ohtani's jacket

Bull Power vs. John Quinn II (Wien, Summer '87) It's a shame we don't have this in full as it looked like a great brawl, especially when they were fighting on the outside. Vader beat Quinn pretty bad here.

No worries. I fixed a few of them.

Bull Power vs. John Quinn I (Wien, Summer '87 The summer of Vader continues. I'm not sure S&M style gear fits Born in the USA, but you can't go wrong with this bout. Quinn gets some nice licks in, Vader hits him back even harder, and then Big Leon assaults the ref. The ref blades, which sends the crowd into a frenzy. Vader gets on the mic and a woman attacks him from behind. Wild scenes in Vienna. Can't wait for the rematch.

Fascinating to see the same venue in the 60s.

Bull Power vs. Tony St. Clair (Wien, Summer '87) I think it's fair to say that brawling with behemoths like Vader isn't really Tony's forte, but he does an outstanding job here and shows more fire than in a lot of his 90s bouts. Rene Lasartesse vs. Tony St. Clair (Wien, Summer '87) Tony gets the shit beaten out of him by the legendary Rene Lasartesse then gets a little payback. Great selling from Tony. He looks awesome here, which I guess is no surprise since it's closer to his prime than the 90s was. He celebrates his win over Rene like he's won the entire tournament.

If you're wondering what the heck is going on, Booker T injured himself at a house show and Teddy Long allowed him to choose a substitute in the Best of Seven Series. Orton was coming off a beating at the hands of the Undertaker in their Hell in a Cell match, and Book convinced Orton that he could repair his reputation by helping Booker win the United States title. Book would keep the tile, but Orton would get all the glory. The match was short but technically sound. Booker and Sharmell joined the commentary table, and while they were good on the stick, Cole couldn't stop bickering with Booker and talking over the match. I kind of wish Booker had bitch slapped him. The finish was confusing at first. Rather than allowing Orton to tap the crossface, Sharmell hit Benoit in the head one of Booker's crutches (better than a broom) and caused a DQ. Orton RKO'ed Benoit afterward while nursing his arm from the crossface, which was nice selling. I guess Sharmell felt that they had a match in hand and could soften Benoit up for the next bout. Jesse Ventura would be proud of that logic.

Have you seen Steinblock vs. One Warrior Nation? Apparently, it has the lowest rating of any match on Cagematch.

Bull Power vs. Eddy Steinblock I (Wien, Summer '87) Bull Power vs. Eddy Steinblock II (Wien, Summer '87 I'll tell you this much -- Vader was over in Wien in 1987. He was challenging the audience to step in the ring with him for cash and jawing with the fans. In the second bout, a kid spat on him as he made his way to the ring. It's a good thing Vader didn't notice or he might have taken a swing at the kid. He wasn't a polished performer yet, but he projected an aura of violence and danger. When he cut loose, you were never quite sure how many of his blows were landing. He took some fun bumps, including a great bump to the outside where they began brawling in front of the fans. It was nice to see the crowd for a change. They were going ape shit, which you never really see in other footage. I'm not sure what Matt has against Steinblock. He was a perfectly good poor man's Tommy RIch/Barry Windham in these clips.

John Quinn & Rolo Brasil vs. Indio Guajaro & Axel Dieter (Wien, Summer '87) This was a shorter clip than usual but it gave you a general idea of the flow of the match. I dunno why they couldn't film the entire match. Dieter was working heel here. I suspect that changed on a nightly basis depending on the card. We got a little Quinn vs. Dieter, which was the match up I wanted to see.

Yes, however as a rule I prefer the Bull Blitzer version of Steve Wright to the Wonder Boy stuff.

Steve Wright vs. Axel Dieter (Wien, Summer 1987) This got good as soon as Wright stopped doing his cutesy shit and began rocking Dieter with forearm smashes and vicious stomps. That's what I like to see from Steve Wright. Dieter struggled to get his licks in, at least in the clips, but it was fun watching Wright pummel him. I wish we saw this Steve Wright more often.

Dream Team vs. British Bulldogs (WWF, 5/19/86) There are a million Dream Team vs. Bulldogs matches. This is the first one I happened to watch. It was a brisk and entertaining match. We got to see Valentine vs. Dynamite Kid, which was exciting. In the right setting those two could have had a match where they beat the shit out of each other. Fun finish with the heels thinking they'd won the title only for the ref to screw them.

This was a really good match. Much better than their Survivor Series bout. Booker T was up 3-0 in the series and looking to sweep Benoit. Benoit took it Booker both technically and physically. There were some great WWE-style near falls, and the match had far more heat than their first match. Part of what made it so compelling was the fact that it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility for the WWE to job Benoit out 4-0. There were a couple of moments where I thought they were going to do just that. The only weak point was Sharmell. I liked the fact that she was carrying a broom to signal the sweep, and it allowed Cole to make a few cracks about her being a witch, but it wasn't much of a foreign object. That may have been intentional, as she did pull a pretty good facial when she tried to whack Benoit with the broom to no effect, however with the amount of whining Cole did about Sharmell interfering in the matches, she was largely ineffective at ringside and couldn't prevent her man from tapping even when his leg was right near the ropes. Broom aside, it was one of the better WWE matches from the second half of '05.

Dream Team vs. U.S. Express (WWF, 8/24/85) I like the Dream Team. It gave Greg something to do after the Tito feud and featured Beefcake's best work. Beefcake was one of the workers who first appealed to me as a kid watching Superstars with my uncle, so I am totally fine with him as Greg's partner. This was a decent match with a hot finish. Barry dominated the early shine and came to blows with the Hammer. Rotunda played face-in-peril during the middle period. Barry made the hot tag and looked to have things in control until Beefcake blinded him with some sort of powder. Barry's selling was awesome. The Dream Team won the titles and the crowd seemed a little shocked that there had been a title change. Barry is another case where you wonder what might have been if he'd stayed in the WWF even though we were probably better off watching him in Crockett.

The Wildman of Borneo was an Indian wrestler named Gunga Singh. N'Boa the Snakeman was Congolese wrestler Bob Elandon. He wrestles under his real name in one of the Catch bouts.

Eddy Steinblock vs. Axel Dieter (Wien, Summer 1987) I don't think I've seen these Axel Dieter matches from '87. He was still in pretty good shape here. Quite a hard-hitting and physical bout. The old guy put up quite the fight. I thoroughly enjoyed these clips. Reminded me of watching Lou Thesz matches from the 70s.

I had half a mind to skip this, but it wound up being the most exciting match on the card. Was Orton trolling Michaels at the start when he oversold Shawn's offense? This was well booked considering the talent involved -- an easy fact to overlook considering the squabbling that the commentating teams were doing. The eliminations were well planned, and we got a lot of cool touches. I especially liked JBL's performance both on offense and his look of bewilderment when Big Show wouldn't stay down. Shawn hammed it up on the apron and again during the finishing stretch, but he ate the TKO for the finish. The Undertaker returned for the billionth time doing the same old supernatural schtick. Randy tried to do bug-eyed selling but looked foolish. The Undertaker's return took the shine off Smackdown's win, but it was a fun Survivor Series match. I just wish they'd given us more Michaels vs. Mysterio. That was like one of those lucha trios matches where the two guys you really wanna see wrestle just work cursory exchanges.

Triple H predictably gets his win back from Taboo Tuesday. The match is okay, mostly thanks to Ric bleeding, but it's excessively long. Ric kicks out of three pedigrees at the end only to go down to a sledgehammer shot. I'm pretty sure one pedigree was enough.

Tally Ho Kaye has nothing to do with that Sid Kipper song. Go watch his introductions on YouTube where Crabtree keeps calling him a sportsman and a country gentleman and he wears the bowler hat and monocle. It's no different to the Marquis gimmicks over in France. It doesn't carry over into the ring as much because that's the joke.

Kaye blew the bugle while the MC was announcing his opponent. it was pure and utter shtick. His gimmick was initially based on his supposedly legit showjumping background. Nothing about that screams rural type to me, and honestly I don't see how it would work as a heel gimmick if he was meant to be playing one. I think you're missing the point of what I was saying about FInlay and Murphy. There's only a handful of Arras matches on tape, so it's hard to tell if he was a straight comedy worker or a guy who used comedy in his matches like Jim Breaks.

I'm not really concerned about how Finlay or Murphy were viewed by viewers in 1984. I was talking about internet wrestling circles in 2015. Specifically, the circles that this site was part of. Kaye was portraying a member of the upper crust. The accent was part of the gimmick -- a way for the fans to poke holes in the façade. It's been a while since I've seen Arras work, but from memory he talked to the crowd a lot and I'm fairly sure he worked comedy into his act.

Unfortunately, everything I wrote nearly a decade ago is still true today.

Names that come to mind are George Kidd, Billy Robinson, Billy Howes, Billy Joyce, Ernie RIley, Albert Wall, Joe Cornelius, Roy Bull Davis and George Gordienko. Those are guys we have almost no footage of. I know a collector who has quite a bit of 70s footage from the ITV vaults that didn't air on TWC. I don't know how good the matches are but the footage definitely exists.

My favorite Kellett bouts are his matches against Bobby Barnes, one of which is in circulation. I absolutely love Kellett. He is by far the best of the comedy workers.

Mile Zrno vs. John Quinn 'Wein, Summer '87) I don't think I've seen this before. I have a soft spot for Big John Quinn. I wish he had stayed with Joint Promotions and wrestled their stable of heavyweights instead of jumping to All-Star. He did a really good job of working basic holds in this match and letting his size to the rest. The match was clipped, as you'd expect from this type of handheld footage, but we still got 16 minutes of action. Zrno was awesome once he began working angry. He also had some neat athletic spots. Every Zrno match is a treasure and this was no exception.