KB8

Man, this disc just keeps cranking out the hits. I thought this was an outstanding sprint and the second best match I've watched so far. The first half is a long babyface shine period and it was really excellent stuff. Invader I punts Chicky in the balls about thirty seconds in and every exchange between them makes me want to see that eventual blowoff even more. Ron Starr was on some Arn Anderson shit here, going from awesome stooging bump machine to stone cold killer after the heels take over. He hits a GREAT high knee, a bunch of suplex variations, a big running bulldog, viciously chokes Invader 3, and he and Chicky do the Beverly Brothers/World's Greatest Tag Team 'leapfrog onto opponent draped over the ropes' double team, which is never not a cool spot. Abby ruled yet again and I cannot believe how much fun he's been on this set. He just keeps getting better and better, doing something new in every match that I don't remember seeing him do before. This time he gets tangled up in the ropes Terry Funk style while Colon punches him, then later on he grabs Invader 3 by the mask and repeatedly headbutts him. He picks him up and body slams him onto the top rope, holding him in that position so Ron and Chicky can choke him and dig him in the ribs. Invader I's two-handed chop to the throat is such a good signature strike, the way he really springs forward and extends the elbows like he's trying to crush a guy's trachea. I liked how it was teased early that he'd end up being worked over, only for III to immediately rush over and drag him back to the babyface corner to make the tag. Crowd comes unglued for Colon's hot tag, and I like how ultimately it came down to him and Abby duking it out in the ring while the Invaders and Starrs brawled almost all the way into the dugout. Post-match Abdullah must've thrown a kilo of salt into Colon's eyes and I love how the ref' sold like he got caught in the crossfire. This is really my kind of wrestling.

Hell of a tournament final. This was reeeeeal good and my favourite tag so far. Eric Embry was fucking excellent yet again -- he's someone I kind of want to do a deep dive on at some point now. He comes into this with a bandaged up head and the badage gets torn off inside about a minute, and the cut the bandage was there to protect is opened up again less than a minute after that. There are a few times later on where that cut comes back to hurt him, like when he hits a headbutt on Davis and sells it like it did as much damage to himself as it did his opponent, which I thought was pretty damn cool. He was also the main recipient of the babyface shine early on and I about lost it when he got fed up and just booted Davis in the nuts (he does it again towards the end and Hugo on commentary assures us that, despite Bobby Jaggers telling us it was a kick to the midsection, it was definitely a boot to the "testicle area"). We get a bit of double FIP action in this as well, and the long heat segment on Davis was really awesome. Crusher is a bit of a stiff and miscues a few things a little, but otherwise he's fine throwing kicks and big knees. Embry doing his thing is enough to cover for him, anyway. I loved him tripping over as he came in to try and prevent the hot tag. I loved him selling exhaustion on the apron. I loved his piledriver. I loved pretty much everything he did in this match. I also loved the finish, and the crowd go absolutely apeshit for it as well. Like, the place is rumbling, the camera shaking, people in the crowd jumping around hugging each other. And then Embry assists his valet post-match in piledriving Wendi Richter after he and Crusher ruin the RnRs' title presentation. Long live Eric Embry.

The Invaders have been really good on the set so far, but this is the first chance to see them work a tag together that didn't involve barbed wire and buckets of blood. They're pretty great at it. All of the early babyface control stuff was good, especially the way they'd work the arm and make quick tags, everything looking super smooth and crisp. There's also the running story of Invader I having beef with Chicky Starr and Chicky wanting no part of him. Invader III plays face in peril here. In the awesome match with Embry he was mostly about the big offence, but he was strong fighting from the bottom in this. I don't really have a ton to say about this specifically since I watched it a couple nights ago, but you had a good babyface team against a good heel team and it resulted it a very good tag match. That's about the bare bones of it.

Another fun RPM's southern style tag, though I liked this one more than the Greer/Kent match. This had a better heat segment on Lane as well, primarily because the Zambuies had some killer fat guy offence and Lane bounced around admirably for all of it. There was one weird bit early on where Muhammad kind of stood with Davis in a headlock waiting for something to happen with Akeem and Lane, but for the most part he and Akeem threw their ample weight around and tried to squash folk. Davis hit another couple great looking dropkicks and I bet the pop at the end would've been thunderous. The camera literally shook and people were going ballistic for the RnRs, which took me aback a little because I had no idea they were so over.

Nice, short, southern style tag. I'd never seen Greer or Kent wrestle before, but Kent was part of the Fabulous Kangaroos team that I kinda wish we had some footage of (or maybe we do and I just haven't been made aware of it yet). Greer apparently lost a hair match not long before this but instead of going fully bald he decided to keep his ridiculous rat tail ponytail. The RPM's were a pretty fun second-rate RnR Express here, with Lane playing Morton and Davis playing Gibson. Davis' running dropkick was awesome, just blasting Greer who took a big bump into the corner. We've had southern tag formula on the set already, but this is the first time it's been presented in its purest/most Americanized form. It wouldn't have looked out of place as a Great American Bash tour opener, for example.

Well, I loved this. Abby has been hugely enjoyable on the set so far (loved the bonus Abby v Al Perez match where Abby is an AMAZING bastard), but this time he really blew me away. On the surface it doesn't feel like he works a whole lot differently in PR than he did in Japan or Texas or wherever else he popped up. He still has the fork. He still bleeds. He more or less still has the same offence, with the elbow drops and the thrusts to the throat. But in PR it all feels like it's done with a little extra piss and vinegar. His thrusts and kicks are a little quicker, his elbow drops a little meatier, his headbutts a little stiffer, and on top of that he seemed to add a bunch of other mean looking shit to his repertoire. The close-up camera shots make all the fork-stabbings look even more nasty than usual, but there are times where, if the fork isn't close to hand, he'll just start gouging peoples' eyes or biting their ears (and I cannot stress enough how much the camera work adds to the ghoulishness of it all). In the Perez match he stabbed Perez in the head with the fork, then he whipped out a bag of salt and threw it in the cut! It was crazy. And man, some of his facial expressions in this were awesome. There was one bit where he was using the bottom rope to try and strangle Colon, while biting the middle rope and staring out at the crowd all bug-eyed and demented. Colon really is the perfect Abby opponent. I've seen Abby matches where his opponent will let him do just about whatever he wants, and it can lead to Abby doing a ton of fork shtick and not a whole lot else. There's no real urgency to what he's doing. When he's not made to work for it, it's not nearly as fun. Like, I get that Abby is a horrible creature who stabs people with cutlery just because he wants to, but it's better when you get the sense he's resorted to the fork because maybe he feels like he needs to. Colon makes him work for it, and when Abby pulls the fork out the boot it feels like he needs it to weather Colon's assault. That the ref' managed to actually grab it and take it from him this time, which led to Abby needing to find another way to take control, was another one of those cool wrinkles in this match-up. It's also a match-up with a ton of great payback spots. Abby takes control by punting Colon in the balls, so later on Colon punts Abby in the balls right back (though this is PR, where everybody punts everybody in the balls). Abby had his fork confiscated early in the match, but later Colon pulls out a fork of his own and stabs Abby in the stomach, then towards the end Abby somehow produces ANOTHER fork and carves up Colon's forehead. Eventually the ref' takes a crazy bump to the floor and Colon and Abby brawl around the place for a while before there's a Dusty Finish, which then leads to more brawling and stabbing. I had an absolute blast with this. Loved it.

I love how everything in Puerto Rico is just so much more NASTY than everywhere else. No other wrestling territory does disgusting close-ups of someone getting barbed wire sawed into their face like Puerto Rico. I fucking love this promotion. In true Puerto Rican fashion this had someone bleeding from their forehead inside the first minute and a half, and then about twenty seconds later we get our first close-up shot of Colon digging barbed wire into the cut on LeDuc's head. LeDuc was pretty fun in a Luke Williams sort of way, like how he'd take a punch and bump either back or throat-first into the barbed wire. He takes over with a kick to the balls, which is another Puerto Rican staple, and that leads to a truly grotesque spot - complete with close-up camera shot - where he jams the barbed wire in Colon's MOUTH. I don't know if Colon popped a blood capsule or bladed his mouth like a complete fucking crackpot, but there was a bit later on where he was drooling bloody saliva while LeDuc tried to garrote him with a line of barbed wire. I wouldn't call this a great match by any stretch, but it was a spirited brawl with a few pretty gnarly spots thrown in, and nobody works the barbed wire like they do in Puerto Rico.

For a six minute extended squash, this was fucking tremendous. I'd seen a couple Invader matches before watching this set, but I had pretty much zero recollection of how good he may or may not have been. This is his second singles match on the set, though, and I already feel comfortable saying he's one of the best blood loss sellers I've ever seen. Kamala basically chops him in the head for the entirety of this and Invader just bleeds and bleeds and bleeds. By the end he's an absolute mess, but the selling is what really does the blade job justice. Sometimes guys will hit a total gusher and visually it'll look gruesome, but they don't really sell it to put it over the top. Like, they don't do anything differently than they would have had they not been bleeding all over the place. If you're a bloodthirsty vampire like myself then the blood alone is usually enough to keep you happy, but you'll appreciate it when someone goes the extra mile. Invader goes the extra mile. He stumbles and staggers, can't quite stand up properly, tries to fight back, but it's an uphill battle when he's losing blood like he is. The more he loses the weaker he becomes, the less he can put behind his blows, and on top of it all Kamala is relentless. Kamala was actually really fun in this as well. He's mostly about throwing chops, but he shows some vulnerability when Invader makes his brief comebacks and at one point he licks up some of Invader's blood Pirata Morgan style. I might end up overrating this on the final ballot, but it felt like one of the best matches of its ilk I've seen in a long time.

This was your traditional southern style tag with a Puerto Rican twist. There was no real babyface shine at the beginning. Instead, everybody just brawled in and around the ring before it eventually settled into a Perez Jr.-in-peril segment. Colon was great working the apron during this. Like, really great. I'm a total mark for guys making it look like they're desperate to get in there and save their partner or generally start wrecking the heels' shit, and that was Colon in this match. At several points he decides he's seen enough and comes in and headbutts someone, which then prompts the ref' to try and get him back out so the Pastores can work some double teams on Perez. It wasn't always smooth, but it worked, and if anything the ref' not always being in perfect position added to the tumult. We saw Colon in a few different roles on disc 1, but this is the first proper look at him playing genuine hot tag. Shockingly enough it's another role he's good in. It's a shame the dubbed over commentary drowns out the crowd a bit because there's no way they wouldn't have been molten for the cartwheel upon entry and the extended stretch of babyface offence afterwards. And that's the second Puerto Rican twist. Rather than going straight to the finish after the hot tag - or even working back and forth for a spell - the whole last stretch is basically Colon and Perez wringing out every bit of comeuppance on the heels that they can. The Pastores bump and stooge, the babyfaces exact revenge, the crowd go home happy. Fun match.

Okay, while Chicky/Invader I felt like two thirds of an awesome match, this was the WHOLE of an awesome match. I honestly haven't seen a ton of Eric Embry. He was all over the last disc of the Texas set where he was really fun, and I remember loving the Lawler match, but he was playing scuzzy-looking-yet-easy-to-get-behind babyface in that. This wasn't that Eric Embry. This was Eric Embry being the biggest shitbag imaginable. He was so great in this. It was like he made the conscious decision to try and annoy people with every single thing he did. I loved all of his early stalling, very deliberately calling the referee over to tell him there was some hair-pulling going on, refusing to properly engage Invader until he's good and ready, making obnoxious whiny faces even John Tatum would scoff at. Even when he was selling he'd be making faces that made you want Invader to hit him again, only this time a little harder. Then when he was on top he'd pat himself on the back for everything as if it was a victory unto itself, like when he grabbed Invader's mask and used it to yank him into a headlock, whooping at the crowd because this was obviously something worth celebrating (of course he shit himself when Invader got out of it two seconds later). In the back half of the match there's a spell where Invader works over his leg, and even though the leg work gets dropped eventually it doesn't stop Embry from selling it right through to the end. Invader might not be Liger or Pierroth in terms of masked wrestlers expressing themselves through body language, but he has some killer offence. His dropkick looked awesome, he does this cool wishbone spot where he headbutts Embry in the stomach to stop him from sitting up, he does a super slick roll-up, and down the stretch he was throwing out all sorts of cool stuff. The stretch run actually felt like something you'd see in a Ric Flair title defence, with Embry playing the Flair role of trying to hang in there while Invader pushes to put him away. Every move Embry kicks out of ups the heat a little more, then he spills out to the floor, dazed and confused, and Invader screwballs him into the barricade with a bullet tope. Great, great match. The best on the set so far.

This was like two thirds of an awesome match. The fact it's not the whole of an awesome match isn't so much the wrestlers' fault; it's more the dreaded JIP/clipping and booking of the finish that hurt it. We're joined in progress with Chicky beating on a bloodied Invader out on the floor, almost doing a hyperactive, Nick Bockwinkel-esque King of the Mountain bit. Invader is stumbling around bloody, beating his chest to rally the crowd - and motherfucker do they rally - but Chicky keeps rolling out and cutting him off. When Invader manages to make it into the ring Chicky just chucks him right back over the top rope, with Invader's bump hitting an 8.6 on the Randy Savage scale. People are hucking all sorts of garbage at Chicky and Chicky is amazing in the way he prances around in the face of it all, just absolutely reveling in this contempt. Chicky working an armbar after the early shellackings is a bit of a downer, I guess, but he makes sure to lift Invader's head up with a handful of hair to show the crowd his bloody handiwork. I think we get a commercial break just prior to Invader's comeback, which is annoying, but man does Invader know how to work a comeback. He adds just the right amount of desperation and frenzy into his shots, half staggering backwards after one connects, then leaping forwards again like he's putting everything he has left into the next one. He hits this awesome looking two-handed chop to Chicky's throat and the crowd erupts and...then Chicky bails. Literally gets out the ring and runs away. And there's your count out, folks. On the one hand it's a pretty deflating finish considering it looked like things were about to get REALLY real, but these two have other matches with higher stakes on the set, so I'm gonna look at this as something to set the table for what's to come. And it was a damn fine table-setter.

Yeah, Puerto Rico was a massive blind spot for me and I had almost no idea what to expect going in. I'm only just past the May '86 Colon/Abby match so I've got about 95 matches still to watch, many of which feel like potential top-ballot types. And I'm absolutely loving all of this. Guys like Invader I and III, Chicky Starr and Colon who I had no real opinion of before have been awesome. Ron Starr, who as far as I could tell had pretty much no rep to speak of, has been in two matches so far and I've loved him in both. Abby has been unbelievably fun in everything and he might actually be the guy I've enjoyed most out of everyone so far. Before this I was neither here nor there on him. Eric Embry has shown up twice and been phenomenal both times. The crowds living and dying with the bayfaces, the grizzly close-up camera shots, everyone punting everyone else in the balls, Hugo and Jaggers on commentary -- just ridiculously fun. And I haven't even watched any of the extras yet.

Man, Murdoch and Lothario matching up is a dream match I never really thought about before. This should be good.

Invader I using laminated eye hole coverings to offset Fuji throwing salt is so great. It already feels like there's going to be a ton of potentially awesome matches and feuds in the first half of the decade that we'll likely never get the chance to see. This, of course, is a hell of a thread, and a huge thanks to Boricua for doing it.

Bobby Jaggers' little laugh on commentary is great. He did it about seven times during the "bonus" Perez/Abby match on disc 2 and it set me off laughing every time.

This was completely nuts and everything I hoped wild and out of control Puerto Rico would be. I don't fully know what was going on here, honestly. It started out with all four brawling in and around the ring, and that part was great and the crowd were alllll the way into it. Butch got thrown into a table over by the ring barricade and one of the fans literally started throwing overhands at him! Like, physically striking him! It was crazy. A cop ran over and threatened the fan with a baton and I was like "we have well and truly arrived in the Puerto Rico, motherfucker." Then at some point someone else at ringside - presumably a wrestler this time - got a hold of a big glove and started beating Luke Williams half to death. Then so did Colon and Invader and probably a few other folk. Williams sold this by writhing around on the mat like his appendix had exploded and spent the rest of the match lying there while people punched and stomped on him. The crowd was going ballistic through all of this and were pushing so far up against the barricade I thought it would collapse. This was like T in the Park with everyone on ecstasy crawling over each other to get to the front and see Calvin Harris (or some other bawbag). I have no idea where Butch Miller disappeared to during all of this but the whole back half of the match was just a total shitkicking directed at Luke. I think the ref' actually threw the match out, but Colon didn't care and just kept going. Anybody else and you could even buy the crowd turning on them because they went TOO far. The ending with Williams being carted into an ambulance as scores of fans tried to climb into and then on top of the ambulance as it drove away was fucking insane and, no hyperbole, one of the most memorable things I've ever seen in wrestling. Just an amazing, bonkers spectacle.

I'll level with you, I really did not give a shit about this. I like Dusty and I enjoyed Flair in his other two matches on the disc (the Gilbert studio match is legit my working #1 through the first disc), but this did nothing for me and I lost interest pretty quick. Dusty was at least fun with his mannerisms and big wind-up elbows, and there was one bit where Flair picked up a piece of thrown trash and jabbed Dusty in the face with it (that was actually fucking awesome, tbf), but nothing else grabbed me. Ah, well.

If you squint real hard while watching this it kind of looks like early career Steve Williams (note: elliot clearly beat me to this, but I'm tickled I'm not the only one who saw it) v late career Steve Keirn, with Williams punching old, balding Keirn around a cage for ten minutes. I'm not sure how good Ayala actually is, but he threw some nice punches in this and if the Savage match was anything to go by he was probably a guy who was easy enough to work around (and that might even be doing him a disservice). Sure enough, Brooks mostly bumped around and stumbled back into range to be hit by Ayala's fists, and he did a fine enough job of it. There was one cool bit where he was curled up in the corner trying to block Ayala's jabs, so Ayala just hauled off and dug him in the ribs with an uppercut, which opened Brooks up for more of the face-punching. This is the fourteenth match on this disc. It's also the fourteenth match where someone got kicked in the balls.

I doubt anybody who runs through this set will come out the other end of it proclaiming Carlos Colon v Abdullah the Butcher one of the great match-ups in wrestling history, but this is the second of a handful of Colon/Abby matches on these discs and so far they've gone two for two in having a perfectly enjoyable bloody brawl. Abby has actually been super fun in everything so far, from his manic facials to his hide-the-fork shtick to whipping out rapid fast uppercuts to guys' throats. Him and Colon have probably matched up a thousand and one times by this point, and this wasn't massively different from the match that opened the set, but it feels like they'll throw enough little wrinkles into what they're doing that it's never just move-for-move the exact same match. The layout might be more or less the same, but the majority of people watching these discs voted Ric Flair as their greatest wrestler of all time so I'm not buying "samey" as a criticism, especially when the layout is this effective. Colon comes out swinging to start and again goes after Abby's ear, then Abby takes over, they bleed, then they kick each other in the balls and it's a wild brawl to the finish. This had a few really great standalone spots as well, though, like Colon hitting a fucking monkey flip on Abby, then a vertical suplex, and Abby later standing on top of Colon with all of his body weight for about ten seconds. The ref' bump was pretty wimpy, but it led to J.J. Dillon getting popped by Colon and a near riot post-match, so you take the good with the bad.

This just FEELS like Puerto Rico to me (Puerto Rican wrestling, I mean. I'm not suggesting guys running around dicing up other folks' foreheads with barbed wire is customary over there). I've barely seen any wrestling from Puerto Rico, but this is the setting most familiar to me based on my hazy memories of the few matches I watched years ago. I don't really know why but there it is. Anyways, this was fulla blood. As a match it wasn't mindblowingly amazing, but there were several close-ups of guys getting their foreheads carved up with barbed wire and the Sheepherders bleed everywhere. Luke Williams was really fun in this. His big, exaggerated bumping looked pretty gnarly considering he was often doing those big, exaggerated bumps neck first into barbed wire. It felt like the Sheepherders took a ton of this and the Invaders would take over for spells a little out of nowhere, like a switch just went and it meant it was their turn to go on offence. I should probably try and figure out which Invader is which. Right now I have no idea.

If I'd read a synopsis or review of this match before watching it I'm pretty sure I'd have been psyched about the prospect of it in execution. Early stalling to rile the crowd? Extended heat segment? People throwing shit at the heels? Out of control finish? All of those things are gravy to me. But I've watched this twice now and it hasn't really hit the spot (though I liked it better the second time, tbf). The early stalling with the New Zealand and Puerto Rican flags was amusing, but it wasn't Jamie Dundee/Tracy Smothers-level heat-garnering. I thought it kind of dragged, honestly. The Youngbloods shine segment had some nice stuff built around working Luke Williams' arm, and Butch is always fun reacting to things, but then everybody seemed to get their wires crossed on something and the ref' was left floundering trying to pretend he missed the interference that led to the Sheepherders taking over. I liked the idea of some of the things they were doing during the heat segment on Mark, but there wasn't really any point where I bought Jay being TRULY pissed. One of the Sheepherders would run a distraction while the other took cheapshots at Mark, sometimes with a chair, then Jay would grab a chair of his own and kind of intimate that he was going to mess someone up with it...but never in a way that actually convinced me. He just, like, stood there holding it while Luke and/or Butch had to cower or run away. The whole thing was pretty messy as well, and then there was a finish after some all over the pace timing. Butch being thrown into the crowd prompting a pack of security guards to sprint over and make sure he didn't get jumped was the best part. Match was alright, but probably my least favourite so far.

Savage wrestling in Puerto Rico is news to me. I might've read something about it at some point, but I don't remember doing so and I know I haven't seen any footage of it. This was very Randy Savage, though, which means it was very fun. He plays allll the way to the back row here with his acting and general horse shit. Big exaggerated reactions, stalling, selling -- everything is designed to get a reaction; the reaction in this case being "pelt that fucker with garbage," and boy do they pelt him with lots of garbage. First half of this was basically Savage stalling and finding ways to keep getting gorilla press slammed by Ayala, who doesn't really do anything besides those gorilla press slams. After being slammed the third time he teases going into the trunks for a chain and this prompts people to throw more cups of piss and cigarette packets at him. When he eventually does manage to use the chain - jabbing Ayala with a chain-wrapped fist - Ayala kicks out and the pop for it is wild. Savage getting progressively more desperate after his chain has failed him is of course really fun, and it leads to him acting crazier which in turns leads to the crowd wanting to gut him (well, wanting to gut him even more). Really, this was Savage working Memphis-style stalling and shtick against a limited guy to great effect. If that sounds enjoyable to you then you'll probably enjoy this. I know I did.

I've watched this twice now, because the first time I figured I overrated it based on how shockingly enjoyable I found Brody in it. There are Brody matches that I like and there are Brody performances that I like, but there's always a little bit of the "you know...for Brody" factor at play, like you're grading on a curve. This had a Brody performance, though, that I thought was legitimately good on any curve. Like, I don't think of Brody as much of a seller. Ever. He almost never manages to communicate vulnerability. He'll bump, but it's usually in half-arsed ways. I've seen a goodly amount of Brody matches where he staggers around with his arms out like he's trying not to fall backwards into a swimming pool and that'll be the extent of his efforts at selling opponents' offence. But this didn't really have any of that. From the very start it was as if he was flat out afraid of being chained to Colon, and I don't remember ever seeing Brody attempt to sell fear (and I think fear was the emotion he was actually going for, as opposed to it only looking like fear because he was rubbish at whatever else he was trying to convey). He bumped and didn't just pop back up straight after -- he actually stayed down and let Colon pepper him with chain-wrapped fists. And of course he bled, because he always bled. When he wasn't selling he imposed himself and threw out some pretty mean looking shit. At one point he wrapped the chain around Colon's eyes, he chucked Colon onto a table and beat on him with the chain, etc. Then Colon would come back and try to touch the four corners, and sure enough Brody would frantically try and stop him without ever guzzling him like I expected him to. The finish was a bit hokey, but that's about my only complaint. If you're not a fan of Brody then I doubt this'll convince you to do a deep dive reevaluation, but it might make you wish there was more of him wrestling like this.

I think this is the first time I've seen Abby match up with someone substantially larger than he is. I know Andre was a few inches shorter than his billed height (though the afro might've made up for it), but, as corny as it sounds, his aura and presence really does make him seem like every bit the giant he's presented as. This was pretty short, but I dug it for what it was. The main hook was Abby being headbutted and bear-pawed before inevitably bringing out the fork to turn the tide. I love how Andre sold being jabbed with a shiv and punched in the throat. He's a big expressive dude and he's great at conveying that sense of vulnerability with equal parts danger, like the monster from Stranger Things after being caught in the bear trap (so I guess Abby is Nancy Wheeler, only he's peppering Andre with fork stabs rather than bullets). Eventually he fights back, takes the fork for himself, and appears to be stabbing Abdullah in the neck and stomach with it, which was very Puerto Rico. To the surprise of all the match ends in a count out and crowd brawl, with Andre throwing a fence at Abdullah's head.

This was also about six minutes, but Apollo was super solid again, enough that I think it's fair to say he's pretty okay at the pro-wrestling. Landell was Landell, and man, Buddy Landell is just the best. He's such a detestable goof and this studio crowd are allll about letting him know it. His stooging was really great here, with the best spot of the match being his face first collapse into the middle turnbuckle after Apollo headlocks him into oblivion. He also flings himself wildly into the air off a back body drop and has no compunction about taking shortcuts, which just winds folk up even more. His chinlock was up there with the most shoddily applied chinlocks in the history of wrestling, but it didn't last long at least. These short studio matches are a-okay with me.