Matt D

I wonder if anyone would dislike Martel vs Funk from PR. That's sort of my go to match for people who are casual if I want to show them something wildly enjoyable.

Hey, Johnny, guess what no one wanted to know? That. Anyway, this will be fun. I'll be curious to see what you guys think is the best WWF blue cage era match. I actually sort of like most of the big Hogan cage matches for some reason. I think he was able to use it to play to his strengths, but I haven't seen most in forever.

Jumbo vs Orton, Jr. - 4/75 There is a lot of late 80s or AWF easily available. I wanted to watch something older but maybe not THIS old. This is from 75 so Orton's 25 or so. Opening chain wrestling is pretty good if minimal. Orton's smooth but not exactly expressive. The early headlock base is fairly well done. It looks good with Orton wrenching and them working well in and out of it of, never staying too long in one position. Orton keeps hanging on though. Best of these is a top-wristlock test of strength and here Orton's facial expressions are better. Once he stops losing he hits a quick drop toehold and moves back into the headlock. Jumbo finally escapes and slaps on an Indian Deathlock. Orton's selling is pretty emotive here. The beginning must have been a blip. Jumbo turns it into a bow and arrow pretty effortlessly for a few seconds. They reset and each guy dives for a leg and trades waistlocks, including Jumbo doing this really deep one which leads to him seating Orton up on the top rope. It looked impressive at least. Jumbo hits a pretty fireman's carry takeover and grabs and arm but Orton's back up. They're trading stuff 1 to 1. Shoulder block to armdrag. It ends with Jumbo getting the upper hand and Orton begging off. Now it's Jumbo's turn for the headlock and he does these driving elbows to the skull. Orton shrugs him off, eats a shoulder tackle and a dropkick before begging off. Jumbo'll have nothing to do with it and hits a neckbreaker for a two count before going back to the headlock. It's a little weird they've gone back to the base like this but with Jumbo in charge. They do the shoulder tackle again but this time Orton goes to the dropkick but misses. Back to the grounded headlock. Lots of cute parallels in this match. Orton has interesting ways to try to get out: turning into the pin, multiple knees to the skull. They're keeping it engaging at least, but I'm not sure it's what i want for this part of the match. Finally Jumbo runs him head first into the corner and they start trading blows. Orton gets the better with a few knees and hits a suplex, goes for a pin, and hits a slam but then misses a big elbow. Orton ends up in an abdominal stretch, but hiptosses his way out. Jumbo goes for the headlock again but this time Orton hits a belly to back for a two count. Give the match, that probably should have been the finish. This time Orton hits the drop kick for another two count. Another Orton headlock leads into late, late match rope running and a reverse monkey flip by Jumbo. Jumbo hits the butterfly suplex for the win. Well, I think what they did was well-excuted and all of it was interested. The parallels gave at least the illusion of storytelling though maybe not storytelling itself. It was a little disjointed but I think you can easily tell that Orton was pretty talented at 25.

I could suggest a few matches probably if so, though some of my notes were on the old board.

Man, it's been two weeks since more Buddy was posted, but here it is. I'm pumped for it. Apparently Rip ate the fall in the six man so we're ROBBED of a Rose/Rogers/Wiskowski faction. Ah well. Rose/Wiskowski vs Sheepherders - 2/3 Falls - July 5, 1980 - Non-Title Sound is a little muted which is strange for these, but we'll do our best. Face Sheepherders are fun. Butch is dancing along to the "We Want Butch" chants. He's the only man in the world who can sell punches by moving his jaw like he was chewing. Anyway, Wiskowski tries outpunching Miller only to get beaten and slides through the ropes comedically like they were, well, a slide. They do a cute little spot where Rose gets knocked off the apron before the tag and then after the tag. He still has the mask. He draws Williams into the corner, does a cheapshot kick but gets reversed into the corner and Williams starts to dismantle him with strikes. Finally, Wiskowski draws Butch in and as the ref gets him out, he hits a cheapshot on Williams from the outside and the heels take over. Long and uninteresting chinlock on Williams from Wiskowski until Luke uses the hair to get out. Quick tag to buddy cuts off the hope though. Heels are cutting off the ring. Wiskowski's headlock punches are great. They do a parallel spot from before where Ed takes out Miller on the apron (With Buddy hitting he exclamation point on the outside) meaning that Luke, twice, can't get the hot tag. Once Wiskowski sets up a nice roll up nearfall out of it. The second time, Buddy leans in heelishly and when Miller recovers to break up a pin, he's stuck with Barr thus missing a third tag attempt by not being in the corner. He gets knocked off again and Rose attacks him on the outside AGAIN and we get a FOURTH missed tag. This is good, focused stuff as they just keep on tagging in and out and dismantling Williams and deceitfully and brutally preventing a tag. Buddy does the body drop to the shoulders, which is something I've seen Ed do, but not Buddy. Eventually Buddy cheatingly attacks Wiliams from the outside and Butch drives him away from ringside. This means that they can't prevent the hot tag and the crowd comes unglued when they get it. Butch hits his big back elbow and an elbow drop and takes the fall. Really well timed/executed/conceived first fall (And different than anything we've seen over the last year+). Second fall starts with Miller tagging in Williams, who is rightfully pissed and Buddy begging off. Buddy misses a back elbow. Luke hits a flying back elbow and then a knee drop but just for a two count this time. Miller comes back in and riles the crowd up but Buddy dives under the ropes and tries to tag. Barr prevents it and the Sheepherders each take a leg and pull Buddy back to his corner. Funny stuff. When Barr complains, Buddy almost gets the tag again but is cut off hilariously. The transition is fun. Buddy takes two knee drops to the inside of the thigh by Luke and kicks out of a lateral press. Then he grabs Williams' head and claps his legs around it, stunning him long enough to get the tag to Wiskowski. Clever little ring general move out of Buddy. Ed batters a bit and slaps on a chinlock. It's a good camera angle and Luke's expressions sort of make it interesting. Buddy draws Butch in from the apron and then blindsides him to the outside when Barr yells at him. Buddy keeps on Miller outside meaning that when Luke goes for the tag, there's no one there. Heels keep on Williams including a beautiful elbow drop by Buddy and the big diving headbutt from Ed. Buddy keeps Miller from entering the ring from the outside and that's the second fall. It's really cool they went back to their original tactic. The diversity in these matches is amazing. I've seen dozens of tag matches put of portland in 79-80 and this is the first time they've done anything like this and they build the entire match out of it. It's an element of Rose and these matches that you'd never ever know if you didn't see all of them like I'm doing but it's downright amazing. The variation in these matches while keeping everything logical and grounded and reaching such high levels of storytelling on a weekly basis is like nothing I've ever seen or heard of. Between falls, Buddy keeps going to the top and teases jumping off but doesn't get to because Miller gets up or Barr gets in his way. Third fall starts with Williams still beaten up. Buddy shoulder shrugs him out through the bottom rope and they keep on him on the outside until Miller can come and protect him with a nice brotherly hug. Heels draw Williams back to their corner and doubleteam (one holds, one hits). Williams fights back but loses to the numbers' game. This time though, Buddy goes for a big knee off the ropes and Luke moves, meaning that Buddy hits Wiskowski and we get a hot tag. Everything breaks down. Heels are whipped together and Ed goes flying athletically through the ropes. Sheepherders hit the DOUBLE GUTBUSTER which I think is the first time I see them do that. Williams won't leave the ring though and this gives Buddy time to get a chair and start to clear house. He gets DQed but they open up Miller with it. Buddy throws Barr out of the ring but Piper comes out with a chair to clear the ring. Buddy and Ed keep trying to attack from the outside. The fans are so riled that some get involved. Bonnema: "You wouldn't go to a football game and make a tackle." Etc. Anyway, my gushing about variation and switching things up aside, this was a lot of fun. The heels had a tactic which worked for them most of the first fall, backfired leading to the fall itself, and worked wonders leading to the second fall before everything broke down at the end. Great stuff as always. The post match sets up a Cole Miner's Death Match with Piper as ref.

What always amazed me in the 80s was the sheer amount of money that JCP was charging for a show on video.

People should go out of their way to watch the Dr. Tom match just to see how he puppets the other guy around through the matwork.

What he created was more marketable to the mainstream than what they were creating though. I don't think you could have a Ric Flair and the Four Horsemen cartoon. Or Jim Duggan vs the Russians cereal. I'd love to see Bill Watts on MTV in 1985 though.

And as an outlier - I thought their commentary on the Bret/Shawn cage match was sub par with Polo just nagging about the same thing over and over. Took away from the match a bit. You obviously don't want Gorilla/Polo on a serious match. You do want them on Damien Demento vs Tatanka.

His natural setting is generally "Lebowski."

http://www.youtube.com/user/WorkhorseWWE?feature=watch So, I don't know how long these will be up. Catch them while you can. They give me some level of hope though. So far i especially enjoyed: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVxhRlFhVzA and actually, But I have a ton more to watch. EDIT: Obviously this one - This is good too:

Pro Wrestling USA?

I've always kind of wondered this: Does Lawler have any idea that at least a subsection of people think so highly of him as a worker? Not as a presence or as "The King." It used to be such a small minority and now it's not.

Ease of access then. I just paid up for the lucha set today but in general I'm a total shameful freeloader relative to the sheer amount of stuff I watch and at least half of what I watch now is from before 1990. I bought some comps and what not in the 99-01 range or so when I just got to college but you could count on two hands the non-commercial tapes I owned.

Footage being more easily available makes a big difference, not to downplay what you guys have done. The idea that I'd watch 150 AWA matches (and probably double that with all the extra watching I did) would have been outlandish five years ago. He has less positive things to say about Robley since he was brought up.

I will say this is why, as a kid, I absolutely loved Survivor Series. There's a third element to this i think, which is continuity over years, something really rare in today's WWE. I feel like it takes a wrestler to actively care, like Big Show seems to, to make mean something.

Gold star, Kelly. I did a screen grab from a (still Prince) Curtis Iaukea match on youtube. So far as avatars go, I'm fairly pleased with it.

I watched the Garea/Martel title losses vs the Moondogs and vs Saito/Fuji. Martel was really over in both, enough that poor Garea got outshined in the Moondogs match. The Saito/Fuji match is legitimately very good. The Moondogs match has way too long a shine though the tandem armwork is a lot of fun. It had the stronger hot tag too, but the loss vs Saito/Fuji was better at just about everything else. The shine's good but a reasonable length. Garea really gets the fans behind him as FIP. Saito looks unsurprisingly great but Fuji could still go better than you'd think and the finish is awesomely timed. Worth tracking down and checking out.

I don't have much to say about it but I do love the Fuji-running-a-marathon stuff in the build.

He is talking about two other matches (Usos or PTP vs. Shield and Ambrose vs Ziggler) for the PPV.

To be fair, I am rarely affected by atmopshere/big match feel, but the way they dedicate a whole show to that match and make it seem almost as special as any match in the history of JCP matters. I still think it's a great match with a double FIP but if I had seen it without the build it may have been different.

HHH should come out on Monday and dock Daniel Bryan part of his payoff for the match due to what he and Armstrong did in order to pay for this.

I am the world's biggest fan of Demos vs Rockers and I'm not sure I put it above the RnR vs Russians title change.