ohtani's jacket

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.

This was closer to the type of match I want to see from John Cena and Kurt Angle. There was some bullshit with the refs that tied into the finish but the action was good. I did notice a weakness in Cena's selling when transitioning back onto offense. I can usually live with that sort of thing but Cena's shortcomings stick out like a sore thumb.

This was a decent match. I like that they had these guys work another Best of Seven series. It's kind of strange that they put the first match on a major PPV and ran it as the opener. There was some nice grappling even if they don't get a ton of heat.

The premise for this feud seemed stupid to me. Triple H was upset because Flair celebrated winning the Intercontinental title? Why wouldn't Flair celebrate winning the IC tile at his age? Was Hunter trying to say the IC belt was below Flair? This had its moments, and they were mainly based around Flair. I loved the part where Triple H had Flair in the figure four leglock and Ric stared swearing at him and flipping him off. The parts where Hunter was in control were pretty slow, but the match picked up whenever Ric was on offense. Plenty of blood. The finish was a convincing way for Ric to beat Hunter, but Styles was over the top with the call.

This was disappointing. It wasn't very satisfying from an Angle vs. Cena perspective. or a Michaels vs. Angle perspective, and was no better than a typical RAW main event. I expect a bit more from a PPV match even if it is Taboo Tuesday. The part that bothered me the most was when Michaels and Angle took out Cena by suplexing him through the announcers' table. Michaels and Angle worked a mini-match, and one of them was about to beat the other when Cena stormed the ring like a house on fire. Cena's selling was weak, but what really annoyed me was that we never cut to a shot of Cena on the outside while Angle and Michaels were having their match. Why wouldn't they give us an update on the other guy in the match? It comes across as shitty directing and shitty commentary. This was a serious downgrade from those Triple H vs. Shawn Michaels vs. Benoit triple threats despite trying to create the same dynamic.

Failing to beat the count can be a dramatic finish if it's executed well. The Kwango finish wasn't. You can't really blame Kwango since that type of selling wasn't his forte, wasn't something he had a lot of experience with, and wasn't the style of wrestling that made him a popular attraction. It may have been edgy for UK TV at the time to have the action spill out of the ring, but we only have to look at late 50s/early 60s French Catch to see t being done in a vastly more exciting way. They stick to the rules for TV, but it makes for a weak finish where much of the heat is a result of the bout ending prematurely and not the way the fans wanted. 1972 results are limited, but it doesn't appear to have set up a rematch. This isn't about being an American wrestling fan and not understanding the nuances of British wrestling. It's something that British wrestling didn't do well. In part because of certain restrictions placed on it but also because it had moved past all-in wrestling to become the type of wrestling the fans expected to see that evening, particularly from Kwango. I'd have to watch it again to see whether my comments were unfair or harsh. I never thought much of Dennison as a worker, so I doubt much would change.

Did you watch Viedor/Roberts and Kwango/Dennison from 1/5/72?