[1954-10-22-Kohler Chicago] Don Leo Jonathan vs Tiger Jack Moore

[Loss]

Talk about it here.

 

[Ma Stump Puller]

This match was sick as hell for what was essentially the closest thing to a "sprint" you could get from this era given the length.

Jack Moore was a respected vet of the time who was much well past his best years at this point; this being to my knowledge his only actual documented match on tape. He looked good here as the outclassed but experienced vet, using his wits to deal with Don's imposing big-man heel work but ultimately coming up short in most of the exchanges. There's some good spots here where Don gets to showcase his creative cheating antics, throwing closed-fist punches in dirty clinches or yanking at the trunks to escape key-locks, even throwing in a bit of more 80s-style showboating by having Don Leo gloat to the crowd between holds or feigning innocence when the ref catches him out. There's some slightly rough bumps on Moore's end but this otherwise was a really effective heel beatdown, culminating in Don getting huge heat for using the middle rope as a springboard to drop his knee right on Moore's groin which got a lot of disgusted faces from the front row crowd.

Don also does solid on the other end of the coin when it comes to working the heel comeuppance spots, getting huge heat for fly-sticking to the ropes whenever his opponent would actually start to land offence (including a pretty cool abdominal stretch transition into a toe-hold attempt by Moore that was shockingly agile from such a old geezer) and managing to survive long enough to get back into things. Finish was surprisingly nasty with Moore taking a couple of big back bumps into the turnbuckles before Don finished him off with a knee drop and a especially brutal looking rowboat-lite (announcer calls it a "Bow & Arrow" interestingly enough) submission where he essentially yanked the back and neck until he got the verbal victory.

Super fun 8-minute affair that gets over Don Leo's villainous attitude over a respected vet, felt very much ahead of its time in regards to the more heat-based structure and less of a focus on grindy mat-work. Definitely a fascinating watch for the time period.