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El Gran Apollo vs. Buddy Landell (5/8/83)


El Boricua

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Another solid match worked from a headlock base to start. Pretty unspectacular stuff at first until Apollo starts cranking the headlock in and Landell is fucking awesome selling in by falling face first into the 2nd turnbuckle. There’s an intensity to the match from that point forward that really picks things up. Landell gets some payback working his own chinlock spot and its pretty fun with some basic heel manager misdirection stuff. This really starts to pick up but ends before it could get to another level.

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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.
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Landell plays a great heel here, bumping & stooging to put Apollo over strongly, even as the bigger man. Crowd already much hotter than the Steinborn match. Nice work around a side headlock on the mat. Apollo's comeback gets the crowd fired up and he seems pretty capable of working the local crowds. Nonsense finish, but much better than the Steinborn match and it may have been a little too quick, but always a fan of a match that doesn't overstay its welcome.

 

**1/2

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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 months later...

Budro is such a dynamic presence in the ring, and he wastes no time flopping around and stooging. However, this wasn't worked as tightly as the previous match (and Landell was the one most guilty with his weak ass headlocks), but still serves it's purpose of showcasing Gran Apollo as an always fighting babyface. There's a ceiling on matches like this, and with no time to work with and a bit of sloppiness, not even my love of Buddy can make it go above "fine, I guess".

 

Rating: 3.5

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  • 7 years later...

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