NWA On Demand

[shoe]

Thanks for the recs, guys. I'll post my thoughts after I've made it through all of them.

 

I did watch Brody/Spoiler. Really good brawl, and a great performance by Brody. If more matches like this turn up, I'd say Brody is due for a re-re-evaluation.

Looking forward to hear some of your thoughts.

[Matt D]

Watch the Hayes vs Williams cage match too.

[shoe]

Or the Doc vs Terry Gordy TXDM

[goc]

JYD & Duggan vs. Krusher Darsow & Nikolai Volkoff Texas Tornado match is also highly recommended by me.

[Matt D]

For fun stuff, 78 heel Brody is my favorite Brody, heel Duggan is a real revelation, any Dynamic Duos tag, basically, is a lot of fun, pretty much all the midget matches (and the Littlebrook title defense is a legit good match), everything with Bock obviously, that Dusty/Patera match.

[Matt D]

Estela Molina vs La Pantera Surena felt like a pretty historical match to me. I'm not sure how much pure luchadora matches we have from 1980 that go this long, this completely. Obviously Boesch was having a blast calling it. Molina was a great ruda. She's someone who is on the record for having some big title matches in the late 70s, I think. They were unsurprisingly ahead of their time here. Just another piece of the wrestling puzzle that the service offers us, one that I don't think anyone was expecting to get.

 

Brody vs Spoiler is probably my favorite babyface Brody match on the service. Spoiler is just a joy to watch. He was athletic, but he didn't need to be athletic. He could have gotten by with his height and leverage and all of the tricks. My favorite here was him using his singlet as a weapon. There was a lot of symmetry and callback here. Later on Brody would use the mic cord, for instance. The finish came from Spoiler utiziling his leverage and the ropes one to many times. Maybe it was because it was because of the outcome, but Brody was far more giving than usual here, always important against someone who uses the claw. They really got over how dangerous it was. Very good match. i haven't loved every Brody performance on the service but most of his matches are somewhat different animals than his bad habit-laden ones in AJPW.

[Johnny Sorrow]

Estela Molina vs La Pantera Surena (Houston 8/22/80)

 

So far this has been amazing. Estela is getting serious heat . What a great heel. Pantera's comeback with the arm drags are tremendous. The fake hug spot was tremendous. Then the payback slap was a hell yeah.

 

2nd fall and Estela is just beating on Pantera. We see Pantera do a rana from a handstand position. Estela is now biting at the fore head. The one-two combo by Pantera was nasty. Super fun fall.

 

3rd fall and Estela is working the crowd. Big back senton by Pantera. Pantera with big time punches. A fun finish to a fun bout. 3 1/4*

The best thing is Paul saying that he feels that hair pulling should be legal in girls matches because it's natural for girls to want to pull hair.

[Phil Schneider]

Bruiser Brody vs. Mongolian Stomper will be up today!

 

Lies!!!

[shoe]

Brody vs Stomper

 

This was just a total out of control brawl. This was totally hate filled. major bombs being thrown. Stomper taking these 360 spins from the Brody punches on the floor were tremendous. Chairs were used. Stomper was trying to work them, at least he was targeting the back. Brody was more than happy to waffle him. Buck Robley cheap shotting Brody was great. Both guys are a bloody mess. Stomper is awesome working the cut. Both guys throw the ref around multiple times. They're brawling all over the crowd. They spend more time on the floor than the ring. Wrestler's come out to break it up. Brody and Stomper beat the crap out of them. The match is thrown out, and sets up a wide variety of stips. This match ruled, and was a perfect match for a feud. 4*

[Matt D]

This is the Brody I've always been promised but have never quite gotten before. What a great brawl. Blood and guts and chairs and impactful shots. Hate, real hate and terror, the sort that Brody was always supposed to radiate in Japan and that the footage never quite showed to be true. Definitely special footage.

 

I watched the Duggan vs Ivan the Terrible match too and it was a surprisingly good hoss fight, the sort of thing you wish Bill Watts was announcing. They were really laying it in and for the most part it was back and forth in the best way. Duggan was a good enough heel and Ivan was bringing it enough and showing himself to be tough that the crowd really got into it by the end. Well worth watching.82 Duggan was aces.

[shoe]

Duggan vs Ivan the Terrible

 

I liked this. It was 2 big beefy guys just punchin,kicking , and eye rakes.I liked the bring it tough guy from both guys. A total ball room fight feel. This was heel vs heel. Though the crowd was behind Ivan the Terrible. They did what was needed to have a compelling match. 2 3/4*

[Johnny Sorrow]

https://soundcloud.com/prowrestlingonly/twiw-nwa-on-demand-01-24-2017

Pete and Johnny discuss a wide variety of releases on nwaondemand.com

1. Ken Patera vs Steve Pardee 11/16/79
2. A Paul Boesch Public Service Announcement
-Is Screaming a good form of self defense for women?
3.Estela Molina vs La Pantera Surena (Houston 8/22/80)
-A real hidden gem of early Luchadoras.
4.Great Scott vs Mr. Moto
5.Tony Atlas vs Jerry Brown 2/22/80
-Atlas advertises his fetish on a shirt. Pete and Johnny speculate.
6. Dick Slater/Tom Pritchard/Manny Fernandez angle
-Thoughts on Tom Pritchard
7.Spoiler vs Bruiser Brody 11/16/79
-Pete speculates on why Brody has looked better in Houston with an assist from Johnny.

[shoe]

Lucas vs Sweetan

 

Lucas with the early shine. Starts working the headlock. A nasty punch to the gut by Sweetan gives him the advantage. I'm loving Sweetan using illegal punches. Even better is Ken Lucas revenge cheap shot punches. Sweetan is really good at getting heat with the little cheats. Lucas working the leg. Crowd getting into the leg work. The work here isn't dynamic, but is smart. I loved the banana peel finish that led to Sweetan's win. 2 1/2*

[shoe]

I loved the promos. Especially the Terry Funk one.

[Matt D]

What the heck was Funk talking about with the Suplex and Piledriver at the same time? A Brainbuster?

[shoe]

Spoiler vs Ox Baker

 

This is an incredible Spoiler performance. Baker is a great character but a terrible worker. The psychology and storytelling is a masterpiece. They work around all of Baker's limitations. and push the story forward. I want to say I dug Baker's cross arm choke. Baker's strikes looked poor early, but they were fine towards the end.The story boiled down to Spoiler going for the claw throughout/ Baker focus was a 3 pronged attack. One he went for the Spoiler's mask, secondly he would work over Spoiler's back. and also would work over Spoiler's claw hand. I loved how Spoiler would try to get seperation when Baker went after the mask. They also built to a fun draw. Again this was strong storytelling, and really smart work. 3*

[Matt D]

There's a special place in my heart for matches like Spoiler vs Ox Baker. At some point along the way, the value of what was good in wrestling shifted. Or maybe it was never even really recognized. Maybe this was never fully appreciated. I have to think it was at some point. Two wrestlers, utilizing a utility of movement (for Spoiler doesn't even go up to the top until late in the match), manipulating a crowd, creating symbolic meaning with as little as necessary and then making that symbolic meaning have dramatic purpose. That's wrestling. That's the absolute pinnacle of wrestling. That's the joy of the heart punch and the claw. That's the importance of the mask. That's what this match does. It creates narrative moments based around symbols. The mask is important enough that Baker would sacrifice his advantage to go after it. To take it off would create a sort of victory for him that would be greater than physically mauling or pinning his opponent. It's worth the risk of eating punishment himself. It means so much to Spoiler that it causes him to retreat, to look weaker against an evenly matched opponent, during the brawl after the time limit expired. Everything has meaning, Ox's beard, Spoiler's height, the claw, Ox's bearhug. The second ring. Everything. This is a match that made something out of nothing. That's the magic of wrestling and we've lost so much of it because we've come to value self-important action over it.

[shoe]

Really good feel for the match Matt.

[shoe]

Thornton vs Boyd

 

I liked this, and if it got another few minutes would have taken it to the next level. I enjoyed Thornton's arm work. It was compelling and looked real hurty. His European forearms were just plain nasty. I liked Boyd's constant movement and fight underneath. This is the wrestler verse the brawler. Boyd started working the leg. Thornton dung it on a kneelift. Then we get a finish. I would have liked a few more minutes of the leg work leading to the finish. Still they had a pretty good match with the time given. 2 1/2*

[shoe]

Mr. Hito vs Nick Kozack

 

I loved the opening stuff. The salt ceremony always works. JJ Dillon was great in his role. The crowd was into this as an undercard bout. Kozack saluting the flag got the crowd really behind him. I really like Hito's work on top. The leg work was well done and set up the narrative of the match. Kozack was solid as a babyface and seemed solid in his role as fired up babyface. So for what they were doing on the card it worked. 2 1/4*

[Matt D]

Two undercard matches that definitely did their job. I loved all of Boyd's little tricks. Thorton was able to keep his air of technical dominance despite them. I'd have loved to see a rounds match between them. I'm with Pete on the Hito match. The opening was heated. JJ's awesome as the clumsily over-bowing manager, sideburns and all. Kozak really knew his stuff. A Nick Kozak/Tommy Gilbert/Dutch Savage trio would be something special.

[Matt D]

Duggan vs Sawyer (glove on a pole) was a big surprise, even though we had gotten most of the card already. The two of them are really perfect opponents for one another stylistically. Duggan's biggest skill as a babyface in this era was the ability to create a moment of anticipation before he struck. In a heel it might have been overly methodological and tedious, but as a babyface with the crowd behind him, it created a second pause where his hands went up and electricity started to spark before he came down upon his foe. It's not something that transferred well into the WWF, maybe because he was so rarely put into matches with stakes and heat like this. Sawyer bumped in kind, all but leaping backwards and landing squarely for Duggan.

 

Structurally, this was a lot of fun. Pole matches have natural transition points based around the climbing of the pole. This wasn't much different, but they were creative about it. Duggan controlled early on, with Sawyer pinballing and leaving the ring repeatedly until he could finally get Duggan out after him and work over his back with a chair. Duggan sold the back at times, ignoring it at other times. It felt, more than anything, like an equalizer for Sawyer as opposed to a necessary vulnerability for Duggan. While I think he could have done just a bit more selling, in general what he did do was fine both for the narrative of the match and for his relationship with the crowd. This crowd accepted that Duggan would be slowed down by the targeting, but in the midst of a big grudge match like this, it didn't want to see him stopped by it. I liked how some of Duggan's hope spots were based around him trying to get the glove, especially when he bounded in from off camera and outside the ring to try to get it, only to be crotched on the pole.

 

The finish was bs-laden, but also definitive, with Duggan perfectly suited and entirely capable of milking the moment. The post match beating with the chain was nasty (both symbolically and visually) and set up the matches to come. I do think that Sawyer recovering so quickly was unfortunate and lessened the importance and aura of the glove. And yes, I'm probably a horrible person for saying it, even about a 30 year old match, but this could have used a bit of color (Sorry). In general though, I thought it was great for what it was.

 

EDIT: I was talking to Pete and there's a bit of an expectation gap to the match. To me, it ended up feeling more like a high end WWF Federation era gimmick match than what you'd normally expect out of Houston/Mid-South. It was more cinematic than visceral, in that regard. It did work for me (and the crowd as well, I think. Some great shots of people, especially females, being into it in the background).

[shoe]

Duggan vs Sawyer

 

This is a coal minors glove match. Like Matt D was saying it felt more like a big WWE stip match. Where it had it moments and postage stamps moments. I still enjoyed a lot of this. This is one of my favorite feuds of all time. I loved how they used a stip to set up another stip match. We got some brawling early. Buzz after Duggan's back. He worked over Duggan's back with a chair. A couple of the chair shots looked weak though. Buzz would stomp. kick the back. He posted Duggan's back into the guardrail. He hooks on the bear hug. The crowd went nuts everytime Duggan tried to climb the pole. It had a Royal Rumble count feeling. Once Duggan gets the glove the crowd is nuts. We get the finish, and a great angle to set up the dog collar match. A real fun match. Topped off by a great Duggan promo. 3 1/4*

[shoe]

Slater vs Sweetan

 

We get a really nice tie up to start. Then we get some big bombs thrown. They mix in highspots and Slater controls with a headlock. This has a real Mid-Atlantic wrestling style feel to it, along with the hard hitting style of Texas wrestling. All the stuff looks snug and tight. The execution of moves has been great. Slater gers caught in the ropes. This sets up up the heat . Sweetan posts Slater's arm on the post. Sweetan goes after the arm. Slater still showing fire. A hair pull puts out the fire. Sweetan's arm work is basic, but nasty. Everything is really effective. Slater selling the arm big. Duggan is out, Gino is out. Spike piledriver on Slater. Tommy Rich for the save. We get a great Rich promo, followed by a great Bock promo. 3 1/2*

[shoe]

Reed vs Slater

 

This is a no DQ match. This is a pretty famous feud in Mid-South. Butch just punishing Slater with big soup bones. Big guard rail toss by Butch. You've got to remember, Butch just got out of the neck brace caused by Slater. Slater focusing on Reed's neck on the heat. Then posts the arm. Slater is disecting that arm of Reed's. Slater is just wrecking the arm. Stomping the arm. Reed reverses Slater and posts him. It's comeback time and fists are flying. In a great revenge spot he posts Slater's arm. He rams it into the corner. Reed runs into a knee, and is stopped cold. Slater runs into a Reed punch, and Reed maintains his attack. The crowd is 100% with Reed. At this point they got the crowd right where they need it. Slater takes out the ref. He then begins wear out Reed with some knuckle dusters. The ref is out. @nd ref in, 1st ref is back. Reed is a bloody mess. Officials are out. Great post match with Slater 3 3/4*