Judy Martin

[Matt D]

Bear with me here. I was watching Royal Rumble 89 last year at some point and during the Jumping Bomb Angels match, I thought that far and away the best wrestler in that match was Judy Martin. I never really had a reason to follow up and watch more matches to see though. Now I sort of do.

 

Judy Martin vs Princess Victoria, WCCW, 1983

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0NBpABrMKzw

 

I actually think both women show a lot here but Martin probably shows a little more. She's the heel and she's fairly classic in that role, for the time, jawing with the fans, using the hair to win exchanges (including a ponytail in the top wristlock), claiming hair pulling when she lost them, etc. She feeds into Victoria's offense very well bumping and selling and carrying on. There's an extended leghold which she sells well and she finally takes over after feigning that the leg was more hurt than it was and drawing Victoria in. Her offense is pretty brutal, both the hair-based stuff and the blows. There are a couple of good hope spots and comebacks until Victoria's had enough and does the typical native American comeback with some pretty nice looking shots into a fairly hot finishing stretch.

 

I'd say this was actively good and I'm looking forward to seeing more.

[ohtani's jacket]

I'm a big fan of Martin so I'll be following this one with interest.

[rzombie1988]

Judy is a lot of fun to watch. She's kind of the wrestler most people thought Moolah was. Really fun heel bumper.

 

I reviewed a Glamour Girls vs Penny Mitchell and Candice Purdue match here:

http://prowresblog.blogspot.com/2012/11/wwf-primetime-wrestling-11251986-review.html

 

Really fun stuff with one of the first powerbombs in the WWF.

 

Also did a fun January 1988 Glamour Girls vs JBA match here:

http://prowresblog.blogspot.com/2013/03/wwe-friday-night-smackdown-3292013.html

[Matt D]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QWPbZAB6xH0

 

Judy Martin vs Desiree Peterson from Boston 7/22/85 - WWF

 

This is well worth watching. It was a blast, actually. They started out with some matwork, just a bit before Martin took a powder and jawed a bit. She had a great way of sort of stalking around the ring to get her opening. After that, they had some back and forth sequence ending with missing each other on various moves (and selling well). There was less of the hair-pulling and hold trading than in the Victoria match; less chicanery too. More action and some hard hits. After a final missed shot in the corner, Martin took over and boy did she ever. First she got Peterson up in a fireman's carry into a clothesline over the top. Then she followed it up with a powerbomb and lifted Peterson up after one which garnered her some very real heat from the crowd. She followed THAT up by tossing Peterson right onto poor Mean Gene (who was announcing). For once, he was a gentleman and just raised his hands up shocked. This was all pretty chaotic,with Peterson out for a while including getting tossed over the barricade. When she got back in, Martin stomped her far too low causing even more outrage, from the announcers, the crowd, and the ref. Peterson tried to come back, including a dropkick but she got tossed out AGAIN, this time onto Gorilla. It was quite the scene with people in the crowd shouting for Gene to have a go at it. Classy. Finally, Peterson made it back in, ducked a shot, and hit a cross body out of nowhere for the win.I would have liked a bit more for a comeback but in a lot of ways the flash pin felt more believable because of how Martin was just killing her dead.

[Matt D]

I needed to watch this even though we don't have much of it, just for historical value.

 

This was round 1 of a Tag Tournament for $12K. Here's the Slam article on it, though I'd skip the write up of the match where they really extrapolate too much from the clips we have. The framing information is good enough.

 

From what we see, it was sort of interesting for the time. I think Grable and Martin had been built up pretty heavily as heels and that showed here. They were heel aggressors using every advantage they had even if they were severely overpowered. It probably would have been a fun thing to see in whole.

 

[goc]

Joyce Grable is pretty good herself, I remember being quite impressed with her against Velvet McIntyre from some Puerto Rico I watched a few months ago. I think it was from 1983?

[Matt D]

Judy Martin vs Bambi, WCW Saturday Night... right before Halloween Havoc 91.

 

I'm too lazy to get the date on this, but i went looking for funny Monsoon/Heenan PTW stuff on Monsoon Classic and he had just posted this a couple of days ago, so there you go. This was all to build up Madusa as she'd attack the winners, right before the birth of the Dangerous Alliance. Bambi's billed from Stone Mountain GA and she was a pretty good fiery babyface, taking it right to Martin from the get go. Martin sold pretty big around the ring, eating nice enough strikes. She was older now, but still a presence. When she went on offense she proceeded to hit an awesome dropping headbutt to the abdomen, a great heave off of a fireman's carry into a front drop sort of thing(like Warrior's gorilla press but from a fireman's carry and forward not back) and this insane snap suplex that was like a snap brainbuster. The foot choking and hair pulling and what not was used sparingly and well timed to argue with the ref and draw heat. Bambi had a pretty good comeback off of a missed corner charge after a few hope spots/cut offs but then they veered into a confusing Bambi chinlock and sort of stumbled to a finish a minute or two too late. Martin still had it though and she'd added some just brutal offense over the years.

[rzombie1988]

Judy Martin vs Bambi, WCW Saturday Night... right before Halloween Havoc 91.

 

I'm too lazy to get the date on this, but i went looking for funny Monsoon/Heenan PTW stuff on Monsoon Classic and he had just posted this a couple of days ago, so there you go. This was all to build up Madusa as she'd attack the winners, right before the birth of the Dangerous Alliance. Bambi's billed from Stone Mountain GA and she was a pretty good fiery babyface, taking it right to Martin from the get go. Martin sold pretty big around the ring, eating nice enough strikes. She was older now, but still a presence. When she went on offense she proceeded to hit an awesome dropping headbutt to the abdomen, a great heave off of a fireman's carry into a front drop sort of thing(like Warrior's gorilla press but from a fireman's carry and forward not back) and this insane snap suplex that was like a snap brainbuster. The foot choking and hair pulling and what not was used sparingly and well timed to argue with the ref and draw heat. Bambi had a pretty good comeback off of a missed corner charge after a few hope spots/cut offs but then they veered into a confusing Bambi chinlock and sort of stumbled to a finish a minute or two too late. Martin still had it though and she'd added some just brutal offense over the years.

I saw this "classic" on MonsoonClassic's channel - Abdullah the Butcher vs Bill Kazmaier, a 1991 dream match for sure! This may be one of those matches for me like Akeem vs Big John Studd that looks so bad on paper that I may have to watch it.

 

A link for the brave:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aXf3XU9BTA&list=UU84bmY6GGZ2oFpTTfBU64Zw