Lesser known or remembered wrestling matches that turned into shoots

[SPS]

In the internet and social media age now more than ever most of the infamous wrestling shoots have been shared and discussed. Matches like Rikidozan/Kimura, Kitao/Earthquake, Brody/Luger and others have become well known. I have learned about a ton of them over the years but there are always ones that seem to pop up that are forgotten, not well known or not talked about much. I was just wondering what are some of the ones members on this board know that aren't as mentioned or brought up?

My two that I'll throw out there are both from Japan, the first from the same company (SWS) that held the card where the infamous Kitao/Tenta shoot took place again had a lesser known shoot break out on between PWFG's Minoru Suzki and Apollo Sugawara. I've never heard the story on this but it seemed Suzuki was doing his thing and Apollo didn't care for the shoot stuff and it broke down from there.

 

The second is from JWP between Shinobu Kandori and Jackie Sato. This one I was reminded of today from the Observer Rewind over on Reddit and apparently it was due to some backstage disputes over the shooter ladies of JWP and the performer stars like Sato who was seen as arrogant by some and it broke down here with Kandori just beating the hell out of Sato and running her out of the promotion and wrestling.

 

[SirEdger]

The one that comes to mind for me (although I've never seen any footage of it) is a match between Raymond Rougeau and Zarinoff Leboeuf in the early 80s. Basically, Leboeuf had stiffed Raymond's little brother Armand quite a bit and this infuriated Raymond to the point he demanded to be booked against Leboeuf. The match happened and the shoot was so bad that Leboeuf never wrestled a match again. Better yet, his WIFE came to collect his paycheck for the night. It's detailed in the Mad Dogs and Screwjobs book.

[El Boricua]

There's a match between Gran Apolo and Barrabas from CSP that for some reason aired on TV. They stop cooperating and start coming to blows.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=HM9Oafw3JlA

[Dylan Waco]

There is a Florida indie match between Kahagas and Bruce Santee from a few years back that falls a part and Santee roughs him up 

[EricR]

This doesn't get brought up as often as it should, but I loved Backlund making fun of Funaki when Funaki tries to big time him. Backlund immediately realizes what this 20 year old punk is doing and starts making goofy faces at him as a way of selling, then hilariously sandbags him on a lift or two. Funaki looked frustrated and threw a little tantrum. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-XuSBwdCCz0

[flyonthewall2983]

 

[Tabe]

A few off the top of my head.  Unfortunately, I don't have video links for them:

 

- Akira Maeda vs Kiyoshi Tamura, UWF, 10/25/89 - Tamura comes out firing and Maeda retaliates with legit knees and just kicks the crap out of Tamura.  Have heard Kiyoshi ended up with a fractured eye socket and he missed a few months of action.

- Koki Kitahara vs 150% Machine, UWFI, 6/26/96 - Just a one-sided squash shoot that is just brutal.

- Kiyoshi Tamura vs Gary Albright, UWFI, 6/18/95 - This is more famous than the first two.  Albright is booked to lose and doesn't like it.  He'd jobbed to Masahito Kakihara a month earlier and being asked to lose two months in a row to guys smaller than his left leg set him off.  And he was unhappy with his money.  Anyway, he basically just stops cooperating, laying around and deadweighting Tamura.  Then he apply holds and refuse to release them while the referee (whose name escapes me) was pleading with him "Break Gary!  Break!" over and over.  Albright eventually did the job for Tamura but made it clear that he was losing on purpose.  Tamura was so upset by the whole thing he cried in the ring.  They rematched two months later, Tamura again winning, in a completely normal match in what was Albright's last UWFI appearance.

 

[paul sosnowski]

Let's not forget Maeda's shootkick  NJPW 11/19/87   

Hiro Saito, Masa Saito & Riki Choshu defeat Akira Maeda, Nobuhiko Takada & Osamu Kido

 

[khawk20]

That one is pretty well known though. Still brutal.

[paul sosnowski]

Wasn't there one with Dustin and Barry around 1992?

[Tabe]

Yeah, if you ask people to name famous shoots, you won't get past 3 or 4 nominations before the Maeda/Choshu kick comes up.

[BruiserBrody]

I'm not sure where I sourced this from: 

Henri Deglane won the Greco-Roman gold medal in the unlimited division in the 1924 Olympics representing France. He was later involved in a pro wrestling controversy about the world heavyweight title. On May 4, 1931, Deglane wrestled champion Ed "Strangler" Lewis in Montreal. If you go back to the piece in the 7/8 Observer, you'll notice in the section on Ed Don George, when Boston area promoter Paul Bowser, who had gotten into the championship picture as a key figure with Lewis when he had his wrestler, Gus Sonnenburg so hot that Lewis and Billy Sandow, who controlled a version of the title, wanted the title on him to feud with Lewis which brought Bowser into the trust. George was given the title by Bowser, without telling either Lewis or Sandow, after Sonnenburg had been embarrassed on a busy street corner when a no-name middleweight wrestler who was friends with rival promotion star Jim Londos beat up Sonnenburg in front of witnesses that got a ton of pub in that the world champion wrestler was beaten up on a busy street by a small no-name guy. Bowser put the title on George, who was in the Olympics with the idea he wanted the title on a guy who could handle himself against an attack out of the ring or a double-cross in the ring. Lewis apparently got revenge on April 14, 1931 by telling George he was going to win the title that night in the ring, and with Lewis' rep, even as good a wrestler as George was, he didn't challenge him and voluntarily dropped the title at Lewis' request, which was a double-cross on Bowser. It was only three weeks later that Bowser got his revenge, booking Lewis to defend the title against Deglane in Montreal.

Stories about this match differ. According to Lou Thesz' recollections in his book, after the second fall of the match that Lewis was under the impression he was going to win, Deglane bit himself on the arm until he drew blood while in the dressing room (in those days the wrestlers returned to the dressing room between falls in the main events for several minutes in order for the promoter to make money selling concessions). He kept it covered and in the third fall, screamed, showed the ref the teeth marks, and the ref saw all the blood and disqualified Lewis and declared Deglane champion. Others have claimed that the "Battle of the bite" finish was a worked finish that everyone involved knew about beforehand as simply a gimmick finish for controversy purposes in changing the title without Lewis having to do a job. As it turned out, that was the final split between the Lewis camp and the Bowser camp which lends credence to the Thesz story as being the accurate one, as Bowser recognized Deglane as world champion with Boston and Montreal as his main cities, but Lewis continued to be recognized as champion in some other cities and basically took off for Europe. Deglane held his version of the title until February 9, 1933 when he lost to George in Boston.

---

Tony Kozina is an independent pro-wrestler who has worked most notably for Ring of Honor. He's close friends with one of their top guys, Davey Richards, and receives a lot of bookings as such.

Ryan Kidd is exactly what his last name implies, a kid. He's allegedly been training to become a wrestler since he was 13; he was 17 at the time of this beat-down.

This took place at a Magnum Pro show. Someone didn't shake someone's hand the right way, or they cracked a joke that wasn't funny, and Tony Kozina came out to hurt someone that night. There's always going to be people who claim the match just looked totally legit, but that's because it clearly is.

---

From the WON: New Jack is once again in the middle of controversy stemming from a series of incidents on 4/14/95 in Erlanger, KY. SMW was scheduled to run a house show that night at Peall's Palace, a night club across the river from Cincinnati. After a disastrous show the last time in, the club owners wanted to change the rent deal. SMW was planning on pulling out of the building since the new deal wouldn't have made running economically feasible. However, since they had no other city booked that night, the plan was to go ahead and due to a lack of communication, Jim Cornette thought they were doing the final show under the old deal. When he found out they weren't the night before, he told all the wrestlers at television that he was canceling the show which thrilled several of the babyfaces who didn't like working there anyway because the fans booed faces more than in other SMW cities. An SMW official called the building the next morning to cancel. At that point, because there was a decent advance (whatever that means since only 200 fans showed up), local promoter Bob Harmon and Johnny Diamond decided to put on a show of trainees at Harmon and Les Thatcher's Bonecrusher's wrestling school. They posted signs in front of the building that there would be no SMW show, but instead a "Northern Wrestling Federation" show, a group that is no planning on running regularly in that same building. For whatever reason, D.Lo Brown and New Jack showed up anyway, and when they saw there was a show, talked with the promoter, and got booked on the show and agreed to work the show for free. With the two milling around the crowd before the show it caused fans to believe they were going to see "name" wrestlers and those who showed up bought tickets even with the signs saying SMW wrestlers weren't going to be there. New Jack continued to interact with the fans during the show and heckle the wrestlers, some of whom by all accounts were too inexperienced to even be in the ring. During a tag match, New Jack threw a bar table onto the shoulder of one, and separated his shoulder, although that was perhaps an accident. In the main event, a 10-man elimination tag, New Jack did a run-in and began throwing real punches in several people's face including giving one young wrestler a 12-stitch cut from a punch to the mouth. New Jack later claimed the guy either had said a racial remark to him or that he had punched one of the guys who didn't sell it and wanted to make sure he would sell the second punch. At this point, a large security guard named Mike McCord (no relation to Austin Idol) realizing something was amiss, tackled New Jack which led to more brawling into the parking lot and New Jack finally taking off before a few police cars showed up to quell the problem.

---

The last example of the stars aligning to produce a rare shoot happened in the Pacific 
Northwest in 1932.  A highly-skilled welterweight by the name of Wildcat McCann, who’d 
appeared in numerous AT shows taking on all comers, was repeatedly issuing challenges 
to world title claimant Robin Reed.  Reed, a former Olympic gold medallist, was no 
certainly no slouch, but wrestled for a rival promotion in Portland run by Virgil Hamlin.  
The goading in the press was becoming too much and the local athletic commission saw 
McCann as a logical contender.  So Hamlin and Reed had to confront the situation head 
on.

   The two decided that to earn a title match with Reed, McCann first had to wrestle and 
beat a hand-picked opponent.  This was a perfect example of utilizing a “policeman” in 
pro wrestling.  The term “policeman” didn’t refer to one of the blue uniformed individuals 
standing in the aisle way, but a wrestler of significant ability who warded off challengers to 
a specific championship.

   “Policemen” were commonly used in the heavyweight division, particularly by Ed  Lewis 
and Jim Londos.  Reed and his promoter picked Pete Metropoulos, and on March 9, 
1932, McCann and Metropoulos wrestled in Portland.  Their match was completely out of 
the ordinary and the Portland Oregonian newspaper commented that it was “one of the 
most hectic and weird mat affairs ever staged” in their city.  McCann proved his mastery 
by winning the first fall by submission, and the second was given to Metropoulos by 
default after a stunning display of brutal warfare.  In the final fall, McCann “flipped Pete 
onto the boards” and was declared the winner.

   The Portland Boxing Commission met some time later and fined both McCann and 
Metropoulos $50 for failing putting forth their best efforts in the Portland match.  A wise 
sports writer noted:  “Yes, the commission has fined two men for wrestling on the ‘square’ 
and letting others know that they won’t stand for anything but horse-play … the match 
was terrible, but don’t forget it was on the up and up.”

   If you can believe it, they were actually fined because they gall to wrestle a real match.  
But it was a horrible presentation, and witnesses to the spectacle probably applauded the 
penalty.

   In a sport that thrived on secrecy, it is difficult to know for sure which matches in history 
were definite shoots and which weren’t.  There are other famous incidents, including the 
double-crosses of Wayne Munn and Danno O’Mahoney, as well as Ed Lewis’s matches 
against Ray Steele and Lee Wykoff.
On Saturday, September 1, 1962, Buddy Rogers filed charges against Bill Miller and Karl 
Istaz (Karl Krauser/Karl Gotch), claiming that he was assaulted by the two grapplers in the 
dressing room of the Columbus Fairgrounds Coliseum.  Rogers spoke with Prosecutor 
Bernard Chupka, and his left arm was in a cast following an examination at the University 
Hospital.

*Rogers claimed that he was talking to Al Haft in the dressing room, talking about 
business, when Miller and Gotch entered the room.  Rogers said the following in the 
Saturday, September 1, 1962 edition of the Columbus Dispatch:  “The next thing I knew, 
Haft is flying through the air and these two guys jumped me and slammed a door on my 
arm.”

*On Sunday, September 2, 1962, both Bill Miller and Karl Gotch surrendered to Franklin 
County Sheriff’s Deputies and posted $25 bond.

*On Tuesday, September 4, 1962, Miller and Gotch were arrigned in Franklin County 
Municipal Court.  The case was continued to Tuesday, September 11, 1962.

 

---
Four old school dudes known for being ornery. Harley Race and Nick Bockwinkel were the old guard, while Stan Hansen and Bruiser Brody were rising quickly. The matches these guys put on always looked like fights, so it's hard to really tell the difference.
One night, Bockwinkel and Brody began a tag team match opposite one another. Brody went beast mode, and Bockwinkel didn't like what was happening. Harley Race tagged in, nearly broke Bruiser Brody's ankle, and sent for Stan Hansen.
Hansen and Race tussled into a corner, where Harley Race went for a suplex. Stan Hansen grabbed the ropes and sat down, so Race would look foolish. The referee called for a rope break, Hansen stood up, and Harley suplexed him anyway. These four wrestlers could have incited a riot if they decided to go a little harder that night.

 

[SirEdger]

I would have to check again but I think that the Deglane/Lewis match is mentioned in the Mad Dogs, Midgets & Screwjobs book.

[sek69]

Dave mentioned in the obit of South Korean wrestler Lee Wang Pyo that Korean legend Kim Il (aka Kintaro Oki) tried to steal the NWA title from Lou Thesz by hitting him with a shoot headbutt, but Thesz saw it coming and ended up knocking him out. 

[joeg]

 

 

[clintthecrippler]

Has footage of the Koji Kitao/Preston Steele match ever surfaced?

If my memory is correct, Koji Kitao was inexplicably booked in 1995 by Pittsburgh-based indie Steel City Wrestling. His opponent, local wrestler Preston Steele shouted at him before the match in broken English about "working light."

The story goes that Kitao - who spoke perfect English - was offended more by the manner in which he was addressed as opposed to the request itself. The match begins, they work one basic lockup/hold sequence, then Kitao shoot suplexes his opponent, kicks him in the face a bunch of times, and the match ends. His opponent also apparently suffered a separated shoulder on the suplex. 

[Al]

18 hours ago, SirEdger said:

I would have to check again but I think that the Deglane/Lewis match is mentioned in the Mad Dogs, Midgets & Screwjobs book.

It is, it has a full section I believe.

[Al]

17 hours ago, sek69 said:

Dave mentioned in the obit of South Korean wrestler Lee Wang Pyo that Korean legend Kim Il (aka Kintaro Oki) tried to steal the NWA title from Lou Thesz by hitting him with a shoot headbutt, but Thesz saw it coming and ended up knocking him out. 

There’s a similar story about Paul Boesch, which I always found odd. If Boesch really take try to take the title I would suspect some sort of repercussion beyond the ring.

[superkix]

There's a lot of shooting in this tag. Tamura is kind of a dick and humiliates SIlver on the mat, and Albright doesn't like it. Yamazaki also shoot stomps Silver in the face when Silver blows a spot. 

 

[SPS]

One from Dynamite Kid's book where someone shared the clip due to his recent passing that I've never got to see footage of before, Dynamite Kid gets into a uncooperative struggle with Kantaro Hoshino.

 

 

Excerpt from his book that the uploader added to the video description,

From Pure Dynamite: There was one Japanese wrestler called Hoshino who always wanted to be the big hero in the ring -- well the little prick was only five-foot-four anyway. We wrestled a singles match one night, and all the way through he kept trying it on with me, so in the end, I just opened up on him. Which he didn't like. He had me in a corner, he stuck a grovit on me, and said, under his breath, "You shoot." A grovit is a front facelock, an old Wigan move anyway, but when it's put on you properly, forget it. He would have leaned how to put a grovit on from Karl Gotch, I'm sure. But one thing that I learned from the short time I was at Riley's Gym, was how to get out of one. I reached across for his left elbow and wrenched hard. It took him by surprise, and nearly took one of his fingers off. The next night, me and Bret were wrestling Tiger Mask and Hoshino in a tag match. Before we went to the ring, Sayama came to me and said, "Tommy, no trouble tonight, Please."

Hard to see but you can see Dynamite break and peel off Hoshino's hand at around 5:19. Nothing major but interesting to see either way.

[ragemaster]

Just listened to Pacific Rim and one of the questions was about a shoot match between Antonio Inoki and Pak Song-Nam. 

Fumi says he doesn't think a shoot happened between them, from his own research.

But I'm curious to what the story is, as I've never heard it before and can't find out anything online about it.

[Stuttsy]

Two that I saw with my own eyes:

A green body builder named Mike Gunner ran the National Guard Armory in his home town around 2001 and booked himself on top against the Barbarian. The matches have already started and I'm in the back when Gunner sits down in a chair in front of Barbarian, backwards like AC Slater, and starts off by saying "Ok Barb, here's what we're gonna do." and a hush falls over the locker room. We're all looking at each other in silence as Gunner lays out a long convoluted go home that culminates with him of course going over. Barb says nothing during all this until finally speaks up, "Ok bruddah, no problem." They get to the ring and Barb just pounds on the fuckin dude, it was great. Barb wore him out with a chair, powerbombed him 2 or 3 times, stepped over the top rope and got counted out with Gunner just laying in a heap in the ring.

Another time wasn't so much a physical shoot although this one was a little more publicized, even getting a blurb in the Observer. Two guys in a tag-team called the Lost Souls were booked with Gary Hart as their manager against Jake Manning & Tony Kozina at the 2005 NWA Legends fanfest in Charlotte. It was to be the opener and if I remember correctly was intended as basically a squash win for the Lost Souls even though Kozina had a bit of a name already by then. But as they are talking over the match, the Lost Souls wanted to use thumb tacks and fire and all this shit, in a 5:00 opening tag match. Manning & Kozina balked, rightly so, and the two teams had words. Ultimately Manning & Kozina walked. Instead of the match, Lost Souls opened the show with Gary Hart doing a "shoot promo" about how their opponents had fled the scene and didn't have any balls. Michael from Highspots was so pissed he cut me off from doing commentary and personally shut the cameras off himself until they left the ring.

 

[Blehschmidt]

1 hour ago, Stuttsy said:

A green body builder named Mike Gunner ran the National Guard Armory in his home town around 2001 and booked himself on top against the Barbarian. The matches have already started and I'm in the back when Gunner sits down in a chair in front of Barbarian, backwards like AC Slater, and starts off by saying "Ok Barb, here's what we're gonna do." and a hush falls over the locker room. We're all looking at each other in silence as Gunner lays out a long convoluted go home that culminates with him of course going over. Barb says nothing during all this until finally speaks up, "Ok bruddah, no problem." They get to the ring and Barb just pounds on the fuckin dude, it was great. Barb wore him out with a chair, powerbombed him 2 or 3 times, stepped over the top rope and got counted out with Gunner just laying in a heap in the ring.

That's beautiful. 

When I was ring announcing I worked several shows with Barb, and if you shake his hand and show him respect, he is the nicest man in the world. He frequently would inquire about the well being of my family (who he'd never met) and spend several minutes just chatting away about whatever.

Why in the world anyone would want to piss that man off, let alone show him that kind of disrespect.... What a fucking idiot.

[returner82]

9 hours ago, Stuttsy said:

Another time wasn't so much a physical shoot although this one was a little more publicized, even getting a blurb in the Observer. Two guys in a tag-team called the Lost Souls were booked with Gary Hart as their manager against Jake Manning & Tony Kozina at the 2005 NWA Legends fanfest in Charlotte. It was to be the opener and if I remember correctly was intended as basically a squash win for the Lost Souls even though Kozina had a bit of a name already by then. But as they are talking over the match, the Lost Souls wanted to use thumb tacks and fire and all this shit, in a 5:00 opening tag match. Manning & Kozina balked, rightly so, and the two teams had words. Ultimately Manning & Kozina walked. Instead of the match, Lost Souls opened the show with Gary Hart doing a "shoot promo" about how their opponents had fled the scene and didn't have any balls. Michael from Highspots was so pissed he cut me off from doing commentary and personally shut the cameras off himself until they left the ring.

 

I'm surprised that Gary Hart went along with that instead of siding with the other guys.

[Stuttsy]

9 hours ago, returner82 said:

I'm surprised that Gary Hart went along with that instead of siding with the other guys.

I never got to ask him about it but the impression that I got that day was always that Gary only got one side of the story.