KB8

It's pretty cool when you can just rattle off the date of a wrestling match and everyone knows exactly which match you're talking about. In pro wrestling circles, June 3rd 1994 means Misawa v Kawada. I think my last watch of this was around 2006 and 2006 me was certainly into different things in wrestling than 2023 me. There was still plenty about it that I thought was good, some stuff that I thought was great, and nothing I can possibly say about it will offer a fresh perspective on the most talked about match in the history of the internet. Yet talk about it I will, for that is what the hallowed halls of Pro Wrestling Only are for. I thought the beginning ruled, the way they played up how familiar they are with each other without it being an obvious reversal routine with 2- and 3- and 4-step dance sequences. Those counters and dodges felt genuinely organic, which is a pretty difficult thing to do in a predetermined nonsense like pro wrestling. Kawada about took Misawa's head off with that spin kick and you're thinking Misawa might not have it all his own way this time. It felt significant in my own 90s All Japan re-watch chronology because the last two matches I watched with Kawada and Misawa opposite each other were the '93 Tag League final and the big rematch from May '94. And in the former Kawada was thoroughly outclassed and in the latter he only fared marginally better. And he lost both of them. After the first exchange Misawa responds quickly with a backdrop and you're maybe reconsidering how close this contest might be, BUT Kawada fires back again and shuts Misawa down, firstly off a whip into the rail, then on Misawa's attempted forearm off the apron. It was cool table-setting. As a whole this felt as even as their rivalry has to this point, largely because of Kawada's aggressiveness. He was a pitbull and you got the sense he knew it was imperative to stay on Misawa, to never give him an opening or a chance to recover. Misawa might've been untouchable as the king at this point but the way he started booting Kawada in the leg was an amazing moment. The fact he even needed to go there was maybe the first real chink in his armour, or at least the first chink Kawada has put in it. Compare that to the '93 Tag League final where Misawa was almost derisory in how he *didn't* touch it despite the fact Kawada was hobbled. I don't think I was aware of Misawa's bad neck the last time I watched this, so that's another cool layer. I don't find either guy particularly compelling at working holds, but those parts weren't extensive and Kawada spent more time using brute force to exploit the neck than working the facelock. The striking was absolutely world class, which probably isn't a surprise, and my favourite parts were when they were trying to knock the other's head into the bleachers, which probably isn't a surprise. It may not be as harrowing as Battlarts or FUTEN, but the selling really is top drawer and there's the struggle and the blocking and it all makes every strike exchange feel massive. As pretentious as it might sound, it does feel pretty layered and even NUANCED~ if you know their history. Or as nuanced as two people kicking and elbowing each in the face can be and at the end of the day that's where the bread is buttered. The point where Kawada punched Misawa in the jaw was spectacular, really just a perfect fuck off and die outburst, and then Misawa responding in kind a minute later is one of the best "do you actually know who I am?" moments he's ever had, and he's has a whole lot of those throughout his career. He also hit a rolling elbow to the back of Kawada's head at one point that was sort of disgusting. You don't usually see him lose his temper like that, but there were a couple moments where he clearly did; another being when he just outright stomped on Kawada's face. Kawada's enziguri to the nose, his head kicks in the corner after Misawa's ear had already split open, Misawa's forearm and European uppercut combos - basically there were about two dozen incredible strikes in this match. I thought Kawada was really great at showing desperation the longer it went as well, going back to those strike exchanges even though in the long run he'd never win that particular war. Then there were the momentum shifts and the transitions and how they all had the right amount of selling and WEIGHT around them so it never really felt like they were just trading bombs. Even after all this time, that's something 90s All Japan does better than just about anyone ever has. That reset spot leading to the final stretch with Misawa gathering himself on the floor while Kawada glares at him in unveiled contempt - just a perfect visual. You wonder if Kawada realised then, after hitting those powerbombs and not getting the job done, after knowing he couldn't let Misawa regroup at any point just to see it happen there and then, that maybe it had slipped away from him. And then you've got him feebly trying to fight out of the double underhooks, trying to force Misawa back to the corner, knowing what's coming, only to get put on his neck anyway. I guess this is still okay.

This is the one for me. As soon as I saw the thread title, this was the line that came to mind. I mean, the obscurity level of a Ken Patera reference in 1995 is sort of astonishing. You know he was watching MSG shows back in the 80s. Pusha's 'What Dreams are Made Of' has solid chunk of an actual Ric Flair promo at the intro of it. Pusha is always good for a Ric Flair reference. I remember the picture from Wrestlemania 11 with Bret Hart and Salt-N-Pepa. I do not remember if they were actually involved in anything during the show beyond that, however.

I've watched a lot of Pirata Morgan the last week or so. Maybe it's recency bias, maybe I'm just watching the right stuff, maybe I'm just overrating him because he's a favourite, but I feel like he has a five year peak encompassing 1988-1992 where he's amongst the best wrestlers in the world. You could cut that off at '91 and I wouldn't argue too strongly, but the '92 trios I've watched are a hoot (the Intocables stuff, mostly) and that Masakre match has always been a vampire's dream. He was amazing in 1991. That Volador mano a mano that OJ mentioned way back sits comfortably alongside his other blood-soaked masterpieces, if maybe slightly below the absolute best of them. It was basically worked as an apuestas and that meant we got all the gory Pirata Morgan brilliance that comes with apuestas matches. The Mascara Sagrada match that cad mentions above just about had my jaw on the floor. The first two falls might not be the most graceful and they're certainly slower than what you'd get from the lighter weight divisions, but Sagrada works the primera like a Ricky Steamboat and if nothing else Morgan is great at feeding himself into armdrags. He spends the segunda selling the leg, then the tercera just kept building and building to something brilliant. It started off decent, got really good, and then by the end I couldn't believe how good it was. Morgan was tremendous as a guy having to take progressively higher risks, crashing and burning on all of them, before desperation kicks in and he goes total dickhead with his final gambit. I don't know how much higher I can realistically have him than 44, but as someone who's big on a wrestler's peak, that feels too low right now and I could probably talk myself into going at least 10 spots higher.

I figured my days of ever going to a Wrestlemania were long gone, but if they actually run one down in London, well, I probably still won't go but I'd seriously consider it. Probably.

I actually haven't yet, at least not on this run through, just because the first show of each year tends to be the final of the previous year's tournament. So I'll get to that whenever I get to the end of 1995, basically. I watched it probably 12-13 years ago when I was haphazardly watching stuff and I thought it was really good then too.

Emil Krastev v Yuri Bekichev (3/25/96) A spirited little contest. Didn't have a clue who either of them were but the customary google search tells me Krastev competed at the Sydney Olympics for Bulgaria in boxing, while Bekichev is - or at least would become, based on a glance at his late-career fight record - an actual mixed martial artist, though I don't know how many of the martial arts he'd dabbled in mixing at this point in time. I would imagine not very many as this was fought entirely on the feet. Which is probably not shocking when one guy is wearing boxing gloves and the other doesn't attempt to take him to the ground inside four seconds (suggesting he himself would rather the fight not go there). There were a couple awkward moments where they seemed unsure how to react to something, a hesitancy to maybe force the issue and stray a little too close to the shootfighting. At one point Bekichev took a kick to the face and sort of stood there like "what the fuck mate that HURT," as if Maeda suggested this was all merely going to be an illusion and so the possibility of ACTUALLY getting smacked in the face hadn't occurred to our man. But they both grew into it as it went and when Krastev unloaded with a flurry of jabs and a by god spinning backfist I was very much on board. I even hoped he'd get up and we'd get another couple minutes by the end. Wataru Sakata v Christopher Haseman (3/25/96) A short bit of business that I'm thinking may have been a shoot. Not a whole lot happened. There was a bit of struggle on the ground that trickled over to the ropes, they were stood up, Sakata caught Hasemen's leg and after another brief struggle a nice heel hook scored the tap. Watch it while you wait for the kettle to boil, maybe. It's your life, don't let me stop you. Mitsuya Nagai v Mikhail Ilioukhine (3/25/96) Ilioukhine is the bomb. He's a short, pale, stocky wee tank of a man, like a Russian Dynamite Kid who will throw you around like a sack of flour. His mere BEING is a continual advance and Nagai can barely do anything about it, especially on the ground. Some of the setups are a little clunky, like Ilioukhine's cross-armbreaker, but he's inventive and the crowd certainly don't seem to mind too much. I guess this boils down to striker v grappler, which is a tale old as time when it comes to the shoot style. Ilioukhine practically ragdolls Nagai at will but Nagai can cause him real trouble on the feet, so not shockingly that's where he tries to keep it. The one time Ilioukhine tried to respond he fired off a piddly leg kick that Nagai outwardly laughed at, retaliated with a much more effective flurry of his own, so Ilioukhine swiftly took him down and went about bending his arms and legs at weird angles. Ilioukhine also looks like a fella who can take a shot to the face so Nagai needed to make a TKO look convincing, and that palm strike to end things looked fairly convincing. Ilioukhine has at least one stone cold RINGS classic. This wasn't that but it was awfully fun. Tsuyoshi Kohsaka v Hans Nyman (3/25/96) This was nifty as well, and also very much your striker v grappler contest. Nyman always has pretty looking kicks, all of them with a real nice snap to them, but they don't always look like there's a ton of meat behind them. They quite often look like kicks thrown by a guy not actually trying to knock out his opponent *for real* for real, you know? Not every kick he threw in this looked lethal, but some of them did and Kohsaka was absolutely great at selling them, like when he took a glancing blow to the back of the head and half stumbled into a nasty body kick. He gets the full Fujiwara point for his selling performance in this fight. Kohsaka's strategy was obviously to hit the mat but Nyman wasn't about to engage there at all. He basically grabbed the rope any time there was even a chance he'd be caught in a problematic situation, which didn't always make for a very compelling contest but at the same time I guess it was realistic enough. I'm a sucker for someone pulling a rabbit out the hat right when all hope seems lost, so even if the finish was a little on the nose I dug it. Volk Han v Dick Vrij (3/25/96) This wasn't as good as their match from 1992, but it was fought along the same lines. A shorter bargain bin version of it. Vrij is no fool and wants nothing to do with Han on the mat, or anywhere in the building if grappling is involved. He wants to swing for the fences and if he can't score a knockout he'll settle for racking up points via downs. It's a strategy that serves him pretty well, but Han will always be dangerous and Vrij immediately goes to the ropes whenever he's grabbed. There's no attempt to escape by any other means - it would be stupid to bother so why even waste anybody's time with the pretence? A fun six minutes, as you'd probably expect. Yoshihisa Yamamoto v Bitsadze Tariel (3/25/96) Before this show I'd largely been focusing on the early years of RINGS, the furthest I'd gotten when writing everything up being 1993. At that point Yamamoto was a pretty fun rookie starting to find his feet, usually pairing off with Masayuki Naruse in a sort of young lions series. Fast forward a few years and here's Yamamoto in a main event, fresh off a win over the mighty Volk Han a few months earlier, ready to push on and maybe even climb to Ace status. He was obviously more assured here than in '92-'93, though he always had a bit of a chip on his shoulder even as a wee lad. Based on the size difference you'd expect Tariel to come out and force the issue, but it's Yamamoto who throws forty palm thrusts as soon as the bell rings. He fought this like a young phenom who was on a roll, who knew he was ready to put the pieces together and confidence was high. Tariel got pretty fun in his RINGS run but he maybe wasn't quite there yet. He was a bit hesitant at points, where you'd expect him to press on and knee Yamamoto in the spleen while he's buckled over in pain there, and it never quite happens. Maybe he is the gentle sort of bear. Alas, the gentle sort do not last very long in the Fighting Network. It's been ages since I've watched any late 90s Yamamoto and I'm hyped to do so again, but I've never really seen much from his "in between" years so that should be cool as well. Jacob Hamilton v Michael Stam (4/26/96) At six minutes long you could argue this was mercifully short. You could also argue it was still about four minutes too long. I think both cases could be compelling. It was inoffensive, to be fair. I've never seen either guy before but apparently Hamilton is a mixed martial artist from Australia. He pretty much did nothing well and really just got smothered by Stam before tapping to a scarf hold. Stam is a hefty American fellow with very heavy breathing - almost disconcertingly so - who made this one and only appearance on the Fighting Network. At least he went out with a 100% record. Wataru Sakata v Todor Todorov (4/26/96) What a fun wee seven minutes. Todorov is usually game for a spirited contest and this was no different. Some of the throws were a bit easily come by, but they looked pretty enough and Todorov has some really explosive hips, which is a thing I'll always be impressed by as an S&C coach. That finish is one of the coolest armbars ever too. I'm not sure I've even seen Han pull that one out. Mitsuya Nagai v Glenn Brown (4/26/96) I don't know if this was a shoot or not because it lasted all of exactly 40 seconds. Brown I have never seen before, but he looks like a wealthy anime villain who condescends to the main protagonist in an obnoxious British accent, slicked back hair with a very visibly taped up nipple. Just the one nipple. Which you could possibly argue is not pertinent information. Brown comes out in a quirky crane stance and throws a couple kicks that I think drew a laugh from the crowd. Nagai threw kicks that were no laughing matter and Brown immediately started backing up like "ew this is not what I was expecting please behave" and feebly tried to reach the ropes after Nagai took him down. Feebly quickly turned to unsuccessfully and there's yer choke inside one minute. I actually don't think this was a shoot. Gun to my head I'm saying work. Brown's kicks were quite frankly too terrible. Sorry, Glenn. At least you are by far the least cretinous white man named Glenn to wrestle in a Japanese shoot style promotion in the mid-1990s. Willie Williams v Bitsadze Tariel (4/26/96) Willie by god Williams! I had no clue that feller was still doing the shoot style in 1996. There's a sort of endearing quality to Williams, a giant lummox with a heart of gold (prolly), and while this was a lumbering nonsense of a thing there have been worse uses of 12 minutes in RINGS. Both guys are quite tentative, though it seemed that tentativeness was more a result of them not wanting to look stupid throwing ropey strikes than them not wanting to be struck. Tariel has at least a couple really good bouts in RINGS, one against Tamura the following year that I remember being great, but he looked very not good here and Tamura was outrageous in '97 so who knows. I did not buy that finish, however I was also not the one being kneed in the guts by a big giant hairy bastard Georgian karateka. So who knows. Dick Vrij v Maurice Smith (4/26/96) Well damn, I didn't know Mo Smith fought in RINGS. I don't think I've actually seen a single worked fight that Smith was in, even though he's done some stuff in UWF and PWFG (and Pancrase, but I have no clue if those were worked or not). And apparently he fought both Kohsaka and Tamura in RINGS! What the hell? How do I not remember that? Anyhow, this was like four minutes and I'm guessing it was a work. They mostly traded some tentative stand-up before Vrij went for a takedown that in actual fact was more of a falling down while grabbing the other person, and it was pretty amusing seeing Smith take Vrij's back with ease and attempt a choke while wearing boxing gloves. Nice knockout finish. Is it any wonder Smith would take the UFC heavyweight title a year later? Not at all. Volk Han v Nikolai Zouev (4/26/96) How about this for a PRIME cut of the Fighting Network? Han comes out like a whirlwind at the start, throwing a flurry of palms and knees that didn't all land the cleanest, but when you throw about a dozen of them then you'd expect at least one to hit flush. Sure enough a knee caught Zouev and down he went. That set us up for the next few minutes, with Han taking a comfortable lead in points, forcing Zouev into using a few rope breaks after that early knockdown. It's been a hot minutes since I've watched any Zouev but he was looking very much like a Dallas Mavericks second round draft pick out of Slovenia. I'll tell you what though, he can hold his own with the master and some of the grappling was excellent. The overhead camera really gave us an awesome look at the way they shifted for position, grabbing one limb to create an opening for another, sometimes snatching two appendages at once. Zouev hitting a shoot style DDT was amazing and when he grabbed that cross armbreaker he had Han scrambling for the ropes. Even if Han was way out in front on points, there was always a sense that Zouev was capable of catching him and finish things. After Zouev uses up his last rope break he has no choice but to go for the throat and the ridiculous armbar at the end was a fitting way to cap off a fight between these two. This was pretty great. Tsuyoshi Kohsaka v Yoshihisa Yamamoto (4/26/96) This was also pretty great. There have been better fights up to this point in RINGS history, but this one almost felt like a precursor of what would come in the next 2-3 years. You still had Han and a few of the other Eastern Europeans doing their thing right until the end (or at least until the promotion went full MMA in 2000), but what peak RINGS had that the earlier years didn't was that holy trinity of Tamura, Kohsaka and Yamamoto, all of whom were at THEIR peak. Even if Maeda was the centrepiece of the promotion before, he had half a working knee from basically the very beginning and missed stretches of time as a result. A lot of the earlier shows were loaded with random Bulgarians or Dutchmen who were way more interesting than the natives; bland guys like Nobuaki Kakuta and Masaaki Satake who couldn't really do much. Nagai was fine enough but he was nothing on UWFi Tamura never mind peak Tamura. Most of the best RINGS stuff of those years had foreign talent involved and this was a departure from that. Stylistically it was also very reminiscent of some of the top tier RINGS bouts, things like Tamura/Yamamoto, Tamura/Kohsaka, the later Yamamoto/Kohsaka fights, Han against all three. A less spectacular version of those fights, but a glimpse of that particular, wonderful future. Obviously the matwork was exceptional. Yamamoto was on one and raced out to an early lead, forcing Kohsaka into a few quick rope breaks. Then he'd unload with strikes and drilled Kohsaka with an overhand slap for a knockdown. It felt like Yamamoto had an answer for everything Kohsaka threw at him, like when Kohsaka ripped him to the mat with a gorgeous takedown, rolling into a calf slicer, only for Yamamoto to reverse even that. When Yamamoto is finally pushed into using a rope break, losing his first point of the fight, Kohsaka is visibly fired up and it feels like HE feels like the comeback is on. Can he pull something out the bag before the points gap kills him?

Love that someone else is as high on that Fuerza/Pantera match as me. I haven't watched it in a long, long time now, but I did re-watch Dandy/Azteca (June 1st) the other night (albeit half asleep) and it fell strangely flat for me considering I would've called it a top 50 match ever a few years ago. I'm not saying I'd definitely put Fuerza/Pantera over it, but I do feel like giving that a re-watch to see how they compare now. Either way I agree that it's a top 5 CMLL match of the year, and 1990 CMLL is one of my favourite calendar years for any company in history.

I've watched a ton of WWF Piper over the last couple months, and he was a guy I knew would be a lock this time around anyway but it's really just confirmed that he'll be fighting for a top 30 spot. Piper was fucking amazing. His best work might’ve come outside the WWF, at least from a pure match quality standpoint (and some of that non-WWF stuff is incredible), but as a sheer heat magnet with absurd charisma, WWF Piper is next level. In the 80s, as a heel or a babyface, he was nuclear pretty much every time out, especially before the retirement in ’87 and MORE especially in MSG. He had a crowd connection in the Garden that was right there with Bruno’s, Hogan’s Backlund’s and Andre’s, and Piper had it as a heel AND as a babyface, eliciting searing hatred as the former and undying love as the latter. Honestly Piper is pretty close to the perfect sort of wrestler for me stylistically at this point in my fandom. I like spectacle and Piper’s a fucking spectacle unto himself. Someone on the GME board or discord or maybe even here made a comparison between Piper and Bret, or at least posed the question of "who was better?", and it got me thinking about how Bret is one of the great understated, subtle sellers ever, and well, Piper is the whole entire other end of the spectrum because he’s selling not just for the back row but for someone watching on the fucking moon. I’ll tell you what though, nobody sells having a perforated eardrum like Piper, not even Funk. Almost nobody sells reckless abandon or UNTAMED FURY like Piper. He wrestled Adonis on house shows leading up to Wrestlemania 3 and they'd build part of those matches around Piper being blinded by whatever Adonis had in that big atomiser, and blinded Piper taking a swing at everything in the hopes of connecting with anything is the very best. When that man wanted to portray hatred I bought it completely. His stuff doesn't necessarily look great in a technical sense, but he has a kind of rubbery quality to his bumps that adds a sense of realism, and some of those bumps are pretty wild. In Portland he was a maniac for the back body drop bump where he'd just land all loose and he looked like a crash test dummy being yeeted out of a Tesla. He doesn't have the prettiest armdrags or hip tosses, but he performs them with a real sense of intent, like those moves aren't there to look pretty, they're there to legitimately throw someone across a ring. He’s also a decent actor by pro wrestling standards so his ability to convey emotions is actually pretty great. Even melodramatic shit like “oh no I’m conflicted about hitting this person with the ring bell as I am a reformed character” comes off well, and we’ve all seen enough modern WWE to know how cringey that nonsense can be otherwise. An absolutely phenomenal stooge with a hundred different plays on things like your face-first timber bump, jelly-legged selling, begging off, the whole lot. And again, as a babyface he was brilliant at garnering sympathy and working scrappy. Just an amazing pro wrestler. Maybe the person I never voted for in 2016 who'll finish highest on my 2026 list.

I would say his case absolutely is deep enough, and in fact is much deeper than even I thought the first time around. I don't even think I've seen anything post-2017, but I thought he still looked great then. Your mileage will vary on what "deep" is and how much weight you apply to that when voting, but I don't see his case being any less deep than someone like Rick Rude and I voted for him in 2016 and will vote for him again in 2026. Does Murakami have substantially less to go on than someone like Mariko Yoshida? She'll be around my top 30 so it's not something I'm worried about. Of course how GOOD you actually think a lot of the Murakami stuff is, that's another discussion. I think there's lots of good, though.

Roberto Gutierrez El Dandy. Fujiwara might be #2. The Jumbo/Misawa matches are good but I didn't LOVE them on re-watch, although Jumbo's still brilliant in tags that year as he fully embraced his grumpy old man side.

I can't say anything about Dump because I haven't watched the Chigusa match in about 15 years and I don't think I've even seen any of the other stuff, but last year I watched basically all the Fujiwara we have available for '86 and he was absolutely sensational the whole year. If I go through that AJW stuff and come out the other end of it thinking Dump is the clear #1 for the year then I guess I'd be in agreement with it being the highest peak of anyone ever, because Fujiwara's '86 is one of the absolute best years I've seen from a wrestler. Morton is a good pick as well. Maybe not for the top spot, but top 3 in a great year for wrestling is hardly an insult.

I'll co-sign that tag. Really an out of nowhere awesome match, with a great Hogan performance and Orton using the cast for one of the best transition spots of the decade.

I need to re-watch stuff, but he's on my maybe pile this time. Really an awesome base and the Mascarita Sagrada match was still amazing when I last watched it (that was not exactly yesterday, however).

Gibson v Flair from the a June '86 episode of World Pro is really great. Obviously Flair/Morton was the money pairing with Flair v the Rock n Rolls, but Gibson sure wasn't in there just getting by on a bargain bin Ricky Morton impression.

The Zbyszko match from Philly (8/23/80) is another one for those considering Putski. He just wallops Zbyszko all over the place and people are going nuts. To be honest it's more of a Zbyszko case-builder because he's amazing in it getting his clock cleaned and selling and punching Putski in the nuts, but Putski's there and he does his thing and his charisma and overness are certainly factors in the match working so well.

Took a break for a minute. Turned into 14 months. It happens. A Mad Dog in Georgia (1981-1984) (cont) Buzz Sawyer & Ole Anderson v El Gran Apollo & Archie Williams (GCW, 1/9/82) - 5-minute semi-squash. I guess Ole was impressed enough with Sawyer to draft him in as a tag partner and they both stomp a pair of lower card fellas. Buzz Sawyer v Tommy Rich (GCW, 1/28/82) - Pretty damn awesome studio match. It's supposed to be Rich against a ham n egger but Sawyer muscles his way in and Rich accepts the challenge. Flair - a few months into his first world title reign - is on commentary and says he's proud of Rich for actually accepting, but in a way where he's being fully condescending about it. Solie makes a comparison between Flair and Rich and Flair says "being not quite as good as the best of all time is no insult," but really it was an insult. Sawyer hits a scoop slam and an armdrag to start and really revels in it, self-congratulatory like he's actually done something. Rich comes back with a scoop slam and armdrag of his own, in much quicker succession than Sawyer hit his, then hits a second armdrag as Sawyer has to bail. Just good, simple, tried and true match-building. Rich works a headlock for most of this and it's a really strong headlock segment. Sawyer rolls out the ring and Rich keeps the headlock applied as he rolls out with him, drags him back in with headlock still applied, Sawyer then jumps over the top rope, but Rich maintains that headlock and yanks him back in over the rope. When Sawyer finally comes back he does it with a big hip/butt attack that catches Rich in the face, and as Rich flies backwards out to the floor Sawyer takes the time to sell his own butt! The running KO spot at the end looked killer and I thought for sure it was going to result in a double knockout, but they both get back up and this really just felt like the opening stretch of what probably would've been an amazing arena match. One without a cage anyway. Buzz Sawyer v Tommy Rich (GCW, 2/6/82) - This is just the same match as above (not as in "they work the same match move for move" but actually the same match under two different dates). Buzz Sawyer v Rusty Roberts (GCW, 2/13/82) - A merciless 4-minute mauling of our good man Rusty Roberts. Sawyer is just an awesome bully, cackling every time he inflicts some horrendousness on this gentleman. Hits an AMAZING powerslam and an AMAZING dropkick and crushes Roberts with a top rope kneedrop/headbutt thing. Roberts was lying stiff as a board before it so I imagine he thought Sawyer was legitimately going to try and kill him. Piper is on commentary here and now I'm very sad that we'll never see that Piper/Sawyer dog collar match from the Omni. The Mad Dog in Mid-South/Houston (1985-1986) Buzz Sawyer & Dick Slater v The Fantastics (Mid-South 10/26/85) - This looks like the first competitive match Sawyer had since arriving in Mid-South. Nice 7-minute TV tag. If nothing else it convinced me that a Sawyer/Tommy Rogers singles match would rule. Buzz slaps him a couple times and Tommy pops him in the mouth so Buzz goes flying through the ropes with that amazing signature bump. They do two rope running sequences here that were perfect, particularly the one at the end culminating with Buzz absolutely drilling Rogers with a flying forearm that would bring a tear to Tito Santana's eye. Dark Journey has a kick at Bobby Fulton on the floor and Watts says "I'm sorry, I may sound like a chauvinist but I think a woman should be pretty and in the home" and at least he apologised ahead of time, I guess. Buzz Sawyer & Dick Slater v The Fantastics (Mid-South, 10/27/85) - On paper there's very little chance of this not being good and sure enough it fucking ruled. I think Sawyer and Slater were only together as a team for a short while, which is pretty unfortunate because they were an awesome pair of bruisers here. Buzz was having one of those nights where you bought him flying off the rails any minute. During the Fantastics' entrance he was covering his ears and rocking back and forth, the shrieks from the audience's female population and the droning of ZZ Top's 'Sharp Dressed Man' clearly setting him on edge. The early shine segment was strong as you'd expect, but things got really good when Buzz and Slater took over. The transition was great, with Rogers going for a sunset flip on Slater, Slater countering by just dropping on top of Rogers and drilling him in the mouth. Sawyer works a great side headlock, grinding his chin across the neck and head of Rogers, really cranking back and forth on the hold, then we get an incredible rope running sequence where Tommy crashes and dies off a missed crossbody. The surlier Sawyer and Slater get the more agitated Fulton becomes, the easier it is to then goad him into the ring, to draw the attention of the referee, so the more opportunities arise for Sawyer, Slater and even Dark Journey to pile in on Rogers. Slater really squeezed as much heat out of that hot tag as he could, waiting until Rogers was just about able to reach Fulton only to drag him back by the trunks, then a second time, then a third, so when Fulton actually got the tag the crowd was set to blow the roof off (we assume anyway. This was one of those matches where we had no crowd audio and instead it was Joel Watts doing commentary from his bedroom or whatever). Rogers fucking wastes Slater with an amazing dropkick during the scramble at the end, and then the finish with Sawyer and Slater hitting a Hart Attack was great. A very badass tag, in a great year for tag wrestling in the US. Buzz Sawyer v Hacksaw Duggan (Mid-South, 11/11/85) - What a grimy, blood-soaked masterpiece. It's the first time I've watched this in about 13 years, a match I've pretty much set as my own personal gold standard for out of control brawling, and by christ does it hold up. I'm not really arsed about comparing it to the DiBiase cage match because both are incredible and different enough that the comparison is maybe a little pointless, but either way our man Hacksaw is involved in two of the greatest brawls in all of history not but eight months apart. He was an ungodly walking tall maniac and spends a fair amount of the match cussing out Sawyer and the ref'. Carl Fergie tries to talk him down so Duggan cocks his fist and shouts "You get the fuck away from me!" and you better believe Fergie gets the fuck away from him. "Come on Sawyer, you son of a bitch!" he shouts as Sawyer feebly tries to crawl away from the inevitable. Sawyer is a complete mess after two minutes and Duggan is punching and biting the cut and throwing him into barricades while people are going ballistic. These are some of the best barricade shots ever and Sawyer takes them full on right in the face. Sawyer taking over firstly by trying to tear Duggan's eyes out was amazing, then cementing the transition by mule kicking him in the balls was doubly so. Of course Sawyer gets his revenge with the barricade shots and now the people front row are going ballistic for another reason. There was one point where Sawyer chucked Duggan over the barricade and hopped over after him, then hopped straight back because I assume he figured someone would stab him in the kidneys. Think about how real a threat must be for fucking Buzz Sawyer to go "wait a minute now maybe I won't actually antagonise these folk any further." He picks up a big wooden table, throws it at Duggan's head, rams his face into it, then tries to crush Duggan's skull with it like the table is some giant piece of machinery only for Duggan to move at the last second lest he is killed dead. Sawyer biting the cut and spitting the blood in the air Pirata Morgan style was...I had to step out the room for a second lest *I* break down in tears of jubilance. Duggan then outright punches Sawyer in the dick and there is your greatest revenge spot in the history of our great sport. The finish initially feels like a bit of a cop out, but I like the idea of Sawyer taking the count out just so he can blindside Duggan. Besides, the post-match makes up for it and some of the brawling there is even better than in the match itself. One of the all-time pull-aparts and pretty much what all hate feuds should aspire to. Duggan being dragged away by half a dozen grown men while shouting "kiss my fuckin ass!" is truly - truly - biblical. Honestly this might be one of the 30 or 40 greatest matches ever. Buzz Sawyer v Hacksaw Duggan (Mid-South, 11/24/85) - We're JIP five minutes in here, which is quite frankly a travesty because this was another awesome Sawyer/Duggan brawl. When we join the action Duggan is lying on the floor with a freshly opened wound. Sawyer bites him in the forehead, spits what looks like a chunk of flesh in the air, then CATCHES IT AGAIN IN HIS MOUTH! Truly gross. Sawyer applies a headlock at one point that's about as loose as a headlock could be, which is strange because Sawyer will usually work a really good headlock. You could've fit two heads in there on this one. But fuck all that because Duggan's eventual comeback is of course phenomenal and I love how him biting Sawyer in the head is what leads to Buzz bleeding. This wasn't Duggan biting an already-opened cut, it was the biting that drew the blood, which is appropriately grizzly for these two. A whole bunch of incredible Duggan punches and more cussing as Sawyer crawls around with blood in his eyes. "Come on, you son of a bitch!" At one point Sawyer tried to leap on Duggan and bite him in the face and Duggan caught him in a bearhug. Things break down eventually like you knew they would and the post-match pull-apart is one of the best ever, with one Duggan punch flurry that was legitimately up there with any Lawler/Dundee combo you'll ever see. They roll around pulling hair and digging fingers in eyes and punching each other in the ear while half-dressed jabronis futilely try and separate them, three, four, five times to no avail. Just when it looks like they've managed it...Duggan leaps out the ring and they're back at it again. This is a perfect pro wrestling match up. Buzz Sawyer v Nick Patrick (Mid-South, 12/14/84) - More of an angle than a match, but Buzz Sawyer v future WCW/nWo referee Nick Patrick is a cool piece of history. Probably. Sawyer is pacing around like a nutjob pre-match, swinging a dog collar chain around, and I love how Boyd Pierce introduces him by saying, "SUPPOSED to be in the red corner, Mad Dog buzz Sawyer." There was a Slater/Reed confrontation at the desk that bled into another Sawyer/Duggan brawl, though Sawyer was able to first eek out a win by hitting the powerslam on Patrick. Buzz Sawyer v Jake Roberts (Mid-South, 1/4/86) - Badass TV match. Sawyer was great here, really coming across as a vicious wee bastard. He backs Jake into the corner early and starts biting his midsection, then goes hurling into the ring post off a missed shoulder tackle in the corner. That sets up a nice run of Jake working the arm and Buzz is quick as always getting yanked into armdrags. When Buzz takes over he works the chinlock and uses the ropes for leverage, and I like how after he's caught and the ref' puts the count on him he uses that five count to PROPERLY lean into it, just to eek out that little extra juice before letting go. DQ finish might be somewhat unfortunate, but this was part of a TV title tournament - on TV, of course - so it's hardly unexpected. Really good stuff and a super fun Sawyer performance. The Mad Dog in New Japan (1987-1989) Buzz & Brett Sawyer v Yoshiaki Fujiwara & Osamu Kido (New Japan, 1/2/87) - This is JIP, we only get about five minutes of it and it ends in a no contest, but we thank the footage gods that any Buzz Sawyer v Yoshiaki Fujiwara exists. Fujiwara headbutts him - and Brett, who he headbutted right in the face - and Sawyer chucks Fujiwara into the post and is mystified when Fujiwara merely stares at him in response. Kido is you mild-mannered fellow who wants a wrestling match and instead Buzz just bites him in the ear.

This was basically a 14-minute caning of Ric Flair by the vengeful Ricky Morton. Honestly, I wasn't even going to watch it. I've been going (slowly) through 1986 Crockett for the last three years now and I'm close to the more famous Flair/Morton cage match from the Bash tour. I haven't seen that in about 15 years and I really wanted to go into it fresh. This was listed as being from the 6/22/86 episode of World Pro, which I realised later is wrong, but I was going by that date initially and knew this was a shorter match from the DVD file time, so I figured it might've been a test run of sorts for the July match. I thought it also might've been clipped or JIP because a 14-minute Ric Flair cage match in 1986 felt implausible. So I was maybe going to go back to it after watching the Bash match and unbeknownst to me that would've been the correct order anyway but I ended up watching this one first because it was next on the disc. All of that pointlessness aside I'm very glad I watched the thing because it was very different from what I remember the Bash match being. It was also very awesome. This was happening in the first place because Flair and the Horsemen had mashed Morton's face into a locker room floor. Morton's been wearing a protective face mask for a few weeks now, walking around out of the ring with his cheek and nose bandaged up. You and I and Ricky Morton and everyone else knew that Flair would target it again. Morton flipping the script and immediately going after Flair's face was so great, and I love how Flair initially sold surprise, then indignation, then rage, then eventually came to the realisation that he himself was going to need a protective face mask if this continued. Maybe he figured the line for Space Mountain wouldn't be nearly as long if Space Mountain was busted and in dire need of repairs. In a regular match he'd have rolled to the floor and composed himself. I like that he actually tried to do that here, only he had nowhere to go on account of the 12-foot cage. Later, after it became obvious he was stuck in there with someone who would relentlessly try and disfigure him, he just ran up the buckles and tried to jump over the top. Flair was always one for the bare arse spot and Morton damn near yanked the whole trunks off him just to get him back in. Morton really grinds Flair's face into the canvas, rakes his face across the top rope, grabs Flair by the nose and tries to pull it off, drags him around the ring by the nose, all great stuff built around retaliatory facial mutilation. Flair trying to punch Morton in the face and selling his hand after he hits the face shield rules, then he manages to remove it but before he can do anything Morton fights him off and takes it back, puts it back on and headbutts him with the mask! I loved pretty much everything they did that was built around DIY facial reconstruction. Flair trying to hit the kneedrop here carried a little more weight than usual. He was always going to do it anyway, but doing it to a guy with a mangled face is extra vindictive. Flair missing and Morton going to the figure-four is another thing that probably would've happened regardless, but it had a little more behind it on Morton's part here, some humiliation laced through it, whereas most of the time it just feels like a spot a Flair opponent would do because...well because it's a Flair match and that was the done thing. Flair sold the leg in a really subtle but amazing way too, especially after Morton does a legdrop make-a-wish thing to both hamstrings. The slow limp into Flair's failed elbow drop was probably my favourite instance of it and Morton was just all over him again like a rash. Morton will always bring incredible energy to matches and this was him dialled up to 11. Even as Flair escaping by the skin of his teeth finishes go this one might've been a wee bit abrupt, but I like that they threw that curveball in there. Sometimes even after a pasting the champ can sneak out a win, and not every match needs to go half an hour anyway. Another excellent entry from two guys who were made to wrestle each other.

That was complete madness. Holy shit what a bitta the pro wrestling. Honestly I don't think there's ever been a better triple thread in WWE history.

I forgot how good Blackwell was. He blew me away going through the AWA 80s set, then I never watched him for years, and then over the last few days I've watched a bunch of him and yeah, what an amazing portlyboy. In addition to what I said about him a couple posts up, he has an all-time great elbow drop and his running corner splash is the GOAT of GOATs. I re-watched the Algerian death match against Vachon the other night and jeez louise he about killed the wee fella with those corner splashes. What is the Blackjack Mulligan match folks were mentioning earlier in the thread? Because I don't think I've seen that before and a bit of new Blackwell is exciting. I may allow him to coast on good will all the way into my top 40. Fire me, I'm already fired.

I'm going through the Petit Prince footage now and he's truly mind-blowing. The Tiger Mask and Rey Jr. comparisons were the exact ones that came to mind watching the '66 match with Bobby Genele last night. He's ridiculous.

Yes! All ye Jerry Estrada fans be welcome here!

Fuckin Hector Guerrero v Sangre Chicana, brothers and sisters! That is a legitimate Tier 1 dream match for me that I never would've even thought about until I stumbled upon this. The primera is basically a full Guerreros show and it was amazing. Chavo had some nifty matwork with Markus Jr. that effectively became him tying Jr. up, followed by Jr.'s old man coming in to lend a hand before being shooed back out. He'd try and sneak up on Chavo like one of those don't wake the bear games you'd play when you were four and wrestling used to rule. Shockingly enough, Hector v Chicana was my own personal highlight, much like seeing OutKast and the Wu-Tang Clan sharing a stage would be, but also the actual highlight of the match as they were just brilliant together, much like I imagine Andre 3000 and the GZA would be. Before they even get in together Hector forward rolls over to the rudo corner, grabs an unsuspecting Chicana by the nose and uses his other hand to slap the nose away. Chicana psyches himself up and charges, drops down waiting for Hector to hit the ropes and step over him, but instead Hector picks him up and levels him with an uppercut. For such a rabid animal Chicana is an underrated comedy guy and his little confused look when Hector was nowhere to be found was so great. Loved the bit where Mando had Chicana in a seesaw with his knees as the fulcrum and every time he slung Chicana up Chavo and Hector would take turns knocking him back down with forearms. The Guerreros are just the best. I haven't seen much Markus Sr. but he was a fun old guy with fun old guy charisma. I wonder if he wasn't an awesome puncher in his heyday and passed that onto his kid because Markus Jr. hit Mando with an absolutely incredible punch flurry in the segunda. The tercera settles into a more extended Mando/Markus Jr. showdown as they punch each other into a state of only being upright because they're both propped up by the other, shoulder to shoulder, stuck in that position as the others fight around them. Markus Sr. gives his boy a shove and he lands on top of Mando in a pinning position, then Chavo flips them over and as Chicana tries to break it up Hector shoulder charges him out the ring, and Chicana's look of "oh no what have I done?" as he's toppling into the ropes was full Sangre Chicana. Really cool Guerreros performance across the board. Mando is the least talked about of the family, or he's the one whose work I'm least familiar with, but he was super fun as a weird sort of stocky pocket rocket, had some kooky submissions and spots like Tony Charles as Checkmate, then he'd go and flatten someone with a huge dive from the top turnbuckles to the floor. The Guerreros. What a wrestling family.

I have since softened on my stance that 75 was probably too high for Hector in 2016. If anything, I have become HARDENED on the stance that 75 is too low! I've been watching a bunch of random Hector stuff over the last few days and I find something at least fun about his performances in literally every match he's involved in. Evert single one of them. Like his brothers he's someone who clearly likes to be inventive and he's honestly do something different every time out. There's a six-man where he's tagging with Denny Brown and Tim Horner against the Horsemen (the episode of Worldwide that leads to the impromptu Flair/Windham match) and I'm telling you now, they should've had Tully and Hector feud for six months and then if Crockett had his wits about him Hector should've main evented Starrcade against Flair. Rugged Ronnie? What about Handsome Hector, Jim?! Hector Guerrero v Sangre Chicana was not a dream match I dared dream of but the Guerreros/Chicana-Markus-Markus Jr. trios from '87 is a total blast and Hector v Chicana was amazing. It's hard to really elucidate but Hector just has this demeanour in the ring, the way he carries himself, how he moves from moment to moment, where he looks like the most natural pro wrestler going. Eddie clearly emulated his brother - I've said it before, but it's striking how similar Hector his to what Eddie would be - and wrestling would be a hunner times better if more guys decided to be Hector Guerrero rather than Shawn Michaels or Bret Hart or a pillar of All Japan. I feel like I have more of a "methodology" or whatever snooty term you want to use when it comes to putting my top 100 together this time around. It's not a BIGLAV or anything remotely like that, but I know what I value most and one of my three biggest priorities is, if I were to take every match of a wrestler and plug them into a shuffle playlist, who could I sit and watch for longest without getting bored? And Hector Guerrero scores absurdly well on that. I'll have him as high as I can possibly justify, and then he'll get the favourites bump and go higher than I can ACTUALLY justify but I'll do it anyway.

Have I perchance mentioned that young Liger was the fucking truth? To be honest I've been cold on him for years and Takada has never been my guy, so if I hadn't been watching all this stuff anyway I'd probably never have checked this out. Fortuitous then, as it was pretty awesome. What I really liked was how they sold their standing in the hierarchy. Yamada was frantic in going to the ropes whenever Takada would apply the legbar, while Takada was much more composed if Yamada managed to lock in a submission. The crowd picked up on it as well and were far more vocal when Yamada was the one in trouble, probably because they bought him submitting early more than they bought it from Takada. By the end they were red hot for everything and a big part of that is Takada's performance, which honestly might be one of the best I've ever seen from him. I thought he was legitimately great in this. He started to get a little more desperate as things went on, showed frustration after Yamada kept getting the ropes, shaking his head like "will this kid just go away already," sold a greater degree of danger for Yamada's holds, gave him more in strike exchanges as the match progressed. Maybe he'd been taking cues from Fujiwara because he really knew when to give and when to take. There's a cool example about midway in after Yamada made the ropes off ANOTHER legbar attempt, and Takada got up and immediately started throwing kicks. He'd kept those in the holster for the first 8-9 minutes so at that point you knew Yamada was getting on his nerves. He might not have been a veteran yet, but this was him in a position of more experienced worker, not necessarily having to carry someone but at least be in the driver's seat, and fair play to him because he was excellent. Yamada was great as scrappy underdog. He held his own in strike exchanges and I liked how he would use things like lariats and dropkicks rather than the pure shoot style strikes of Takada, which if nothing else kept the line between New Japan and UWF halfway in place. Loved the bit where Takada refused to be whipped into the ropes so Yamada clotheslined him in the face a few times, then tried a wild dropkick and crashed hard. He also sold the struggle and the danger of not only holds, but of a few key moves, really in a way that not a lot of wrestlers two years into their career would (or at least not like this). Those legbar examples were obvious but so was the tombstone, where Takada tried it twice in quick succession and Yamada frantically wriggled out both times. Then there was the fight over the chickenwing in the back half where they were channelling Fujinami and Fujiwara, reversing the reversals trying to hook it in. That sort of struggle set up the payoffs for when Takada managed to grab the legbar in the middle of the ring. At that point I thought it was over for sure, and I think maybe the people did too, but Yamada made the ropes and the reaction was incredible. Then when Takada hits the tombstone - after Yamada hit one of his own - it lets him finally hook in that chickenwing. If that's not good build I'm not sure what is. This would've done really well on the 80s set if we had it, but I'm sort of glad we didn't because it's cool knowing things as good as this are still popping up. Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery. As they say (prolly).

That Rude/Dustin match from Worldwide is so good. One of the best Rude performances. Actually so is the Pillman match from February.