Matt D

His last act was one last grift on the stage of the RNC as an attempt for them to channel a nostalgic view of jingoistic hypermasculinity. He gets whatever he gets from people today.

Imagine what you'll know when you have another ten years of newspapers to work off of.

Honestly, my only regret in the entire project is not joining Twitter earlier. I knew someone was posting some of the gifs I was posting over on DVDVR and I was ok with that (though I'm doing it more comprehensively now) but just being able to talk to Phil in real time about these matches as we were going through them initially would have definitely helped us out. We were the blind men touching the elephant on a lot of it (and still are as Sebastian made a logical leap there from cagematch).

https://www.patreon.com/user?u=110961841

One of my favorite uncovered matches I’ve seen all year was a Roma vs Sharpe match. Just total commitment.

New Richard Land drop this month is 9/10/80 Hanover Le Grand Vladimir vs Karl Dauberger Achim Chall vs Caswell Martin Axel Dieter vs The Destroyer Ed Wiskowski vs Steve Wright Plus a pre-show ceremony of some sort.

It's a small sample size, but Joe vs Darby might be the best thing AEW ever did.

This is absolutely true. It was like being back with an old friend.

Crazy that this match isn't more talked about. It has some of the best Inoki expressions of the 80s. Just the moment where both of them decide to pull aside the corner pads is so good and so... them. Inoki basically becomes the Hulk at the end of this but I absolutely bought it because no one can play a wrathful god more believably than him (especially against Choshu actually. He treats him similarly the night of the riot before the Vader match). Absolutely iconic stuff even before the blood shows up and once it does, man... I'm not saying you can learn everything you need to know about 80s NJPW from watching this one match but I'm also not not saying that.

A while ago but I probably did

New Richard Land Patreon Drop for May has a tape with... Destroyer vs UFO(Bob Della Serra - Date Unknown but around September/October 1980). 10/3/80 -UFO vs Klaus Karoff -Caswell Martin and Karl Dauberger vs Chris Colt and Francisco/Paco Ramírez 10/4/80 2 Caswell Martin vs Karl Dauberger 3 Ed Wiskoski vs Jim Harris (Kamala) 4 Kim Duk vs Manuel López 5 Klaus Kauroff and Le Grand Vladimir vs. Salvatore Bellomo and Steve Wright

This was my write up of the 80 match. Otto Wanz vs. Don Leo Jonathan Graz, Austria 7/12/80 MD: The Great Don Leo Jonathan's final match. We previously had 12 clipped minutes of this in watchable format and the brunt of the footage in completely unwatchable format with the sound muted. I had watched the former a few years back when I was going over some Wanz and couldn't make too much sense of it, clipped. This is very much new and complete then and it's worth watching. It starts slow and clean with the two playing size vs size but quickly gets more heated. Wanz wins a couple of early exchanges and Jonathan starts to go for inside moves. The engine of these Wanz matches was that his opponent cheated and Wanz tried to stay on the up and up with the fans wanting him to fire back and go dirty more and more. When he finally did it, they erupted. Jonathan had a great variety of punches. Pokey ones in the corner, these flicking backhands, big meaty shots. And when Wanz fired back he was willing to bump around, even it being his last match, including getting knocked over the top a couple of times. They both had specific bits of athleticism too. Jonathan flipped over using the ropes to get of an armhold and hit a dropkick as well. Wanz had his flipping sentons towards the end but also did an up and over headscissors takedown. More than any move however, was the physicality and intensity of those corner beatdowns from Jonathan which ended a round and then Wanz starting the next round but rushing across the ring to pummel him to the crowd's delight. He had such a special relationship with them and they got so loud as started to fight fire with fire. What we get here with the full match is much more fleshed out and valuable than the 12 minutes we already had. It seemed like Jonathan still had a lot to offer but he bowed out on a high note against Wanz.

He released the full 80 DLJ match not long ago (we had just had it clipped) so this is just the rest of the card but I know Zrno vs Velhurst/Londos was already out there.

Richard Land’s monthly drop is just 7/12/80 which I think was already out there but I bet it’s a VQ boost. Will check later.

Everything before 1980 (and some select things after) is worth watching. Sorry.

Here’s where I landed on Darby vs Ospreay: http://segundacaida.blogspot.com/2024/12/aew-five-fingers-of-death-1216-1222.html?m=1

Petit Prince/Jean Corne vs Zoltan Boscik/Jacky Richard almost hurts me to think about since we can’t see it.

I am still boggled by these cards. Time travel wouldn’t help. We’d have to do it multiple times.

Exciting stuff. And yes, full push for Gilbert.

I think 2/3rds of the swimming pool matches are lovely.

Different guy, would love to talk with him.

You have to reach out to Richard Land, primarily through twitter @maskedwrestlers over there. He's @landy1987 here, I think, but not active so that's your best bet.

I watch a lot of wrestling. Rarely does one single act move the needle. What happens with Villano III here after Vulcano destroys his mask after the primera will move the needle.

He was a middle class person’s Brutus Beefcake against Giant Haystacks.

Good to know. I had no idea who that guy was.