Matt D

That this side of the tracks has plenty of room for both Will and I means that it's a hell of a side of the tracks.

It is the year of the six man.

I probably went over the character limit.

At the end of the day it's Dave's HOF and it's Dave's tastes that help to fuel it. It's one reason why I don't think I'd ever break my back to try to move the needle.

Shit, come watch 78-80+ Portland. It'll be the salve that makes it all okay. Anyway, I love how it rolled right into "Death of WCW Invasion angle..." Hilarious and fitting. I like how people kept going "It's going to get better." I imagine you'll hunt them down one after the next.

For some reason, he's another one of those guys who I would hope would realize that people do appreciate just how good he was despite how he was generally thought of maybe five-ten years ago when a lot of his best stuff was overlooked.

If Buddy Rose doesn't get in on work....

Rose/Oliver vs Lightfoot/Youngblood © - 2/3 Falls - Title Match - Nov 15, 1980 Exciting stuff. They played drum music on the "tape recorder" for the champs. First time I've heard music in Portland (past Roddy's bagpipes). Bonnema says the fans are chanting "Indian Power." Bonnema mentions Steamboat again too, talking about Jay's past and I wish we had him here instead of Lightfoot. Ah well. Oliver and Youngblood to begin. Youngblood teases a punch in the ropes, but does a clean break and then they go right into an arm drag and arm work, first an arm bar and then a nice looking hammerlock. Oliver tries to grab hair or choke or clubber or whatever he can do to get out. And this is really the story of the first part of the shine here with Lightfoot coming in and taking over. Eventually, after a brief rope-running segment, Oliver manages to tag Buddy in. Lightfoot screws up the back body drop-land on his feet again. Buddy recovers well again and slaps on a headlock. Lightfoot eventually tosses him off (after he garners a chant) and ducks down so Buddy runs right into a blow from Youngblood just in off the apron. This lets Youngblood finally get in with him and they go into a headlock base. Eventually they go into a really great rope-running bit, some lightning quick dropdowns, ending with a Sunset Flip by Jay and Oliver coming in to break it up and then tag in. He takes over with a headlock of his own. Lightfoot is the world's least interesting Robert Gibson on the outside. They go in and out of the headlock with Oliver cutting off hope spots with power moves. They manage a good sense of struggle here. At one point, Jay almost has it reversed but Buddy turns him over from the outside. Masterful stuff, perfectly timed. Youngblood finally gets out and presses Oliver against the ropes but Buddy blind tags in and hits a huge back body drop followed by an even huger press slam. He celebrates afterwards, deservedly. Buddy misses a seat drop on the ropes, however, and Oliver tags in and cuts off Jay at the last second, before grinding down with a chinlock. Jay gets his arm up at two, but Oliver knees him to the back of the skull and grinds it back in again. Great camera shot of Youngblood reaching for the tag, but they get him back into the corner and Buddy comes back in with another huge lawn dart throw and then the big flying back elbow. Lightfoot breaks up the pin but the heels use the distraction to doubleteam. Jay fights back but Oliver cuts him off with the taped thumb. Great FIP. Buddy hits the Robinson backbreaker out of nowhere, but Youngblood is able to just drape his foot over both the rope and Barr. I've not seen anyone ever get out of that before, which shows how protected it was and how protected they were keeping Youngblood here. Oliver holds his knee out and Buddy walks over to drop him on it with a backbreaker. he hits another one in the center of the ring and that's the three count for the first fall. Long fall but they kept it varied and interesting. Good stuff. Lightfoot massages Youngblood's back between falls. Awww. Anyway, it's Buddy and Jay to start the second fall. Buddy stalls by complaining that Lightfoot was bouncing up and down on the ropes from the outside instead of how he should be standing. Then he mocks Indians and finally blindsides Youngblood, going for the big slam again. Jay drops down and rolls him up for two, but Buddy gets up and takes over on the back again. Oliver comes in and keeps it up, finally putting on the bear hug as the fans chant for Jay, who sells it all well before headbutting out. Right back to the back with a double axehandle though and a tag in to Buddy. Big double back body drop on Youngblood. He's pretty damn good at this role. Back to the Oliver bearhug. He rears back for the BIIIIIIG chop but Buddy grabs his hand from the apron to cut it off. Nice little touch. Lightfoot is dangling over the top rope to try to get the tag, but Buddy goes for an ambush and Lightfoot leaves his spot to chase him off. Youngblood goes for the tag. Lightfoot isn't there. Buddy taps his head like a genius. Buddy in. Youngblood fighting out of the corner, but Buddy grabs his foot and Oliver runs in to stop it. Lightfoot comes in to complain. Heels do an illegal switch. It's an artform, even when Barr doesn't allow it. They go for the double back body drop again and Youngblood hits a double sunset flip, but gets caught in the corner by Buddy again. He hits an inverted atomic drop out of it and the fans go nuts. He stumbles around, fights off Oliver, until he eats the thumb to the throat again. Man, I thought he was going to tag there. This is really good. Oliver stomps away and then goes for the argentinian backbreaker over the shoulder. It looks great. Lightfoot had enough and runs in to break it up but Buddy just comes right in. He misses an elbow though, and Youngblood in three or four moves outfinesses and out toughs him and makes the tag as the place comes UNGLUED. After a dropkick Lightfoot tags Jay (not selling) back in. They hit a double chop and Jay hits a flying big splash type chop off the rope for the pin. I'll call that one adrenaline and let it go. Jay's selling post pin, with Lightfoot bracing him as he celebrates around the ring. Hell of a first two falls. That's how you really ramp a crowd up. Third fall starts with the heels trying to start with Oliver and when that doesn't work, they complain about the double judo chop. Jay sells the back. Buddy is cautious. Lightfoot is bouncing around clapping. Buddy has a "Jack Lemmon in the Great Race" thing going here with the dark hair and the mustache. Lots of feeling out til Buddy does an ambush kick and tosses youngblood out. Oliver slams his back into the pole and then they drape him over the bottom rope against the apron, leaving him for dead. We're right back to heat on Youngblood. Awesome. Youngblood fights back and they collide together. Heat and hope, but Buddy grabs his leg and drags him out of the ring, doing a bearhug charge into the post again. Youngblood (Still selling huge) fights back finally and makes the dive into the corner. Lightfoot back in, and then right into Buddy's knee in the corner. Oliver in as they keep trying to put Lightfoot away. Apparently there's only two minutes left. Lightfoot rolls up Oliver and Buddy makes the save. It all breaks down after that, with Youngblood dragging Buddy out and draping his arm over and over against the pole. It's the same arm that Buddy injured on Youngblood a few years ago which Bonnema points out. Meanwhile, Oliver and Lightfoot are scrapping in the ring. Oliver finally grinds him down using the thumb to the throat repeatedly, even as Youngblood keeps destroying Buddy's arm on the outside. Faces drape the heels arms over the top rope in unison as the bell rings due to the time. Yeah, this was great. Tag matches don't HAVE to be structured this way but it sure helps when they are.

Barry Windham in the Zeus role. Solves everything.

First off, I'm glad you liked the Stasiak matches, OJ. I haven't been able to get anyone to watch them, really, and I think they're interesting. Anyway, I had the first fall written up and then the baby KO'ed the post and now I'm starting over here. Rose/Oliver vs Jay Youngblood/Joe Lightfoot - Nov 8 1980 - 2/3 Falls Youngblood is the new (returned) big face in the region. It's basically just him and Boyd right now on top. Youngblood/Lightfoot are the tag champs having beaten Oliver/Cortez. Rose, subsequently dumped Cortez the Cuban so I think that he might be on the way to a face run now which should be surreal. This is non-title on the idea that if the heels win they should get a shot. This makes Bonnema go on about how Jesse Ventura was the first guy to wear his belt into the ring even if it was a non-title match. Anyway, the story of the first fall is that Rose wants nothing to do with Youngblood. Oliver forces Youngblood into the corner, hits him, pisses him off, does it again, and then Youngblood comes back chopping. Finally Jay tags Lightfoot in and they start the headlock base that will cover most of the fall. Oliver is actually pretty good on the bottom here, reaching for hair or tights and constantly struggling. Oliver pushes him off and goes for a back body drop but Lightfoot cartwheels around it and puts the headlock back on. Buddy runs in but is cut off by Jay, forcing him to dive out of the ring. Pretty good sequence all around. Tag to Youngblood who does few chops to the crowd's delight and slap the headlock on again. Buddy tries an ambush and gets double chopped for his trouble. Lightfoot back in. Oliver is able to press him to his own corner and tag Buddy but Joe immediately fights back, including flipping out of an armdrag to his feet (A for effort) and a big monkeyflip in the corner. Youngblood tags in and Rose runs for the hills. Oliver starts on Jay with the taped thumb to the throat and finally Buddy accepts the tag so that he can fight a weakened Jay. He hits huge flying back elbow and then celebrates just as big but Youngblood is right up and Rose runs to Oliver again. Faces tag and do a double chop and two shoulder roll sentons by Lightfoot and that's the first fall. We've seen this stuff before. It sets up Rose vs Youngblood for later and really makes the newcomers look great. Second fall starts with Bonnema spelling out the story of the first fall, how Oliver basically had to fight two on one since Rose wanted nothing to do with Youngblood. I think the more you listen to him, the better you realize he was as an announcer, honestly. Youngblood and Oliver to start the second fall. Almost immediately back into a headlock again and this time, Oliver does a great job of working it and trying to get the pin reversal, really deep with the tight and hair pulling. I wish we had a better angle of Youngblood fighting out of it. Oliver's up but down again almost immediately. He then goes for an upsidedown cravat reversal attempt but Youngblood rolls right through it. Oliver tosses him off, puts his head down and gets nailed for it. Finally Lightfoot comes in and gets nailed again including the head jammer before Buddy finally comes in again to give us our long-overdue heat segment. Great slam and then a headlock to keep Joe from tagging. He comes close and Oliver runs in to grab the tights distracting the ref while Buddy takes out Jay. He then rolls him back to the middle of the ring for two and takes him into the heel corner. Oliver back in and Lightfoot is doing fine here as FIP. Both faces have been pretty good on the apron in that role. This is the first i've seen Oliver in a match like this, I think and he's pretty good at the fundamentals. He's grinding down on the chinlock. It's not the most exciting stuff, the face headlock base and the heel chinlock base here but it's being well worked at least. They stay in the corner, cheat when they can, do quick switches. Buddy, though, is good enough to know to vary up what he does and turns it into a neck vice. Lightfoot gets a knee up to Buddy's skull but Buddy cuts him off before he can make the tag. Lightfoot tries to do a bodypress out of the corner by running up the turnbuckles but gets caught in a huge flub which just makes Buddy grin satisfied and clubber him down. Great recovery. They do a great hope spot that goes like this: Oliver brings Lightfoot back to the corner. Lightfoot fights back and goes for a double noggin knocker. Heels power out of it. Rose holds Lightfoot. Lightfoot ducks so that Oliver hits him. Nice little twist on things. Oliver's able to cut him off though. Lightfoot isn't great but this is still a good FIP section because they're just sticking to what works so well and layering in the hope spots and cut offs liberally. Lightfoot's at least able to present desperation, with my favorite bit of it being a last ditch attempt to trip Oliver that does him no good. He'll punch and chop up but get eye raked, or hit Rose in the corner and crawl towards Youngblood but Rose will just drop down into a seated chinlock. Another great spot follows: Jay's so into trying to get the tag that he lets go of the turnbuckle/tag rope. Barr turns around and admonishes him, and when Jay looks away, Buddy pounces up out of the seated chinlock and blindsides him off the apron. Lightfoot goes for the tag and no one's there. Oliver comes in while Buddy's stomping on Jay KOTM-like and when Barr admonishes him Buddy just chokes Joe in the middle of the ring. Pretty masterful stuff. Buddy finally goes for a back body drop, gets kicked, and Lightfoot does a great leaping-over-Rose tag to bring Jay in finally. Youngblood kills both guys with chops. Fans are going nuts. He does the war dance. Lightfoot really wants back for revenge in so they tag. Youngblood tosses Rose against the ropes but Lightfoot misses a huge dropkick. About a minute later, Buddy hits the Bossman Slam style Billy Robinson backbreaker off the ropes and that's the second fall. Very solid FIP and the story of the match is still about making Jay look great. It's doing what it's supposed to. Buddy and Lightfoot start the third fall. Buddy starts on the upper back, including this great kick up and around. Lightfoot tries to land on his feet after a back body drop but can't quite do it. You kind of see why he never became more of a star. Buddy recovers. Bonnema covers it up. Oliver comes in and puts on a big carry bearhug. Lightfoot tries to punch out but gets rammed into the heel corner for his trouble. Buddy tries for another bearhug off the ropes but Lightfoot turns it into a Thesz press. Totally logical spot I've never seen before. Buddy trips Joe on the way to the corner and he makes the tag to Oliver before Lightfoot can tag. Oliver puts on another bearhug. Lightfoot out with the clap to the ears for another hope spot and cut off. Jay's finally had enough and comes in to break up a chinlock but that just lets Buddy climb the ropes without a tag and hit a double sledge. Lightfoot hits the world's worst cross body block off the ropes. Another cut off and into a front headlock segment where Lightfoot keeps trying to reverse it but Buddy grinds down and finally forces him into the heel corner. Oliver grinds down more with his knee and the headlock as Buddy taunts from the apron. Hope spots up the wahoo including Lightfoot clotheslining Buddy (on the apron) on the top rope but they just keep churning the heat here as Youngblood works the crowd as cheerleader. I have to admit that Lightfoot's not the best guy in the world here and it oscillates between a real dramatic struggle and a little plodding. They get really close to a tag but Rose comes in to just kick Lightfoot on the ass causing Barr to be distracted and miss it. Barr forces Jay out and the heels get a revenge double clotheslining on the top rope on Oliver. Final hot tag is a bit weird as Rose is in and Lightfoot just gets close enough in a headlock that Jay can do a blind tag that Rose misses. He unloads on the heels. Youngblood hits a bit suplex on Buddy and starts the war dance again. Rose is selling in this great weeble wobble way for the chops. Buddy at least fights back with eyerakes but Jay's just too much for him. He finally crawls to his corner and Jay starts on Oliver. Buddy keeps breaking up two counts. Great finish here. Lightfoot gets pissed off by the pin breakups and comes in. Barr drags him out while Jay goes for a slam on Oliver. Buddy grabs Jay's hair by behind and Oliver falls on him for the three count. It looked really good. So this was kind of something we've seen before but in a more extreme way. Very long match, maybe too long. It did what it was supposed in getting Jay over big though. Lightfoot was really rough but Oliver, in my mind, looked pretty good. I wouldn't put it over the great Portland tags but it was competent and functional and I'm glad I saw it.

We should start some sort of Mocho Cota fan club.

Bet you're wishing for that Mason Ryan forward now.

Go get him, Parv.

Sorry it took me SO long to get to this, guys. It's been a bit of a tumultuous month for me. Thanks tremendously for the shout. Made my day to hear it. I really want to tackle the Piper/Rose and Martel/Rose feuds the same way I did the Rose in 79 essay, but we'll see if I get to it. Anyway, thoughts: First and foremost, I'm really glad you guys are watching this stuff. I enjoyed it a ton. It's really a treasure of a territory between Buddy, the logical builds, the amount of time given to matches, Bonnema and Barr and the family feel. Everytime I see people complaining about current wrestling, I just want to shout at them to watch this stuff. It's also interesting to see the difference in backgrounds in watching this. I've seen a ton of Rip Rogers, for instance and a lot of other stuff that was really out there before this dropped by some of you hitting the older stuff more piecemeal prioritize differently and all of the different backgrounds creates a plurality of thoughts. I don't have a ton of other comments since I think, from reading my write-ups, we were on the same page on a lot of things: -How great the callbacks in the Portland matches are (like the headbutt in the first one). -How weird it was to see Adonis as a face but that it very much worked. -How the second Adonis/Buddy match wasn't as strong as the first, but instead served its purpose -How great Piper was here (and yeah, it's totally okay for Piper to be an asshole in a way that it's not quite as okay for Greg Gagne or Shawn Michaels to be) -How Portland had to balance the TV and setting up the Tuesday shows and the loop. Owen claims that the big matches on TV are for the sponsors' sake and that may be kayfabe bs or it may be actually true. -I didn't love the Martel vs Race match though I did think Bonnema was great in calling the armwork that was most of the first fall as "control and containment" since it's really what it was. It sure didn't go anywhere. This was part of a huge push for Martel. He comes in very shortly before this and is a major babyface for the first half of 80. I get the feeling that Race enjoyed him as an opponent but I'm not sure about that. I do think it got Martel over in the territory almost immediately. -I really like Stasiak as a Rose opponent and I think OJ actually said something similar recently. He had a different sort of presence. I haven't seen a lot of his other stuff but he did pissed off old guy well. It could be a real testament to Buddy mind you. Most things are. Anyway, great job. Sorry it took me so long to get to it.

Last I read secondhand on the internet is that they're not confident he's 100% healed and they want to make sure he's healed enough, at least, that he's not risking more damage.

Yes, but how big was Airwolf. That's the question. Did you get Alf? I bet you would have liked Time Trax and Kung Fu: the Legend Continues.

Well hell, if they're talking to Sullivan for anything, they need to bring him in for the King Curtis "chairman of the board" role for Wyatt. EDIT: I've never heard Sullivan say this quote before: "A lot of people think wrestling is Sir Laurence Olivier doing “Hamlet,” but it’s Monty Python doing silly walks."

Aha. Money Laundering. It's what TNA is most useful for.

They can buy it so no one else shows it and thus gets a terrible idea of what sports entertainment is. It's like how we pay farmers not to farm.

Considering how much work Martel seemed to put into his comeback, I don't think his leaving the business was totally his call. He seemed to even regret going so deep into real estate in the early 90s though obviously it worked out for him in the end.

Have you seen the 1979-80 Portland stuff from Piper? It's really a revelation.

Thanks for sending this. I read through about the first half on my commute in and it was pretty interesting. you can really see how the regulations (like wrestling not be allowed on TV in Mexico City) shaped the industry. I'd really love to hear more about the wrestlers' union.

Tito Santana is the guy that every wrestler talks about.

It might be worth it just for a public bonfire.

Mocho Cota is totally on my list, whatever it is.