Didn't work. He also hits Smith with the shortest distance moonsault I've ever seen. He went nearly straight up and down. Nothing wrong with that, just kind of odd. Dynamite piledrives Kikuchi in a way that says "my back hurts and I don't give a shit about this guy anyway" and then headbutts him from the top to win the titles, even though Kikuchi wasn't actually one of the champs. It was Kobashi and Johnny Ace, but Ace was injured. Is Vince Russo booking this? This was a hell of a card. In addition to this fine match, you had Jumbo vs. Kawada and Hansen vs. Misawa in Carnival matches. Gordy and Williams took on Furnas and Kroffat, which could have been good as long as the big guys didn't chinlock everyone to sleep. Plus Andre the Giant was there, and we got Dory and Terry Funk vs. Cactus Jack and . . . "Texas Terminator Hoss."

Blue Lives Matter started in response to two NYPD officers being murdered by someone who was angry about Eric Garner. You can be skeptical of their aims (I'm no fan of extending hate crime protections to cops), but it does no good to strawman their stated purpose and goals.

Cornette's better when he talks about things he loves than when he talks about things he hates.

Yeah, you're right. This was a pretty silly road for me to go down. I don't even like the Undertaker.

Your second paragraph had nothing to do with your first? You were just musing about some bumper stickers you didn't like in a thread about the Undertaker's political opinions? Because it sure sounds like you were connecting the Undertaker's shirt about how he likes cops with some other, non-Undertaker-related car decorations you didn't like.

The Undertaker is not responsible for the content of some bumper stickers you didn't like.

Dynamite Kid/Johnny Smith vs. Abdullah the Butcher/Giant Kimala (AJPW 11/21/1990) The move to All Japan has seen a definite increase in Johnny Smith's quality of opposition. We've seen Kawada, Misawa, and Kobashi, and now we get what I'm pretty sure the play-by-play guy called the "Black Power Combo." It's going to be a different kind of match. The British Bruisers jump the BPC as they come to the ring, and Dynamite is actually the one who stabs first as he gets in some pokes on Abdullah. You can tell Johnny isn't a practiced hand at the this kind of thing - he reaches behind a table, picks up a non-folding chair, puts it back, then wanders off somewhere to find something better. He must have failed, because he comes back and grabs that chair again, which he and Dynamite use to hit Adbullah very gently. Abdullah is bleeding at 2:40, and that's including intros. A. Butcher (it says that on his pants!) pokes Johnny in the throat and does his dance, but Smith turns the tables by monkey-flipping him. It actually went pretty well! I wouldn't have guessed Abdullah was capable. Abdullah and Kimala are both wild men from Fake Africa, but their work is quite different. Kimala is a trained, mechanically conventional wrestler in spite of the gimmick, whereas with Abdullah it's always an adventure. He hits Smith with a neckbreaker that should not have been as difficult as he made it look; Kimala is much smoother. The story of this match is that Abdullah keeps hitting Johnny Smith in the throat. This eventually gets his team win and two points (this is actually a tag league match), but not before Dynamite Kid bleeds all over the place. This was kind of fun. All the tomfoolery was a nice change of pace after the pretty dry workratey matches we've had lately. I will say that I could have done without the long stretch of Abdullah standing motionless and digging his fingers into Dynamite's forehead. You've come a long way since World of Sport, Johnny.

Johnny Smith/Davey Boy Smith vs. Mitsuharu Misawa/Kenta Kobashi (AJPW 5/17/1990) There are big things happening in All Japan right now, and Johnny Smith is a challenger to the All Asia Tag Team titles and a bystander to history. Tenryu left in April to shill eyeglasses, start a couple promotions no one watched, and occasionally enliven Tatsumi Fujinami matches by stiffing him in the face. The response to this is to make Misawa a big deal: Three days ago he had Kawada take off his mask (he's still wearing Tiger Mask tights). After this defense, he and Kobashi vacate the All Asia tag titles because it's time to put away childish things. Misawa actually forfeited this title twice: right after this and again in 1999 because All Japan's booking of its underneath titles was just unbelievably lazy. I already spoiled the outcome of this match, and when you've read that you've read everything. It's not really interesting. Perfectly acceptable professional wrestling, but all four of these men have better things coming for them. 1990 doesn't sound old to me, but it is interesting to see that we haven't quite hit the famous All Japan style yet. The finish was abrupt - Kobashi powerbombs Johnny and Misawa frog splashes him for the win - and it came without the parade of kickouts and dramatic rescues that one expects. Also I've seen Misawa do that splash dozens of times, but I never imagined that he ever pinned anyone with it.

Dynamite Kid/Johnny Smith vs. Sumu Hara/Ron Richie (Stampede 6/24/1989) Aw goddammit they sent him back to Canada. I thought I was done with Stampede, but I forgot about this one. It is a breath of fresh air, though - the video quality didn't make me seasick, and Ed Whalen isn't there. Ross Hart is pretty bad, but his charming incompetence is a welcome change from Whalen's "this is the soundtrack of Hell" announcing style. Hara is ahead of his time when it comes to instantly forgettable Japanese wrestlers. He's got billowy pants going into shooty-ass kickpads, and he throws those Mossman kicks everyone was doing. He'd fit right in on a WAR tape. UPDATE: I looked it up, and he's Koki Kitahara! Holy crap I couldn't have been more right. Dude was forgettable on all kinda WAR tapes. We're going to be seeing Smith and Dynamite working together a lot coming up here, and it doesn't look good for Johnny. You watch the two of them and realize almost instantly that Dynamite is much better. This is after back surgery and years of punishment, but he's just as crisp and vicious as he was beating the hell out of Fujinami in 1980. I don't know how he does it and why everyone else doesn't - his stuff just looks meaner than anyone else. It can't just be that was stiffing guys - plenty of people did that, but no one looked like Dynamite doing it. This isn't quite a squash - Richie gets a hot tag after a weird transition where DK superplexes Hara but puts himself in enough of a daze for Hara to get away - but it's close. The British Bruisers get the win after a double headbutt off the second rope, which looked dumb, and then talk a bunch of trash about Davey Boy and Chris Benoit. Did you guys know Benoit stole Dynamite's wrestling boots? Right out of his bag.

Davey Boy Smith/Johnny Smith vs. Toshiaki Kawada/Samson Fuyuki (AJPW 5/13/1989) It's nice to see the brothers reunited. The Smith boys were able to put aside their Stampede differences - I'm guessing they blamed it all on Dynamite and agreed to forget about the stick-whippings and accusations of egg-sucking - to unite against a common enemy, The Footloose! Man, I missed these guys. If ever there was a role Kawada was meant not to play, it's half of a babyface rock 'n' roll tag team. He's already as stoic as he got - maybe if you were sitting there in 1989 and didn't know what he'd become, it was less hilarious to see him in those teal and zebra tights. And Fuyuki never should have left. He could go even years later when he was all fat and dissipated, and he brought a little bit of wildness. 1990s All Japan is the best thing ever, but that's not to say it wouldn't have been improved with some greasiness. ANYWAY, this is just kind of there. Davey Boy is dinged up - I think his leg is bothering him - and he messes up repeatedly. Twice he goes for (I think) a spot where a Footloose reverses out of a suplex, but they just wind up falling down. In both cases, he recovers by doing a Northern Lights suplex, which I don't think I've ever seen him do before. Fuyuki does one as well - it's the superkick of 1989. Neat finish. Davey Boy gorilla presses Johnny and throws him at Kawada, who rolls through and gets the pin. That's two losses in two days for our boy. You better pick up the pace before they send you back to Canada, Johnny.

Johnny Smith vs. Mitsuo Momota (AJPW 5/12/1989) Johnny's finally made it to All Japan, but I didn't recognize him at first. He had that mullet plus shaved sides hairstyle after he became a bad guy in Canada. All that now remains is blotch of hair on the back of head anchoring the mullet. It's hideous. Did he go through a bad breakup and take the clippers to himself in a moment of despair? Did he pass out and endure an All Japan hazing ritual? Did they tell him he was getting a Mongol gimmick? Aside from the hair situation, things are looking up. Freed from the dumbass face/heel structure around which Stampede contests revolved, Johnny gets to wrestle again. He gets a shot at the junior heavyweight title, held by Rikidozan's kid. The crowd is dead silent as they exchange holds (not counting me thirty years leader - I was popping pretty hard). They do react to the high spots, though. Momota has Smith in a . . . leggy arm scissors (I don't know), and Smith stands up while still in the hold and deadlifts him, only for Momota to roll him ever and keep the hold on. We all enjoyed that. They're positively raucous as the match heats up. Smith hits a brutal-looking second rope leg drop, Momota hits a dive to the outside, Smith catches him in midair for a powerslam . . . and then they start messing stuff up, which quiets but does not silence Korakuen. Smith just seems off. It is the first match on only his second All Japan tour, so maybe he was rusty or nervous or communicating poorly. He's supposed to get hurricanrana'd and just completely blows it, and there are numerous moments of hesitation on his part. Momota wins with a clunky small package. This is seven minutes of a thirteen minute match, and it was full of mistakes, but I really enjoyed it. I liked the timing and pacing of the match, and I dug seeing Johnny wrestle again.

Johnny Smith vs. Biff Wellington (Stampede 12/16/1988) Wellington gets a shot at Smith's Mid-Heavyweight title. Smith is heeling like crazy here. We join ten minutes in to see him yelling at the crowd, his bad guy mullet billowing behind him. When Wellington takes control, he even does the beg off. This follows the Stampede formula: The heel isn't allowed to do anything cool; he may only stomp and cheat while Ed Whalen drones moralistically in the background. Smith rakes Wellington's eyes and tries to leave, but Wellington, who looks like Dynamite Kid wearing Don Frye's mustache, rolls him back in. Which he ends up regretting, as Smith tries to drop him face-first onto the turnbuckle but misses completely. He still gets the pin. Young Johnny is off to All Japan for pretty much the rest of his career, so we're leaving Calgary behind. I wonder if he missed it. I certainly won't.

Johnny Smith vs. Louie Spicolli (ECW 3/8/1996) Joey Styles tells a lot of fibs, which is objectionable even if it is in the service of making us think Johnny Smith is tough and cool. He claims that Smith has held titles in Great Britain, Austria, Australia, and Japan. As far as I can tell, only Japan is correct there, and he left out Canada. He states that Smith is making his ECW debut, as if we're supposed to forget that he lost to 2 Cold Scorpio the day before in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania. I should be more appreciative, since we're all trying to get Johnny Smith over here. If ever there was a wrestler destined to get over in front of the ECW Arena crowd . . . well, it wouldn't be Johnny Smith, but I appreciate the effort. On an ironic note, Styles tells us that Smith is looking to make a name in the U.S., and you can be sure Stamford and Atlanta are watching. One of these guys wound up working for Stamford and Atlanta, but it wasn't Johnny. They start off with some matwork, but it's dumb matwork. They do the same headlock takeover into a headscissors spot three times like it's supposed to be impressive. Then they give that up and go outside. It's only a five minute match, so you can't waste a lot of time. They do some moves to each other, and then Smith kicks Spicolli in the gut and does a sitout powerbomb (Styles: "TIGER BOMB!") to get the win. It's a short, sloppy match (the finish comes after Smith almost reverses an Irish whip but decides not to midway through). Everyone chanted "Johnny" at the end, which is nice to hear - ECW Arena is second only to Korakuen when it comes to Johnny Appreciation.

Johnny Smith/Makhan Singh/Midnight Cowboys vs. Owen Hart/Bad Company/Jason the Terrible (Stampede 4/15/1988) This is an elimination match, and we join it - thank heavens - 20 minutes in. Only four men remain: Smith and Singh vs. Owen Hart and Brian Pillman. The match has peculiar rules: Going over the top rope means elimination, and there are no tags; everyone wrestles at once. So most of what we see here is like a particularly dispirited ECW tag team match. There are two singles matches happening at the same time in the same ring, and neither of them is good. This is our first look at Pillman, and he disappoints. He looks like a million bucks (the only man in Calgary with a tan!), but his execution is lacking. It really does hurt him that he's on a team with Owen Hart. They both do a lot of flying, and Owen's is much better. And a sloppy sunset flip is one thing; Pillman lays the worst sleeper hold I've ever seen on Singh. A sleeper is the single easiest wrestling move there is, right? I didn't know there could be a bad one. Pillman is eliminated when Norman the Lunatic sits on him, and the heels go to work on Owen. They send him over the top, but he flips himself back in and dropkicks Bastion Booger over the top. Disaster is averted when Singh grabs the top rope to send Owen out and leaving Johnny Smith as the last man standing. Big win for our boy here. Good to see the best man win.

Owen Hart/Ben Bassarab/Johnny Smith vs. Viet Cong Express/Les Thornton Stampede (Stampede 10/10/1986) That's former Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology Hiroshi Hase under a mask pretending to be a Vietnamese insurgent. We all have to start somewhere. We also have the lost Hart brother-in-law, Ben Bassarab, and the guy teaming with Cactus Jack when the Bulldogs beat the hell out of him, Les Thornton. Plus another Japanese guy pretending to be from Vietnam. That covers all the new guys. We arrive 20 minutes into the match with Johnny Smith getting worked over. He manages to tag in Owen and holy crap was Owen amazing. He gets whipped into the corner, whereupon he hops up to the top rope and does what looks like a cross body but turns into a picture perfect sunset flip. I can't believe a video this bad was showing me something that awesome. Bassarab comes in and does some stuff, but he works too fast, if that makes sense. He busts out a piledriver, but there's no anticipation or setup. It's just "OKI'mpiledrivingyounow*piledriver*." Eventually they do a tricky finish where Owen tags himself in as Bassarab shoots Thornton off the ropes; Owen bounces off Thornton's head with a cross body and pins him. What little we saw of this was fun but sloppy. The ring generalship of the competitors wasn't quite up to the task of arranging the positions of six men, but there's something charming about it. If I'd been in the audience, I probably would have really enjoyed it, but I've been blessed enough never to have been in Calgary in October.

Keith Hart/Johnny Smith vs. Great Gama/Chic Scott (Stampede 6/21/1986) Early days in Stampede for young Johnny. He still looks like John Savage: Job interview hair and simple yellow trunks. Also of note is that he does some of his arm work here, which makes me think that he's a crappy wrestler who does nothing but stomps and bodyslams when he's a heel. He's been very boring in his other Stampede matches, but he was a bad guy with the Mad Max haircut to prove it. Good wrestling is babyface stuff, I guess. He's already doing the dropkick into a kip-up, but he's not pumping his arm yet. That's a veteran move. He doesn't quite seem to understand the face in peril/hot tag sequence. He's a face and in peril, but when he gets a momentary advantage he first beats up his opponent before tagging in his house afire tag team partner. Eventually Scott hits Keith Hart in the head with a foreign object, allowing Singh to choke him out. Ed Whalen bitches and moans about this endlessly. We get a nice babyface promo from Smith. He does better than his partner, who sounds like Bret on Quaaludes.

I just today rewatched the Wrestling with Wregret video about the UWF, which goes into the Williams/Ray incident. According to Ray, the long-suffering Mrs. Abrams did make a pass at him, which he told Herb about. They decided to turn it into an angle and have an extra stiff match. Agreed on the whitewash. They talked to a lot of people who liked Abrams, but it couldn't have been that hard to find someone who got ripped off and was still holding a grudge.

Misawa, Akiyama & Mossman vs Ace, Smith & Kobashi (AJPW 2/14/1998) This is ten minutes of trying to get people excited for a Johnny Ace Triple Crown challenge. Misawa goes too far peeling Ace off of Mossman and winds up stomping a mudhole in him. Ace gets his revenge, though. He hops on the top turnbuckle and Ace crushes Misawa off Kobashi's shoulders, KOing him for the remainder. This remainder isn't much, as he pins Akiyama after a cobra clutch suplex. Smith was barely in this and suffers some disrespect when he is in. He's got this thing he does where he hits a dropkick off the top rope then kips up and pumps his arm. He does it all the time, and if a crowd is into Johnny Smith, this is one of the things they're into. He does it against Misawa here, and the camera guy just doesn't give a damn. We get a glimpse of Smith's moment of triumph while we're focused on Misawa looking pained. It's not even the first time they've done this to him. No respect, I tell ya. The two Johnnies are all hugs after this. I guess we forgot all about that powerbomb on the floor, huh?

Kenta Kobashi/Johnny Ace vs Johnny Smith/Wolf Hawkfield (1/26/1998) Kind of a weird matchup. As expected, Kobashi and Ace beat Smith and Hawkfield in the tag league a couple months ago, so why the rematch? Smith and Hawkfield are the All Asia tag champs, although they didn't bring the belts with them and it's not a title match. Ace and Kobashi lost the world tag titles the night before. The fans throw five (5) streamers during the introductions, which is worse than none. Also of note is that Smith is introduced before Hawkfield, even though events will show shortly that he's the superior member of the team. Basically, the overdogs give Hawfield close to nothing throughout the match and treat Smith as a near-equal. Hawkfield is outsmarted by Ace and overpowered by Kobashi. The smaller man, on the other hand, gets to do fancy arm stuff to both of his opponents, and they don't blow it off. Their underdogs' challenge comes off as a believable because Smith is treated as a serious competitor and because they cheat - Hawkfield is continually coming in to save his partner from a pin or submission or big move. By the end of it, they have the crowd believing that Kobashi might actually go down to Johnny Smith's special limey slop drop (he doesn't even kick out it! Ace has to bail him out). So this is a really good match, even though the personnel isn't of the highest caliber. Hawkfield just isn't very good. He does his bland power stuff well enough, but it's all forgettable and he has no presence. He fires up by wobbling his forearm and doing a Dee Snider face, and it just doesn't work. Johnny Ace is sloppier but better. He's tall, but he's very bad at being tall. He never seems to know where his extremities are going, and everything he does looks awkward. But he works really hard, has some hot moves, and hits hard, so he gets by. Ace is likely to be the worst guy in a world tag title match, but Hawkfield is likely to be the worst guy in an All Asia tag match. Kobashi puts things away by dropping Hawkfield on his head and clotheslining him into bolivian, and then everyone shakes hands and raises one another's arms. Odd vibe to this one, but the work was good, and I liked seeing my man go toe-to-toe with Kobashi and look like a threat.

Johnny Smith/Wolf Hawkfield vs. Gedo/Jado (AJPW 5/1/1998) All those years of hard work paid off: All Japan Pro Wrestling has finally made it to the Tokyo Dome, and Johnny Smith is along for the ride. This is a rarity when it comes to the historiography of Johnny Smith's work: Not only do we get the whole match, we even get entrances. Smith and his video game pal come out to some garbage that might well be from Virtua Fighter. The evil interlopers, on the other hand, have an entrance theme that starts with a gong, and then someone yells about Gedo and Jado, and then an almost certainly uncleared instrumental version of "Sharp-Dressed Man" kicks in. I like "Spartan X" as much as the next guy, but I'm giving Gedo and Jado the "Best Entrance Music at This Here Tokyo Dome Show" award. This has to be the biggest crowd that either John Savage or Jungle Jim Steele ever wrestled in front of, right? Good for them. They get a nice, affectionate response throughout. We're all happy to be here, you know? Man, I really liked this. The players had clearly-delineated characters: Smith outwrestles his opponents, Hawkfield outpowers them, and Gedo and Jado cheat. Gedo is great at being on the other end of Smith's grappling, both of them are small enough for Wolf's cruddy power stuff to look good, and they're really, really good at cheating. Smooth as silk. Their double-teams are impeccable. Jado even does me a mitzvah. I hate rolling German suplexes. They're an emblem of the continual escalation of damage that's plagued wrestling pretty much forever. Johnny Smith suplexes Jado Teutonically and then rolls over for another one, but Jado foils it by kicking him in the dick. That's what you get, Johnny. You and your bruised dick go think about how rolling suplexes are awful. So they do all their stuff and eventually Smith avenges his dick by pinning Jado with a British Fall. God bless Gedo and Jado. I had seen a significant amount of their stuff back in the day (they went everywhere), but I never appreciated them. I was a young fellow - an idiot, really - who was all hyped up because he had only recently seen a dragon suplex for the first time and thought that's what made matches good. These little guys in their pajamas didn't have any hot moves or anything, and I wrote them off as indy chumps. But here they are doing everything right, playing exactly to the home team's strengths and making them look like stars.

Giant Kimala II/Johnny Smith/Wolf Hawkfield vs Johnny Ace/Kenta Kobashi/Maunakea Mossman (All Japan 12/5/1997) We join this match just in time for Kobashi to suplex vertically Kimala, which gets a big pop. Kimala I guess is trying to get across that he is now afraid of pro wrestling, so when Mossman tags in we get the image of him kicking a shrieking fat man who's trying to run away. Smith does nifty arm stuff to Mossman, and it gets a pop again - and this isn't even the diehard turbonerds at Korakuen. He's got Budokan yelling for this stuff, and I really don't know why he doesn't do it more often. They go outside, and Ace powerbombs Smith on the floor and then shit-talks him. Where the hell did that come from? It's just a normal match, then all of a sudden Ace brings an inappropriate amount of heat. What happened to the good times, Johnny? A few months ago you guys were working together to beat Ogawa and Taue, and now this? They telegraph the arrival of the finishing sequence pretty awkwardly - all of a sudden four of the six guys in the match have to go brawl outside - and we're left with Hawfield and Mossman. Smith comes in to bail out his partner and they cooperate to drop Mossman throat-first on the top rope. Looked nasty. Hawkfield presses his advantage and wins with a really nondescript twirly slam thing. He really is the Mike Barton of wrestling. Nothing he does is bad, but you forget about it right after you see it. Imagine how boring it must have been when they were a team. This wound being an effective semi-main event (the tag league final was at the top of the card tonight). They kept Kimala mostly out of the way, and the rest of the B-team came through and did all the false finishes you're supposed to do at the end.

Johnny Ace/Johnny Smith vs Akira Taue/Yoshinari Ogawa (AJPW 9/271997) We're going to do a run through late 97/early 98 All Japan here. It's going to be great. I might go ahead and watch that Misawa/Akiyama match again. The Global Johnny Team takes on a random pairing of natives here, and we join it most of the way in. Ogawa does some cool leg stuff to Smith and they take turns beating him up. Ace comes and fires up until he gets beaten up. Smith comes back in and outclasses Misawa's weed carrier to get the win. He's already using the British Fall, but I guess they aren't calling it yet. It's like a scoop slam setup into a reverse DDT. Basically a Slop Drop with an extra step. Pretty good. I mean, nothing you need to go out of your way to find, but satisfying professional wrestling. It did lack focus and narrative - the Johnnies took turns getting worked over and getting in offense after a tag. But it was solid work. Smith and Ogawa work well together. They can do the clever stuff to each other, and Ogawa's small enough that Smith's power offense looks convincing.

Johnny Smith/Dynamite Kid vs. Chris Benoit/Ken Johnson (Stampede 6/30/1989) Warning: If you are prone to seizures, DO NOT SEEK OUT THIS MATCH. Every time I watch one of these Stampede matches, I see new frontiers in audio/visual crappiness. This one was transferred from a haunted VHS tape and by the end of it I had sea legs. The idea here is that Dynamite Kid has replaced Davey Boy Smith with his no-good brother Johnny. David Boy responded by taking up with Chris Benoit, figuring that if he can't team with Dynamite, he might as well team with someone doing a Dynamite impression. Too bad we never got to repeat this angle with Davey Richards. Davey Boy’s not around for this, though, and Benoit is tagging with sacrificial lamb Ken Johnson. So, Stampede television is just terrible, and that's without me blaming them for VCR tracking issues. The announcers are yelling at each constantly, mostly saying just the stupidest, lamest stuff you can imagine. That's a constant. In this match, they add a new wrinkle: Davey Boy and Dynamite take turns showing up in a box at the bottom right to insult each other in pre-recorded interviews. Which is pretty cool - I ain't exactly up to speed on Stampede angles in 1989, and this gave me everything I needed to know. EXCEPT For the first five minutes of this, the British Bruisers are beating Ken Johnson up. Benoit's trying to tag, but he can't get in. Bulldog Bob Brown is calling him a coward because he's not wrestling. It's the whole story of the match. Finally, Benoit tags and is a house afire . . . while Dynamite is still in the corner talking. We're distracted by trying to decipher Dynamite's Mancunian threats; we don't have play-by-play to help us follow the action, and we can't see a quarter of it. Way to distract us from the important thing that is happening, you dumb hosers. But anyway, Benoit tags Johnson back in and he immediately loses. They beat on Benoit until Davey Boy makes the save. This was good! I mean, it wasn't supposed to be a super hot match; they were trying to advance an angle, and they did. Dynamite looked great beating Johnson up. And we got hear a Johnny Smith promo for the first time ever! He did just fine, and he was easier to understand than his partner. And even though the announcing was awful, toward the end Bulldog Bob Brown sure sounded like he called Benoit a "smart-aleck fuck," and that makes up for a lot.

John Savage vs. Terry Rudge (World of Sport 9/3/1985) Savage has already won the first fall, which the announcer makes clear is an upset. They mess with each other's wrists for a while, but things ramp up quickly as Rudge repeatedly throws Savage into the corner, then takes him down and procures a Boston crab, which is greeted by an immediate submission. In the third and final fall, Savage tries to delay the inevitable. He gains a momentary advantage with a reverse half nelson, but Rudge punches him in the stomach. We're dealing with a much tougher specimen here than we had with Alan Kilby. Yet again the crowd gets excited for our boy to complete the upset - they pop big for a cross body block - but once again it's not to be as Rudge sinks in a terminal Boston crab. I've seen all of two World of Sport matches, so now I'm an expert. The Kilby match had niftier stuff, but this one told more of a story, and one of the participants showed a lot of personality. Rudge had the look and the mannerisms of someone who would absolutely beat the hell out of out of you, Johnny Smith, and anyone else.