Ricky Jackson Posted May 4, 2023 Report Share Posted May 4, 2023 Oh and great reviews btw. Just noticed this thread this morning. Keep it up Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shrike02 Posted May 5, 2023 Report Share Posted May 5, 2023 On a couple of occasions that I recall Backlund delivers an atomic drop so impressive it could be a finisher and the crowd pops for it. Backlund was ridiculously strong. I'd tend to agree Backlund tends to wrestle to the level of his opponent. Fortunately as champion he had a lot of talented workers to match up with and thus his extensive list of very good to great matches in this period. Good thread. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted May 5, 2023 Author Report Share Posted May 5, 2023 I appreciate the kind words! Backlund's Atomic drop is excellent, but my favourite spot of his might be the deadlift spot. Lots of guys have decent piledrivers/atomic drops, even if they aren't as good as his, but I can't think of anybody, especially around this time period, who did, or could do, that deadlift spot anywhere near as well as Bob. In regards to Bob's title reign, going through this year chronologically and in depth, it really has hit home how long a year actually is. The last time I touched on this time period was for the GWWE poll and I was merely cherry picking highly touted matches. In that context a year can go by in only 5-10 matches (and in 1983's case I think I only watched one: Backlund vs Masked Superstar). Basically it just illustrates the point that Backlund's entire reign was looong, which in of itself is super impressive, and I'm fascinated to see how he develops between late 80 and late 83. I'm just struggling to get my head around how much time that actually covers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted May 5, 2023 Author Report Share Posted May 5, 2023 1980-10-22 AJPW Terry Funk & Billy Robinson vs The Asteroid & The Avenger Civic Gymnasium, Wakkanai, Hokkaido, Japan ★★★ Card This was a major step up for Robinson as a tag worker compared to his showing paired with Wahoo. He seemed a lot more comfortable here, spending a large chunk of the first half working as the face in peril, and we even got a fired up hot tag from him at the end - which was a nice shift, as I often view him as a clinical technician, especially in Japan. I won’t belabour any discussion on Terry, as he was excellent in all the ways you would expect. In fact, he was so good despite it feeling like he was merely going through the motions, or at least his version of it. I will say that he really stands out as a top tier apron worker, which was particularly obvious in this match. Their opponents however were what surprised me. I will say I spent a considerable amount of time trying to figure out which was which. Cagematch said that Asteroid (Scott Irwin) was the shorter, and Avenger (Moose Morowski from recent German Catch vs Dieter fame) was the taller. The commentator’s had it the other way around and I’m liable to believe them here. Either way, both men worked pretty similarly, but they were agile in the Slaughter/Eadie mould. Masked US wrestler’s have always intrigued me as they seem to have vanished by the time I started watching, the hood reserved for Luchadores mostly, but at this point in time we were awash with them, including The Assassins, Masked Superstar, Mr Wrestling I & II and all the Super Destroyers. I’ll admit in some ways it comes across like a second rate gimmick to me, not having been raised with the concept, so I had some trepidation about these two. But as I said, they were a pleasant surprise. Solid meat and potatoes offense, could move about the ring with no problems and operated functionally and effectively as a team, allowing Robinson and Terry to do their thing. This match also ended in a classic call, the commentator shouting over and over again “Terry Funk, Spinning Toe Hold!”, for every revolution he made of the move. Needless to say, The Avenger tapped out. This was all the more enjoyable for how infrequent these kinds of clean finishes seem to be. On the same note, I’d be interested if anybody could identify the commentator in question. A cursory google search led me to this blog, but I couldn’t pinpoint which ones would have worked this match, but my frontrunner would be Kousuke Takeuchi (竹内 宏介). 1980-10-24 NJPW Antonio Inoki (c) vs Tiger Jeet Singh UWA World Heavyweight Title Match Okubuyama Gymnasium, Naha, Okinawa, Japan ★ Card I vaguely remember Singh being terrible, so I skipped over a few of his matches earlier this year. But I bit the bullet here in an attempt to eat my vegetables - I shouldn’t have bothered. Singh’s style made it seem more like Inoki was trying to handle a feral animal than participate in a wrestling match. I guess from a kayfabe perspective, having this crazed man as an obstacle, could be a compelling challenge for Inoki to overcome, but it doesn’t lend itself to being an entertaining watch. Mostly this was just Singh choking Inoki and consistently failing to break the hold despite repeated 5 counts from the referee. Considering this finished with Inoki being DQ’d (and losing the UWA title due to the same rules that apply to the NWF title) it seems totally imbalanced that Singh was allowed such a long leash. The absolute cringe of Inoki and Singh hurling insults at each other in English after the match while an almost completely silent arena sat watching in a combination of amusement and bemusement was fantastic though. 1980-10-24 Houston Les Thornton(c) vs Gino Hernandez NWA World Junior Heavyweight Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, Texas, USA ★★ Card Les Thornton is a stocky little Brummie with a terrible haircut that looked like he plopped a bowl over his head and went to town. Presumably he has the technical chops, hailing from England and all, so Gino had to take a different strategy than beating him at his own game. Thornton got the upper hand in the first though, even if it was with an awkward small package that looked more like he muscled Gino into it rather than cradling him. I did appreciate Gino’s offense here, it was very piecemeal. He would almost peck at Thornton, send him to the outside and then throw a kick or a punch through the ropes, then distract the referee and give the chance for Gary Hart to get involved. The style fits his character to a tee. I guess he’s been working like this all year, but it stood out to me more here and I definitely appreciated it more. He did manage to level things with a rather brutal suplex back into the ring from the outside where he basically dropped Thornton on his head because they couldn’t get the requisite height. The final fall was all about Thornton being riled up and going after them both, Gino tried the same trick he used to take down Mark Lewin (rubbing some substance in his eyes) but the referee was wise to it and gave Thornton the win via DQ. 1980-10-24 Houston Ivan Koloff vs Dusty Rhodes Texas Death Coffin Match Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, Texas, USA ★★ Card I always associated the Coffin match with the Undertaker, but I guess that proves there are no new ideas, only recycled ones. They had an interesting spin on this one though, unlimited falls. I’m not sure how well this worked in practice compared to concept, but at least the inclusion of falls meant that these two actually attempted to wrestle each other for the most part, even if the falls (it ended 2 apiece) were ultimately meaningless. We weren’t subjected to them struggling over pushing/forcing each other into the coffin for 15 minutes. They set up the coffin in the middle of the ring, and it served as an unusual and interesting obstacle for them to navigate around. Occasionally one would get thrown towards it and they would take a side bump to narrowly avoid it. Really though, this was just a slog it out fight, both were busted open from chair shots and Koloff was flung into the coffin for the finish. No need for a closing the coffin lid finale, he just lay there in his own blood, resigned to his defeat. As I said already, the falls were pretty meaningless, and they were pretty pathetic to boot (Dusty was pinned after Koloff countered a back body drop with a simple kick for example). Fun little brawl and certainly one of the better coffin matches I’ve seen, but that isn’t really saying much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted May 9, 2023 Author Report Share Posted May 9, 2023 1980-10-25 PNW Buddy Rose vs Jonathan Boyd Non Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Sports Arena, Portland, Oregon, USA ★★ Card This feud continued from the previous week. I’ll admit I pretty much hated the first fall. Too often we get a strong shine from the face and the heel just hands it over, there’s no struggle whatsoever. This was the case here with Rose. He tried to stall briefly at the beginning, but he foolishly turned his back and Boyd jumped him and then we got essentially a squash with Boyd beating the daylights out of Rose for several minutes and Sandy Barr counted SLOW for the pin. What makes this all the more frustrating is that Rose obviously has the offensive chops when let loose to do so. He snuck some tape into the ring to start the second fall, and began it by choking Boyd. Later on after a missed knee drop from Boyd he smelt blood and he targeted the injured leg relentlessly until Boyd had to capitulate. Rose tried to continue on the leg in the third, but Boyd managed to turn the tide and ended up wrapping Rose’s leg around the ringpost, which was enough for Rose and he bailed, handing the victory to Boyd. I wish there was more struggle in the first fall, even if it was inevitable that Boyd was going to take the majority of it, I at least wanted him to fight for it. We also got a cheap finish, but it played into Rose’s character, even if it’s disappointing from a match perspective. Another key factor is that I just don’t find Boyd that likeable as a face. He’s ok, but not great on the microphone. I’ve seen him stumble here and there, plus occasionally he veers into unsavoury territory, even for 1980, and I just don’t get how I’m supposed to get behind him in this feud. I’m actually enjoying these matches the most when Rose is kicking the shit out of him. 1980-10-30 NJPW Tatsumi Fujinami vs Hulk Hogan City Gymnasium, Kumamoto, Japan ★★ Card Didn’t last too long but a classic speed vs power matchup. Hogan was pretty decent at bumping for Fujinami’s arm drags, which they called a “Cyclone Whip” on commentary, loved that. Fujinami was an absolute blur in this period and he really feels like he might be able to use that to his advantage and get a result here. In the end the combination of Hogan’s power and Blassie’s dastardly interference is Fujinami’s undoing and, after being tripped by the old man, ended up eating a leg drop to the back of the head and then was finished off by a running power slam. 1980-10-30 NJPW Antonio Inoki vs Paul Orndorff City Gymnasium, Kumamoto, Japan ★ Card Much like his match against Fujinami, Orndorff looks the part but he’s still lacking that in-ring knowhow, in the sense that he could be hesitant and you can tell he was waiting for his opponent to give queues on where to go next. Unlike his match with Fujinami however, Inoki here pretty much sandbagged him. Orndorff was trying stuff on offense and Inoki, while not shrugging it off, made it look barely more than a mere inconvenience. Then it was time to hit the Enziguri and lock on the Octopus Hold to take the win. Felt like an incredibly lazy match for Inoki when it was required of him to lead Orndorff to something passable. 1980-10-31 Houston Andre the Giant vs Stan Stasiak Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, Texas, USA ★★ Card Lacked some rhythm in the first fall. Andre did some of his usual spots, but they plodded a bit between the action. Stasiak again and again went for the heart punch before finally nailing it and sending Andre to the mat like a ton of bricks. Massive credit to Andre here, he sold the hell out of that move for the whole break between falls and even after the match was done. In fact, this may be the most vulnerable I can recall seeing Andre period. Suffering the effects of the punch going into the second fall (Stasiak was actually DQ’d in the first for using the banned move), Stan jumped on Andre to begin the second and Andre was really hurting, taking blow after blow to the head. Finally he steadied himself, got serious and proceeded to pummel Stasiak into the mat for a straight falls victory. Overall this was brief, but Andre’s selling and subsequent intensity in destroying Stasiak was worth it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted May 10, 2023 Author Report Share Posted May 10, 2023 November 1980 1980-11-01 IWE Mighty Inoue & Mach Hayato vs Carlos Plata & Doberman Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan ★★ Card This got off to an odd start, Inoue and Carlos Plata in particular seemed to get their wires crossed a few times and struggled to properly execute a few moves. Once Plata and Doberman were able to isolate Hayato though and deliver a beatdown this really got going, Plata came in and he and Inoue faced off once again, this time with much better results, and we cruised to the finish with it never dropping below being at least fun. It’s nice to see some actual Lucha spots, considering how little representation the style has gotten throughout this year due to footage issues. Hayato had a nice tope that popped the crowd and Doberman was wild throwing a bunch of strikes that kind of looked like shit, but to be honest, they still really worked for me nonetheless. They ran a nice accidental bump spot when Inoue looked to have things wrapped up with an Octopus Hold, he and Doberman bounced to the outside, the referee didn’t seem overly concerned with who the legal men were at this point and Plata capitalised with a nifty pin with a bridge to put Hayato away. 1980-11-01 AJPW Abdullah the Butcher (c) vs Terry Funk NWA United National Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Culture Gymnasium, Yokohama, Kanagawa, Japan ★★★★ ¼ Card This is one of those classic matches that just built and built, organically layering elements on top of each other to the point that something like a double DQ finish was not just a satisfying ending, but the only ending that seems possible. Terry started out pretty cautious here, wary of Abby’s strikes, constantly going for the leg takedown instead of going toe to toe with him. That didn’t last too long as, once Abby got a few strikes in, Terry was in trouble fast. The attack was mostly focused on the side of the head and the ear, and it wasn’t long before we got some blood spouting from that region. Just when it looked like Terry was going to be in real trouble though he caught Abby with a surprise Thesz Press to snatch the first fall. Terry was more expansive in the second, buoyed from having taken the first fall, and things were looking good for him before they tumbled to the outside. Abby managed to post Terry’s leg, already heavily bandaged, and that turned the tide in a major way. No longer able to even put pressure on it, a feeble attempt to climb onto the apron was thwarted and the only outcome was a countout to tie things up. The final fall devolved into more primal brawling than what had come before. Abby was now bleeding, to nobody’s surprise, and by the time we got the referee bump we were already on the verge of this getting way out of control. I absolutely loved the visual of Joe Higuchi being dragged like a ragdoll from the ring as the two continued to tear at each other. With no referee left things got more wild and woolly, more eye gouging, and Terry even began raking Abby’s bald head, which is something I can’t remember seeing before. A timid looking man tried to interject to establish some order, but he was rebuked in no time at all and the match ended in a double DQ, or more likely a no-contest. Running through the action I don’t believe really does this match justice. Abby is someone I’m coming around to somewhat. He’s in a few of my favourite tag matches (specifically those against the Funks), but it’s still a little jarring to see him in a situation where he isn’t using the fork and the match is presented as a more “traditional” straight up wrestling match. I think he did a good job here, plus when things really got out of control, the more brawling action suited him to a tee, but I think he was more effective here as a foil to Terry, a symbol, merely being “Abdullah the Butcher”, than anything particularly special or noteworthy that he actually did. While this may not have been the match of the year, I’m strongly leaning towards the opinion that Terry’s performance here was the best performance of the year, and I’m struggling to think of a standout contender to challenge it. Terry is an all-timer in terms of always being on. At no point does he break character or reset himself. We saw him be incredibly sympathetic in the first fall, taking a real beating, making Abby’s offense look crazy effective, then pouncing for a desperate, but successful, attempt at a pin. He got more confident, timed his comebacks and hope spots perfectly to maximise their impact, then delivered an unparalleled sell job of the leg to finish the second. The third fall was all brawling but again this is where Terry excels. The desperation, the escalation, the triumph despite falling short, it was all there. Honestly I’m running out of superlatives. 1980-11-01 PNW Jay Youngblood & Joe Lightfoot (c) vs Fidel Cortez & Rip Oliver NWA Pacific Northwest Tag Team Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Sports Arena, Portland, Oregon, USA ★★ Card There was some trouble brewing in the army, very reminiscent of the breakup Rose had with the Sheepherder’s. Cortez was the one in the line of fire this time and he needed to put on a good showing and reclaim the tag titles. The first fall had some neat spots, the faces of course made Cortez and Oliver look foolish throughout, pulling the no tag switch move behind Sandy Barr’s back several times. I didn’t care for it back when Piper and Martel did it and I’m not the biggest fan of it now, but they made it feel more fun than obnoxious here. The consistent arm work on Cortez went nowhere though and by the end of the fall it certainly felt like they were vamping to kill time. Oliver broke up pins again and again, and to my surprise this bore fruit as Cortez finally tagged out and Oliver managed to pick up the pin on Lightfoot with a Samoan Drop. The champions levelled things with some quick thinking, causing a collision between Oliver and Cortez, resulting in Cortez being pinned. The final fall finished with Youngblood nailing a double sunset flip and pinning both opponents. There were some fun moments in the first, but it did ultimately feel like fluff. Again, like their last match, when Oliver came in for the heat things got better. His offense has some punch to it and generally these sections have the most forward motion to them. Cortez was giving me very little during his heel in peril sequence and I actively disliked his bumping - too often a random punch made it look like he was shot out of a rocket. Overall this was pretty serviceable but generally nondescript. I’m keen to see Rose and Oliver together (it looks like Cortez is gonna be given the boot) and for any Youngblood/Rose matches down the line. But this pairing has worn out its welcome for me. 1980-11-02 AJPW Terry Funk & Dick Murdoch vs Big John Studd & The Asteroid Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan ★ Card This had the first five minutes clipped, but I can’t imagine that we are missing too much here. How bad is Big John Studd? Now, that’s a serious question. I have very vague, very hazy memories of watching matches involving him from when I had Wrestlemania home videos as a child, but I certainly haven’t seen a Studd match for over 20 years at this point, and nothing here indicated anything different from my original impression of him. Everything interesting that happened in this match had to do with Murdoch or Terry. As much as I liked Asteroid when paired with the Avenger, he was the polar opposite here, taking his lead from Studd, and the poorer for it. The footage we have began with Terry in peril, they worked to the hot tag and Murdoch was clearing house with some nice punches, but Studd cut him off with a bear hug, Asteroid came in and applied….another bear hug. That about sums up this match. 1980-11-02 AWA Andre the Giant vs Jerry Blackwell Civil Center, St Paul, Minnesota, USA No Rating Card I’m not sure how long this match actually went but I only had 4 minutes or so of it. This was part of the ongoing $5000 body slam challenge that Blackwell seems to have been running all year. I’m pretty high on Blackwell from what I’ve seen so far and I think he’s somebody I would put into the category of a potentially great Andre opponent. I really loved Andre in Mexico in September, because the smaller guys really went for it, but often when he’s matched up against “normal” sized wrestlers it feels like he’s being restricted. Against larger men, like Blackwell, like Hansen, I saw a clip ages ago of a match between him and Masked Superstar that looked amazing - against these men he can throw the shackles off and really wrestle and he’s all the more awesome for it. 1980-11-03 NJPW Kengo Kimura (c) vs Chavo Guerrero NWA International Junior Heavyweight Title Match Kuramae Kokugikan, Tokyo, Japan ★★★ Card This was right on the cusp of being a great match, perhaps if the finishing stretch had been elongated just a couple more minutes it would have made it. This really felt like they were trying to chip away at each other, looking for that opening to hit the killer surprise blow and steal the match. For the first two thirds we had several resets as neither man was able to gain the upper hand and I thought they did an excellent job of positioning both as being equals, without them belabouring the point. I would say as the bout progressed Kimura became more emboldened, he threw out a sequence of moves that I don’t recall him being able to execute in his previous match with Chavo, nor his match with Fujinami - backdrop suplexes, backbreakers and at one point he hit successive jumping piledrivers that popped me out of my seat. Kimura saw his path to glory and became over eager, and error in judgement had him attempt a plancha which failed catastrophically, Chavo recovered enough to get back into the ring and Kimura wasn’t as lucky. With the countout decision the belt changed hands and it looks like Chavo would be taking it back to the US. Chavo gave a good account of himself but Kimura really jumped off the screen for me. I was disappointed in how their previous match together went down for a number of reasons, but Kimura, even in defeat, felt like a more fully rounded and legitimate competitor. He feels like he is turning the corner somewhat. 1980-11-03 NJPW Antonio Inoki (c) vs Hulk Hogan NWF Heavyweight Title Match Kuramae Kokugikan, Tokyo, Japan ★★ Card It might just have been the video fidelity but I’m pretty sure this is Hogan’s first match sans the back hair. It’s a fitting representation of his evolution over the year actually, reflecting how he’s become more polished month on month. In fact, contrasting this performance with those he delivered against Inoki and Backlund back in May, is night and day. Here he was in control, always knew what he was doing, it certainly didn’t seem like he was waiting around for Inoki to lead the match. Was this great? No, it wasn’t, but it did an excellent job of continuing to build up Hogan as a force, despite the pretty clean finish of Inoki snatching the win with an Enziguri followed by a suplex. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted May 12, 2023 Author Report Share Posted May 12, 2023 1980-11-04 AJPW Terry Funk vs The Asteroid General Gymnasium, Matsumoto, Nagano, Japan ★★ Card This was about as rote as a Terry Funk match can be. Asteroid tried to use his mass to contain Terry, we got a transition to a punching exchange where they slugged each other for a bit, then Terry took us home with a double arm suplex. The post match had Terry unmask Asteroid and wear the thing himself to rapturous applause which was pretty cool. 1980-11-05 AJW Kaoru Mastumoto vs Kazue Sakamoto Rookie Tournament Match Kisarazu City, Chiba, Japan ★★ So strange to see Matsumoto with such a generic look. She’s only 19 years old here but her opponent is even younger, checking in at a mere 16 years old. I have to say, considering the ages of these two they put on a splendid match. There was flow and strategy. Matsumoto played into her size advantage, and she certainly has an advantage with her thick legs, and Sakamoto tried her best to ground her and work over her knee to keep her there. Unfortunately it was too much to counter and Matsumoto pounded her into submission with a series of body checks, splashes and eventually just force pinned her through the mat for the win. 1980-11-05 AJW Tomoko Kitamura vs Hiroe Ito Kisarazu City, Chiba, Japan ★★ Kitamura is a young Lioness Asuka and Ito eventually becomes Tarantula. Ito’s look certainly indicates she’s in league with the Black Pair and Masami. These two are both involved in the Rookie Tournament (and I believe that Kitamura eventually wins the thing) but this match is not a part of it. For 5 minutes this was going well, Kitamura was in the ascendancy basically throughout, but if this wasn’t going to be a squash then they needed more things to do and this lost steam at around this 5 minute mark. Ito finally managed to get some offense in after she bailed to the outside to gather herself, but it was all too brief and she was overwhelmed by Kitamura pretty quickly, who finally put her away with a series of bombs. From a structure perspective I think this would have been better served having ⅓ to ½ shaved off, with Kitamura going over stronger in quicker time, or they should have had Ito actually mount some form of extended resistance at some point. As it was they kind of got stuck in a middle ground and it certainly felt like the match stumbled to the finish. However Kitamura had some good offense and the execution alone made this at least watchable. 1980-11-05 AJW Yuki Ikeshita vs Nancy Kumi Fuji TV Cup WWWA World Single Title Tournament Match Kisarazu City, Chiba, Japan ★ This was formless, long, and dull. Ikeshita looked cool as shit with her leather gloves in addition to her usual look but she got rid of the gloves in short order anyway. It seems that whatever wrestling ability Kumi had that caught my eye earlier in the year disappeared when she got this awful perm. I honestly don’t think I can remember any sequence of events that happened in this match. At one point Ikeshita began using a foreign object, but that’s literally it. Apparently this was clipped, but I still got over 30 minutes of a 47 minute match and boy was that far too long. Ikeshita rules in a tag setting but she’s failed to win me over in singles so far. In the end we reached the 45 minute time limit, the commissioner extended the match by five minutes, we got a little bit of brawling to the outside and then Kumi dove into the ring to win by countout. I mean, come on! 1980-11-05 AJW Lucy Kayama & Ayumi Hori vs Monster Ripper & Noriko Kawakami Best Two Out Of Three Falls Tag Team Match Kisarazu City, Chiba, Japan ★★★ This was all about Kayama and Hori trying to avoid Ripper and focus on Kawakami. For the majority of the first two falls Ripper was able to essentially steamroll both her opponents with no trouble at all. I really like how scrappy Kayama could be, but her build was just far too slender to realistically consistently dish out damage and she surely had no shot against somebody like Ripper. The heel team comfortably took the first, with Kayama being battered around by Ripper before eating the pin, but they were able to pick off Kawakami with a sneak roll up to snatch the second which led to the most interesting portion of the match. Furious at her underling having lost a fall she berated her before the final stanza began and then repeatedly refused to tag in, leaving Kawakami to fend for herself. Finally, when it was clear she wasn’t going to make it, Ripper came in to break up a pin and then proceeded to clear house again. But Kayama and Hori weren’t going to give up their winning strategy and once again they kept Ripper busy just long enough to grab the deciding fall, much to her disgust. This did an excellent job of giving the faces a win, through their pluck and cohesion as a team, but also made Ripper look like, well, a monster. I wasn’t high on her appearances earlier in the year but here she was a real force. Her offense had impact, she came across like a real mean bully, both to her opponents but also her partner, and I thought it was an extremely effective way to present her character. 1980-11-05 Joint Promotions Pat Roach vs Pete Stewart Drill Hall, Lincoln, Lincolnshire, UK ★★ Pat Roach was sporting a new look here, having ditched the longer curls in favour of a buzz cut and switched from the one strap singlet he had before for short trunks instead. With the softer edges gone he now looked like a big block of granite. It’s a shame that in the ring he still feels like unrealised potential to me. Maybe it’s just incongruous to the style, but he really could have played up the aggression, been a bit meaner and he could have been the Brock Lesnar of the promotion. In reality he was a curmudgeon, but not that curmudgeonly; confrontational, but not that confrontational, ultimately a watered down version of what he could have been. This match reflects this too. Pete Stewart was fine, but Roach was the aggressor and the deserved winner, but it was a serviceable win, a workmanlike win, there was no special hook or spark to it and that’s a shame. 1980-11-05 Joint Promotions Jon Cortez vs Keith Haward Drill Hall, Lincoln, Lincolnshire, UK ★★★ This was ⅔ of a classic, just missing that final stretch to push it over the top. Cortez was a technical wizard and Haward matched him every step of the way, probably not surprising considering his amateur credentials (1976 Olympic participation at only 16 years old), but being only a professional for under a year this certainly was an exceptional showing for him. The only knock against Haward would be that, despite being so technically proficient, he doesn’t exude much personality or charisma while he’s going about his business. Cortez on the other hand did this in spades, and that is what separated this match really. The first fall and a half were clipped and Cortez was already down a fall. He quickly levelled things in the 2nd and we had a mighty back and forth the rest of the way, things ultimately ending in a tie. Cortez was the lighter man and I thought he was absolutely terrific here both in terms of selling but also conveying a story. The bigger moves that Haward hit he would always give an extra second or two to let the impact of them settle in and to subtly show the incremental damage that they were doing to him. When caught in a hold, especially one particular Full Nelson, he made this choking noise that really got over the move as painful, or at least uncomfortable, in a way I certainly have never seen before. As the match wore on he visibly started to wear down, breathing harder and harder, his posture became more slouched and his stance became looser, his attacks became more desperate. I both thought that while he might be able to land the killer move it was more likely that he was leaving himself open to a counter. Things finished a bit prematurely perhaps but both men came out looking the better for it and there’s a rematch coming down the pipeline that I’m now eagerly anticipating. 1980-11-06 NJPW Antonio Inoki & Riki Choshu vs Hulk Hogan & Paul Orndorff Best Two Out Of Three Falls Tag Team Match City Gymnasium, Tsu, Mie, Japan ★★ Card It’s fascinating to see how much further along Hogan was compared to his partner Orndorff, despite Orndorff actually being the more seasoned worker at this point. Much like his previous matches in Japan, Orndorff is less self assured, his selling isn’t quite there and he generally doesn’t feel that polished. Hogan however seems to have grown into his persona. I loved how every time he hit a big move to Choshu, he would call out and goad Inoki, even while he was holding Choshu up in the air. Choshu was involved for the most of this, Inoki really only getting involved for a brief hot tag. The foreigner team got themselves disqualified for excessive force on the outside (could also have been Freddie Blassie’s involvement with a cane as well). Initially I thought this was going to be an interesting direction to take the match as Hogan launched Inoki out the other side, allowing them all to isolate Choshu, but with the DQ coming immediately afterwards it felt a bit flat really. The second fall wasn’t much either with Orndorff getting cut off and Inoki putting him away pretty matter of factly. Really nothing special here apart from an enjoyable Hogan performance. 1980-11-06 NJPW Tatsumi Fujinami (c) vs Steve Keirn WWF Junior Heavyweight Title Match City Gymnasium, Tsu, Mie, Japan ★★ Card I really don’t think these two match up well at all. Their bout in February was boring and this match was just as dull. We got a lot of generic matwork, mostly headscissors, and none of it really went anywhere at all. It took until we were 15 minutes in before the intensity jumped a level and Fujinami began pushing the pace and working Keirn’s leg with some nasty kicks. If the match had been worked how they worked the final 4 minutes this would have been good at least, however in reality it was merely adequate. Very disappointing because Fujinami obviously has had some bangers with other people throughout the year and I’ve seen Keirn be pretty good during TV matches in Georgia as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted May 18, 2023 Author Report Share Posted May 18, 2023 1980-11-08 WWF Bruno Sammartino vs Ken Patera Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA ★★★ Card When Bruno is criticised for just punching and kicking, it’s matches like this that make that hard to refute. The problem with the criticism is that it overlooks all the other elements that are being brought to the table. The “lack” of action may put a cap on any rating somebody would lay down on it, but it doesn’t preclude it from being good. This match certainly could be described as simple or basic. A large section early on was built around Bruno repeatedly trying to escape a hold Patera had on him, but Bruno is all about emotion, he knows, more than almost anybody, how to channel the energy of the crowd and focus that into the psychology of the match. As soon as Patera began favouring his left arm Bruno was like a dog with a bone and wouldn’t relent until Patera was forced to resort to illegal measures and plastered him with a couple chair shots for the DQ finish. 1980-11-08 WWF Bob Backlund (c) vs Larry Zbyszko WWF Heavyweight Title Match (Special Referee: Tony Atlas) Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA ★★★ Card While their previous match was a Larry match, this at least started much more like your classic Backlund match. We got the extended shine and, with Atlas also in the mix, it almost felt unfair, the odds decidedly stacked against Zbyszko. Larry was his ornery best though, getting up in Atlas’ face whenever given the opportunity and once Backlund missed a shoulder charge into the corner he was in the ascendancy and did well to keep Backlund grounded. His elbow and knee strikes to Backlund’s head are the most vicious looking we’ve seen from him and then he turned his attention to choking Bob. I could have done with them going in a different direction here, as Larry sitting in a front facelock while choking Bob wasn’t the most engaging visual and it went on for a fair bit. It worked from a psychology perspective and gave him opportunities to face off with Atlas when he was forced to break, but it wasn’t that fun to watch. Backlund started mounting his comeback but Zbyszko was able to repeatedly cut him off. I’ll grant Backlund’s selling through this stretch was really good, he was getting over the residual damage that Larry had dished out to him and it made his final comeback all the better for it. A huge piledriver followed by an Atomic Drop sent Larry to the apron. From there Larry managed to corral Backlund into another choke on the ropes, but this time he wouldn’t relent and Atlas was forced to call the match. There were some great bits to this. Backlund’s aforementioned selling down the stretch, Zbyszko’s overall character work and his bumping when Backlund did manage to get some offense in. On the negative side I thought Atlas looked pretty green as a referee - he missed a few spots, which kind of broke the illusion here and there, the middle was a touch bland, and the finish felt odd considering they don’t have another match down the line. I’m not sure if they originally planned to have one but we didn’t get the decisive Backlund victory in this series and looking at upcoming match listings they pivot to a Atlas/Zbyszko match in due course. 1980-11-08 WWF The Wild Samoans (Afa & Sika) (c) vs Rick Martel & Tony Garea WWF Tag Team Title Match Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA ★★ Card Easily Martel’s first good WWF match/performance. He’s been pretty underwhelming so far in New York, lacking the big character and run of squash match others like Sgt. Slaughter have had and seemingly got lost in the shuffle pretty fast upon arrival. This match had a very basic structure: shine -> Garea FIP -> Martel hot tag -> chaos into a finish, and the best parts were all Martel. His hot tag was excellent and he was allowed to really spread his wings in a way he hasn’t been able to recently. The fire was there, the big series of offensive moves and also being able to pick up the win with a nifty sunset flip. The Samoans weren’t great, better in concept than in reality, so this was never destined to be some hidden gem, but the title switch is definitely a capital M moment. With a member of both teams being pinned simultaneously there was ambiguity to the finish. Dick Woehrle and Gary Michael Cappetta did a fantastic job at building suspense before the subsequent explosion of joy from both Martel and Garea, but also the Philly crowd. 1980-11-08 PNW Jay Youngblood & Joe Lightfoot vs Buddy Rose & Rip Oliver Non Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Tag Team Match Sports Arena, Portland, Oregon, USA ★★ Card Lightfoot was really feeling himself in the first fall. High energy, high impact offense. He didn’t need much help at all from Youngblood at all to dispatch Oliver and Rose. Thought this all was pretty fun and Rose teaming with Oliver was definitely an upgrade on the Cuban. However in the final two falls the pace of the match slowed WAY down. Lots of headlocks, lots of chin locks. Because of how much Lightfoot took the first fall on offense and because Oliver and Rose targeted him throughout the following two falls we really didn’t see Youngblood at all, and the short section he was in matched with Oliver we had a pretty boring and poorly executed headlock/trunk grabbing pin sequence which went on for far too long. The best part of the match was Rose by a large margin. This was the most interesting and most fun he’s been in a good few months, with some of his lustre wearing off after Martel and Piper’s departure. I loved the dynamic of him doing anything to avoid Youngblood unless his team had the advantage. He would immediately tag out if they were matched, forcing Oliver to carry the burden for his team. Later on when he and Oliver were firmly in control with Lightfoot we finally saw all the little flourishes that he can add to a match. Hard to describe but things like choking Lightfoot behind Sandy Barr’s back and then delicately applying a chin lock when he turned around. I feel like it’s been a while since we’ve got the full Buddy Rose experience but we got it here. It was just a shame that the match as a whole didn’t equal his performance. It went on for far too long and for my tastes it seriously lacked enough action in the final two falls to keep in engaging considering the run time. 1980-11-11 PNW Buddy Rose vs Jonathan Boyd Non Title Steel Cage Match (Special Referee: Jay Youngblood) Sports Arena, Portland, Oregon, USA ★★ Card The first insight into a Tuesday night show if I’m not mistaken, brought to us in handheld form. I was always curious how these shows would differ from the Saturday ones that were broadcast on TV, but at least from this match, there doesn’t appear to be much difference. This was a cage match but without blood (and it’s not like Portland is shy of showing blood on TV anyway) but we got a LOT of low blows, so I’m not sure if that’s indicative of anything. The cage match stipulation suited Rose’s bumping style, but we still had a few stretches where he used holds I’m less of a fan of (the abdominal claw and a head crank that I can’t remember the name of). Youngblood was oddly on the periphery throughout, as I was sure he would be involved more, but Boyd did use him for the finish (he got him up in a fireman’s carry and then sort of did a knee drop and then plopped Youngblood back on the mat. I’m sure they had something cooler planned and they just botched it). This really was just your nuts and bolts cage match, but again Rose and Boyd weren’t able to deliver anything remarkable here. The post match beatdown by Rose on Youngblood was far better than anything that happened in the actual match. 1980-11-12 IWE Animal Hamaguchi, Isamu Teranishi & Mach Hayato vs Carlos Plata, Doberman & Goro Tsurumi Six Man Tag Team Match Gifu, Japan ★★ Card This was fought under “Mexican rules”. Which effectively meant no tags required when a wrestler left the ring and two members of a team needed to be pinned for the match to end (I presume if either captain had been pinned that would have finished things too, but we didn’t get to that here). Unsurprisingly this flowed a lot better when the wrestler’s most familiar with the style were in there. Hamaguchi and Teranishi in particular seemed to be fish out of water a little. But in general this all felt a bit like they were trying out something new on the fly and nobody was completely comfortable with what was going on. Teranishi wiped out on an amazingly terrible tope attempt, which allowed the Mexicans to triple team Hayato for the initial pin. Hamaguchi fought back immediately with an airplane spin but Plata and Tsurumi had the know-how and they pulled out the victory with a sunset flip amidst the chaos. 1980-11-12 IWE Rusher Kimura & Mighty Inoue vs Alexis Smirnoff & Killer Karl Krupp Gifu, Japan ★ Card Pretty much a nothing affair this was. Was interesting to see Krupp outside of Memphis for the first time, but he showed as little in the ring as he did there and he didn’t have the opportunity of cutting any promos to make up for it. Smirnoff was significantly worse than the previous tag title match when he paired with USSR. Kimura did basically nothing all match. But as usual Inoue was the bright spot. He injected at least some enthusiasm, some character into the proceedings. Increasingly it feels like he’s chained to this sinking ship and I’m pulling for him to find greener pastures sooner rather than later. In addition to this being mercilessly dull, it finished with a brawl between Smirnoff and Krupp after a mixup on the apron. Inoue and Kimura tried to get involved but ended up standing to the side looking bemused as the foreigners continued to beat down on each other amongst the seats. 1980-11-15 PNW Jonathan Boyd vs The Destroyer Sports Arena, Portland, Oregon, USA ★★ Card The Destroyer (David Sierra version not the Dick Beyers version) made good use of the foreign object hidden in his mask. Boyd was wary of it from the off and when The Destroyer laid a headbutt on him he dropped like a ton of bricks. We got the usual deal, Destroyer moving the “object” around in his mask so that Sandy Barr couldn’t locate it and disqualify him, before repositioning it so that he could cause extra damage to Boyd. This was pretty fun, and the hidden object schtick didn’t get tired, as sometimes it can. But there wasn’t much more to this. Eventually Boyd made a comeback, they transitioned to the outside and we finished with a double countout. Definitely had a lower card match feel, merely warming up the audience. 1980-11-15 PNW Jay Youngblood & Joe Lightfoot (c) vs Buddy Rose & Rip Oliver NWA Pacific Northwest Tag Team Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Sports Arena, Portland, Oregon, USA ★★★ Card Feels like the momentum in Portland is building again for the first time since Piper and Martel’s departures and they’ve really got something going with the Youngblood vs Rose dynamic, Youngblood’s desire for payback following his broken arm a few years earlier and the ability to slot the remaining roster into the feud accordingly. Just like he did the week before, Rose was deliberately ducking Youngblood unless his team had the advantage. Unlike the week before, Lightfoot didn’t have any strong moments here, instead he again botched an attempt to stick the landing on a back body drop (awkwardly landing on his backside and forcing Rose to improvise on the fly) and his apron work left a lot to be desired, tarnishing somewhat a series of excellently built hot tag attempts by the others. Rose was doing his best Ken Patera impression here. Preening about and launching guys across the ring with body slams, but it was Youngblood who was truly excellent here throughout. Coming in for an early tag he was filled with intensity and set the tone for the match, then once Oliver had gained the advantage on him, he was a textbook face in peril for both of the first two falls. Bumping - check. Selling - check. Well timed, meaningful hope spots - check. He didn’t make it to his corner in the first, succumbing to a couple absolutely jaw dropping backbreakers from Rose, but finally, bit by bit over the second, he built to the hot tag in the second and managed to turn the tide of the match. The time limit draw was easy to spot a long way off, and they kind of tried to finish with a wild brawl (Youngblood taking Rose to task, obliterating his arm again and again on the ringpost and Lightfoot going at it with Oliver back in the ring), but it didn’t really sync up properly and came across more like they were vamping for time until the bell rang than delivering something really out of control and wild. After the match Youngblood was interviewed and they set up a 4v4 match for the following Saturday. Rose’s Army against Youngblood, Lightfoot, Boyd and one more. Lightfoot goes to the back to retrieve their fourth member and it’s BUZZ SAWYER! I’ve only seen one match from him so far, a pretty short squash match from a couple weeks earlier, but I’m absolutely ecstatic with this addition to the match. Roll on next week! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted May 21, 2023 Author Report Share Posted May 21, 2023 Joint Promotions were running a tournament celebrating 25 years of wrestling on the ITV channel. 16 participants, 4 rounds, 1 winner. This batch of episodes were focused primarily on the first round and quarter final matches. 1980-11-18 Joint Promotions Young David vs Blackjack Mulligan Anniversary Cup First Round Match Northgate Arena, Chester, UK David made short work of his opponent, picking up quick falls in both the second and third rounds. The action, of what little we got, was pretty slapdash. Mulligan’s only tactic seemed to be a snapmare into a falling press, which occasionally David would be able to dodge. The crowd were really backing David, blaring loud when he was on offense and quiet as night when he was under pressure, but he showed here he wasn’t close to the finished article, despite his excellent performances against Breaks. The work was sloppy and they royally messed up the finish, David clearly expecting Mulligan to chase him into the corner which would have allowed him to leapfrog Mulligan and grab a flash pin. They ballsed that up though, but went for the pin anyway, and it looked like shit to be honest. Either way, David advances in the tournament. 1980-11-18 Joint Promotions John Naylor vs Mick McManus Anniversary Cup First Round Match Northgate Arena, Chester, UK Looks like they continued the trend of breezing through these first round matches. Naylor blitzed McManus to start, showing off his agility with a backflip off the second rope and surprising McManus with a pin within the first 30 seconds of round one. Round two saw McManus pushing and bending the rules to get back into it before Nayor found himself dumped over the top rope and unable to continue in the third. Pretty much what you would expect from McManus here but much like the previous match, there isn’t enough here to really sink your teeth into. Feels like they wanted McManus to continue on but wanted to give Naylor an opportunity to at least show some flash before that happened, and they managed that in the first round here. 1980-11-18 Joint Promotions Peter Kaye vs Pat Patton Anniversary Cup First Round Match Northgate Arena, Chester, UK They just about made it to the 4th round for this one, making it the longest of the first round matches so far. This time Peter “Talley Ho” Kaye played the part of the mischievous rule breaker with Patton the straight man. I may be mistaken but it appeared that Patton was wearing garish orange Judo attire, and it feels like judo very much was the martial art du jour at this time with Pat Roach and Chris Adams, amongst others, also being proponents of it. This was pretty lighthearted and fun, but still lacking any real substance. Almost the exact same dynamic as the Naylor/McManus match that preceded it where Patton got to show off some tricks but ultimately the wily vet pulled out the win in due course. 1980-11-18 Joint Promotions Chris Adams vs King Benn Anniversary Cup First Round Match Northgate Arena, Chester, UK ★★ We finally got something meaty, this one going wire to wire and having to be decided by a coin toss in the end, which Chris Adams won. I’ve not seen Benn before, but his stockier frame lent itself well to his moveset - great looking mule kicks and a running headbutt that looks like an in-ring tope. For Adams, he literally jumps off the screen in terms of how “modern” he seems as a worker. I’m not sure yet whether that will end up being a compliment or a criticism, but the sequences he put together wouldn’t look out of place in 2023. It’s not just the moves (there are others at this time using the enziguri) but also how he executed them. The quarter finals between Kaye & David and Adams & McManus were both decided by a throwdown. The first man to put his opponent on his back 10 times would win the match. Needless to say these were extremely brief with one man taking a big lead and then the other making a comeback of “falls”. The big thing that jumped out to me is that there seemed to be little to no strategy implemented and too often a wrestler would repeatedly get slammed or tossed to the mat and they wouldn’t even try and roll to the ropes to establish a reset. Instead they would just immediately get to their feet feeding the next offensive move. Incidentally, the winners were Kaye and Adams. The following first round matches were filmed on the same day (and presumably before the quarter final matches) but were broadcast later on in the month. 1980-11-18 Joint Promotions Jim Breaks vs The Little Prince Anniversary Cup First Round Match Northgate Arena, Chester, UK ★★ The Little Prince was a Pakistani import into the tournament who I haven’t seen before. He certainly wasn’t afraid of getting mixed up with Breaks but in general his offense looked pretty light and loose. This match was just bursting with character however, all stemming from Breaks, which carried this into the very fun territory. 1980-11-18 Joint Promotions Steve Grey vs Tony Costas Anniversary Cup First Round Match Northgate Arena, Chester, UK One of the great tragedies of 1980 is that, as far as I’m aware, we’ve only got the one full Steve Grey match on tape. We joined this one in round 3, so about halfway through. Tony Costas had the better of the 3rd and 4th rounds, picking up the first fall to grab the lead, but it wasn’t until Grey started really selling a series of snapmares as causing significant damage that this fully grabbed my attention. In the final round, with both men vying for that decisive fall, Costas had the advantage and a whiffed dropkick from Grey looked to have injured his arm. Costas was sloppy with his push to utilise this opening, and in turn he got caught with a backslide. They didn’t announce it in the footage, but from what I’ve read it appears that the arm injury forced Grey to pull out of the tournament, so we were robbed of further matches from him. 1980-11-18 Joint Promotions Al Dennison vs Mal Sanders Anniversary Cup First Round Match Northgate Arena, Chester, UK ★ The final of the first round matches in the tournament. At least from the perspective of what was shown on TV, Dennison was probably the most pushed wrestler in the whole of the UK in 1980. There’s a lot of talk about Giant Haystacks and Big Daddy as the prime examples of what brought down the sport in the eyes of the mainstream, but it couldn’t have helped having a 48 year old that looked more like your grandad than a professional wrestler, topping out at maybe 5’9, with a strongman gimmick that involved him being essentially impervious to his opponent’s attacks, as a leading figure in the sport. (Side Note: I had to double check his age because he looked closer to 65 here than 48). Either way, a surprise pinfall from Sanders aside, this was almost entirely Dennison making the younger man look foolish, shrugging any and all offense he threw at him. The crowd in attendance seemed to be lapping it up, but I for one have come to despise Dennison matches throughout this project. __________ In terms of the tournament, with Steve Grey unable to continue, Alan Kilby received a bye. And instead of getting yet another Breaks/Dennison match, apparently Breaks walked out allowing Dennison to advance to the semi finals. (according to itvwrestling.com) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted May 24, 2023 Author Report Share Posted May 24, 2023 1980-11-22 IWE Mighty Inoue & Isamu Teranishi vs Carlos Plata & El Doberman Best Two Out Of Three Falls Tag Team Match Shingu, Fukuoka, Japan ★★ Card This had two fantastic fall finishes and one terrible one. Inoue and Teranishi executed a picture perfect double sunset flip combo to capture the first, and then Plata took the initiative to pin both his opponents at the same time while they were administering a double submission move on Doberman to level things up. These sequences were by far the most exciting moments of the match, which overall was a pretty fun affair. This finish however had me scratching my head. I don’t think I was the only one as the commentators had to do a double take. The Japanese team ended up being disqualified, but for what, who knows. Inoue kicked Plata while he was on the top rope and he ended up crotching himself, so maaaaybe it was to do with that? I know low blows are an instant DQ in Mexico, so I can only presume it was a sort of interpretation of that rule. Otherwise nothing made sense about the ending. They were strongly advertising the upcoming tag title match between this Mexican team and the champions (Inoue and Hamaguchi) and I was concerned they were going to have the Japanese team go over here in what would have been a bone headed booking decision. The luchadores picked up the victory but this result couldn’t have got the Japanese fans salivating for that title match. 1980-11-22 IWE Rusher Kimura (c) vs Alexis Smirnoff IWA World Heavyweight Title Match Shingu, Fukuoka, Japan ★★ Card This was a grind it out affair. Smirnoff honed in on the leg early and Kimura had to work really hard to fend him off. This resulted in a lot of tussling around on the mat before Smirnoff applied the figure four, which Kimura ultimately reversed, resulting in both men limping from the damage taken. The second half had more strike exchanges and action up on their feet. Kimura finally managed to get some offense in, winning out with a series of hard chops to Smirnoff’s chest/face area. Smirnoff tried to turn the tide in his favour by resorting to a foreign object, but this would be his demise, as Kimura was able to wrestle it from his clutches and nail him in his bald head several times. Smirnoff ended up caught in the ropes, blood pouring from his dome, and he couldn’t untangle himself quickly enough to avoid the countout loss. The second half surely was more enjoyable than the first, with more action and more strike exchanges, which I prefer over slower sequences where wrestlers fight over holds on the mat, but I have to say that Smirnoff clearly had a plan and I can’t deny that it was borderline compelling when he went for the figure four. Overall, was it fun to watch? No, not really. But at no point would I say this was bad, and it had enough good moments to make sure it wasn’t wasted effort watching it. 1980-11-26 Joint Promotions Jon Cortez vs Keith Haward Assembly Hall, Walthamstow, London, UK ★★★ This was really riveting to watch. Unfortunately we missed the first two rounds here, but they crammed enough good stuff into the 12 minutes that remained. Haward is in the mould of a Dynamite Kid or Chris Benoit, physically gifted, chiselled build and aggressively offensive. He’s certainly impressive on the mat and his series of moves leading to his equalising fall were absolutely fantastic. However, it really has been Cortez who has jumped off the screen in the two matches these men have had together. It may just be good chemistry between the two as I wasn’t as enamoured with Cortez earlier in the year. He was good, but perhaps in comparison to such a character like Breaks, or in the shadow of a couple Saint/Grey classics, he struggled to match up. But the performances he has delivered in November have been total class. Technically, he’s extremely gifted of course, but the extra touches are the thing. In the final two rounds he deliberately was slower and more laboured in getting to his feet to start things, he began to increase how he sold the impact of moves as the match went along and it all led to him trying to match power with power against Haward, deadlifting him off the mat, only for his back to give out and forcing him to throw in the towel. If we’d had the whole thing or if they’d let this have more time this could have been really excellent. 1980-11-26 Joint Promotions Chris Adams vs Alan Kilby 25th Anniversary Challenge Cup Semi Final Match Assembly Hall, Walthamstow, London, UK ★★ A pretty pedestrian first two rounds that improved a lot once each man’s strategies emerged. Adams, being the lighter man, leant into his speed advantage, while Kilby relied more on strength. Adams used said speed to target the arm, building a series of attacks around getting ahold of and wrenching it. Despite his success with this approach it still felt somewhat of a surprise when he caught Kilby with a tricky rollup to grab the lead. Things were pretty even going into the last round, with Kilby relying on a straight knockout to win. I would have preferred him to have had more urgency in getting that decisive blow, instead it felt predetermined that he’d pick up a generic tying fall. Adams has shown in this tournament that he’s nimble and athletic, has one of the more striking movesets in the business, but his matches aren’t engaging bell to bell, mainly due to loose or non-existent narrative threads and a generally bland selling style. Kilby had more of a heavyweight style, and when he went all in with uppercuts and similar strikes this match was at its best. His more reserved demeanour complimented his stylistic approach well to a point, but it needed that extra gear of intensity later on which was missing. 1980-11-26 Joint Promotions Dynamite Kid vs Mark Rocco Assembly Hall, Walthamstow, London, UK ★★★★ Dynamite Kid back in the UK and the first signs of him on tape since way back in the spring maybe. I can tell it’s been a long time as he has a full head of flowing locks and the last time I saw him in Japan he was sporting a brutal buzz cut. These two grabbed the audience's attention from the word go. Rocco getting in a few nasty cheap shots on breaks and Kid was having none of it, coming back at him with gusto, and we had ourselves a match on our hands. Unsurprising from these two but the pace was quick, a lot of action but that edge was ever present. Lofton seemed almost perplexed by the amount of leeway the referee was affording them both, and while Rocco definitely was the initial aggressor, he certainly was not alone in carrying out illegal actions. The intensity and energy in the building grew and grew, climaxing in a cacophony when Kid was able to unleash a flurry of offense on Rocco which sent him to the outside to recoup. Finally in the third he was able to endure a few meaty moves from Rocco himself before he hit a backbreaker, falling headbutt and a GERMAN SUPLEX sequence for the pin! I don’t think I’ve seen a German in the UK yet and this was one of those where he released halfway, just flinging Rocco across the ring with an impact that folded him up like an accordion. Unfortunately for Kid he’d been opened up at some point previously and the referee deemed him unfit to continue so we finished with a no contest decision. If they’d been allowed to go the full distance this would have been a classic, no doubt in my mind. It was a little workrate-y, but the chippiness and griminess at the edges pulled this together into something really fantastic. More and more I get the feeling that WoS is the ultimate tease promotion. All the elements are there but due to TV regulations, the nature of business at the time and other factors the matches often fall just a tad short of their true potential. 1980-11-26 Joint Promotions Johnny Saint vs Bob Anthony Assembly Hall, Walthamstow, London, UK ★★★ Anthony has come a long way in 6 months from when I labelled him the “worst worker in WoS”. But whether it was just shaking off the rust from a long layoff or something else, he has looked better and better each time he appeared on TV. The problem is that he still came across like he was merely trying to keep up, especially when across the ring with somebody like Saint. Overall this felt like Saint playing with his food. It had all the good stuff to keep the crowd and myself entertained, but a bit like sugary cereal, delicious but lacking any real nourishment. Even when Saint lost the second fall, it just felt like a token gesture rather than anything Anthony earned, and it was always a formality that Saint would grab the victory. Perhaps that should be the case considering the two involved, but Saint didn’t do anything to inject doubt into the proceedings, which would have elevated this somewhat. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted May 28, 2023 Author Report Share Posted May 28, 2023 1980-11-27 AJW Mimi Hagiwara & Lucy Kayama vs Mami Kumano & Irma Aguilar Japan ★★★ The heels took the first fall, just swallowing up Hagiwara and Kayama. Kumano in particular was just a bitch, straight up punking her opponents with nice little flourishes here and there, doing things like instead of breaking up a pin how you would expect, just kicking the referee - something you’d only see in AJW. The impetus for the face team after losing the first fall was to fight fire with fire, to show they were tough enough and actually dig their heels in, which is what they did. There are times where Kayama’s slender frame makes her come across as ineffective, and there are other times, like in this match, where the effort she has to give to pull off moves really adds a lot and injects significance to the stretches where she’s on offense. They swarm Aguilar and fend off Kumano long enough to tie things up and the third followed the same trend, but this time they couldn’t be contained in the ring and we finished on a double countout. This isn’t an unusual finish for AJW this year, and often it feels cheap and contrived, as if they are merely waiting around until somebody slips back in for the win, but in this case the brawling was involved enough that it felt believable that they’d all forgotten or were unaware of the count. Plus Kayama crashed and burned on a hellacious tope attempt which just added to the drama. Overall nothing spectacular, but the faces gave solid performances and Aguilar was just good enough, and vicious enough, to match Kumano, who gave a fantastic heel performance once again. 1980-11-27 AJW Jackie Sato vs Devil Masami Japan ★★★ This was more tightly worked than other matches in this promotion at the time. The execution, in terms of working through a sequence of holds and their general application, was probably better, but it lost the sense of chaos that the best women’s matches of this year had. Sort of like their version of AJW doing AJPW of the same era. Not a knock on it though, both Sato and Masami give good performances here. Sato was the early aggressor, took her turn to sell hard in the middle, rallied with some absolutely killer offense, including a suplex into a backbreaker that looked awesome, and then was dumped onto her gammy leg for the countout finish. For Masami it was all about her presence and her facial expressions. This lacked, to its benefit, the incessant screaming we usually get, which is a trend in Masami matches. Her offense was pretty decent too, but without the wow factor of what Sato was dishing out. Overall this was an extremely well worked affair that was lacking that decisive hook to reel me in fully. 1980-11-27 IWE Animal Hamaguchi & Mighty Inoue (c) vs Carlos Plata & Doberman IWA World Tag Team Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Chiba, Japan ★ Card The penultimate card of the year for IWE and this was the main event, the match they’d seemingly been building towards all tour for Plata and Doberman, and wow did this disappoint. Each time I’ve seen these luchadores I’ve liked them less, especially Doberman, who increasingly feels like a third or fourth rate worker. This had a lot of contrived miscommunication spots that were recycled from recent matches but with even less synchronicity between each guy than they had before. All the falls kind of felt like they came out of nowhere, none of the work seemed to build towards anything in particular, and I feel like I’m a broken record at this point, but the only real bright spot was Inoue, and even then, there wasn’t much he did here worth bragging about. Pretty poor all round. 1980-11-28 AJPW Abdullah The Butcher & Tor Kamata vs Dick Slater & Ricky Steamboat Real World Tag League 1980 Match Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan ★★★ Card This was never destined to be a five star classic, but as the opening match of the tag league tournament, they clearly looked to begin with a bang. It’s striking how much Kamata feels like a low rent version of Abby when placed right beside him. Considering his whole gimmick was being Japanese, I’m very curious as to his perception in Japan, when he very clearly wasn’t Japanese. In the opposite corner both Steamboat and Slater were incredibly over with the crowd, who for Japan were a rowdy bunch from the get go. The first half of this was pretty standard. Tie ups, wrestling holds, you know, normal stuff. Steamboat seemed intent on really selling with a capital S here, going to town when eating strikes from both his opponents. He almost went a bit overboard with the spasming thrown in there. It wasn’t long though before Abby had had enough of this standard wrestling malarkey and went for the foreign object. Steamboat got the brunt of it, tied up on the apron, and Joe Higuchi slowly lost control as Kamata joined in for the numbers advantage. From then on it was pretty much bedlam. Slater was throwing himself in there to try and fend them off his partner and eventually Steamboat was able to wrench himself free and get to the floor on the outside. It was interesting that his selling was more measured and realistic when taking a spike to the head than getting punched in the face. The only thing that I could complain about from when the brawl began until the end of the footage was that Steamboat probably didn’t bleed enough. It was more of a trickle than a gush, and considering the attack and the general mayhem going on I think some extra juice would have gone a long way. Either way, he and Slater managed to turn the tables on their opponents, using the foreign objects against them in return. Slater had Kamata absolutely seeping blood back in the ring while Steamboat and Abby stumbled through the crowd to mega reactions. Joe tried again in vain to regain some semblance of control but after getting shoved off by Slater a few times he threw in the towel and awarded the match to Abby and Kamata. Dodgy decision perhaps, as by now it would have been no secret who initially brought the weapons into the fray, but you’ve got to just go with the flow with these things sometimes. The wild frenzy of the brawl was easily enough to say this was an excellent curtain raiser for the tournament. 1980-11-28 AJPW The Funks (Dory Funk Jr. & Terry Funk) vs The Great Mephisto & The Sheik Real World Tag League 1980 Match Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan ★ Card The wild finish of the previous match bled into the start of this one, and it felt like a messy way to start things. Before I knew it Terry somehow was somehow already in trouble, getting flung around the ring by the Sheik. Some semblance of structure was established eventually with Terry working underneath against both Sheik and Mephisto but their attempts at offense weren’t very compelling in the slightest. I’m no fan of the Sheik, but Mephisto was just plain trash. I can’t think of one single thing he did here that added value. His attempt at blading was one of the most poorly executed I think I’ve ever seen, so clear for all to see right in the centre of the ring. Just awful. They swung far too violently from Terry in peril to Mephisto dead on his feet with no inbetween whatsoever. Terry and Dory tried to squeeze something out of this when they went on offense but there was nothing they could do to save this. Then we were dealt the finish. I guess it could have been worse, at least the Funks picked up the victory, but with Terry and Sheik brawling on the floor it was primed for Dory to just kill Mephisto and get it over with. Instead we got some contrived spot where Dory pulled Mephisto out of the ring, they jostled a tad before Dory dived back in to grab the countout victory. Why Mephisto couldn’t have done the job here is beyond me really. 1980-11-28 NJPW Andre The Giant & The Hangman vs. Hulk Hogan & Stan Hansen MSG Tag League 1980 Match Miyagi Prefectural Sports Center, Sendai, Miyagi, Japan ★★ Card A match that looked much better on paper than in reality. You’d think that the narrative would write itself, with Hansen & Hogan struggling with the might of Andre, and then steamrolling Hangman when they got the chance. Instead we got too much 50/50 nothingness when Hangman was in and the really good stuff I was expecting between the other three only came near the finish. Really I would have liked it to have occurred earlier to set things up, really crush Hangman and get him to the brink in the middle, then have Andre come in as the final obstacle, from which they could have pivoted in any number of interesting directions depending on the finish they wanted. Ultimately Hangman felt like a complete afterthought and didn’t imprint himself on this match in any way, Hogan and Hansen both looked rather lackadaisical when they weren’t in there with Andre, which made them look bad, and this all came together to be much less than the sum of its parts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted May 30, 2023 Author Report Share Posted May 30, 2023 December 1980 1980-12-01 AJPW Jumbo Tsuruta vs Ricky Steamboat Nakajima Sports Center, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan ★★ Card Jumbo has certainly filled out as this year has progressed. Evolving from baby 70s Jumbo and now more closely resembling the Jumbo I’m more familiar with from the rest of the 80s. He certainly seemed more assured here, more comfortable in his skin compared to say his series of matches against Murdoch earlier in the year. Obviously he has classics in the 70s, and a lot of them to say the least, but I’m not sure it’s a hot take to say that he probably wasn’t driving those matches against Funk, Robinson, Brisco etc. Here it certainly felt like the impetus was on him to work more from on top and I felt he came across closer to “the man” than he’s been able to up to this point. However, this didn’t translate into a classic by any means. They ratcheted up the tempo pretty quickly actually, going for a rope running sequence within the first 5 minutes and Steamboat ended up crashing to the outside a couple times early on, but as would be a trend throughout, instead of building on this momentum they would always reign it back in and slow things down. The whole 30 minutes felt like the first opening 10 minutes of a match repeated three times over. It was only in the final stretch when it was clear they were reaching the time limit that they fully committed, which made it all the more frustrating as you knew they had it in them the whole time. My assessment was that this was a timid performance from both men, lacking the courage to really go for it. Steamboat allowed himself to be controlled for far too long in sections. When he did get some offense in, it was great, but he was cut off too easily and he waited too long between hope spots that the energy always dissipated in between. Jumbo clearly was game to sell when required, but again, he was far too eager to sit in a hold. This could have been so much better than what it was. 1980-12-01 AJPW Giant Baba vs Nick Bockwinkel Nakajima Sports Center, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan ★★ Card They didn’t drag this out too long but Bockwinkel was absolutely on point with his performance here. The dynamic was that he had to cut corners, skirt around the edges of the rules and take any advantage that he could to go for the win, but if Baba got some offense in, it might be curtains for Bock. He went for the jugular right at the bell, almost swarming Baba with clubbing blows, driving him into the corner, and then a series of nasty looking stomps that seemed to take Baba by surprise. He didn’t relent and tried to keep on the pressure, but Baba eventually made it to his feet, whipped Bock off the ropes and that big foot collided right with his face. Bock survived the pin but had to duck out of the ring to regroup. This dynamic continued throughout the following 5 minutes or so, Bockwinkel locking in a headscissors that bordered on a choke at times. Baba mounted a final comeback and a victory for him seemed likely, but Bock managed to lock on the figure four, not releasing even when they rolled to the floor outside. Eventually it seemed like he decided to take the double countout draw but dish out serious damage to Baba’s leg as the referee counted them both out with the figure four still applied. I can’t speak highly enough of Bockwinkel here. They weren’t out there to go 30+ and deliver a classic, we’re only at early stages in this tour and the tag tournament is only warming up, so playing the strategic game, Bockwinkel certainly seemed to get one over on Baba. From his psychology to his execution, he didn’t put a step wrong. The weakest part of the match was easily Baba’s late comeback. This was his moment to lay it in heavy on Bockwinkel and get some measure of revenge after the initial barrage he took, but his offense was light and clunky. They messed up a Russian Legsweep and his Atomic Drops looked terrible. Hasn’t been a strong year for Baba so far. Intrigued to see if this tag tournament redeems him somewhat. 1980-12-01 AJPW Abdullah The Butcher vs The Sheik Nakajima Sports Center, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan ★★★ Card This wasn’t a match, this was an attempted murder. Sheik came in with a drive-by chair attack, levelling Abby with shot after shot and within a minute or so Abby was already bleeding like a stuck pig. Just when it started feeling like it was becoming gratuitous for the sake of it, Abby finally made his comeback. Taking a spike to the head one too many times he dug deep into his reserves and managed to unleash a few jabs of his own. It’s not hyperbole to say that when Abby reached down to pull out the fork it felt like some superhero shit! Fighting fire with fire, two monsters going at it full tilt. Sheik was on the defensive the rest of the way, a brutal attack on his arm left him a similarly bloody mess. Mephisto ran down to double team Abby and the referee was forced to call it. Kamata showed up in support of his partner, but these two couldn’t be contained. The remainder was just arena brawling but we finished with Sheik turning tail and bailing and Abby standing tall in just a classic image, up in the stands by the hard camera, hands raised like some kind of religious figure, blood pouring down his face. Say what you will, but at its worst this was no less than a grand, bloody spectacle. 1980-12-01 AJPW The Funks (Dory Funk Jr. & Terry Funk) vs Billy Robinson & Les Thornton Real World Tag League 1980 Match Nakajima Sports Center, Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan Card This was missing half the runtime, joining in progress at the 12 minute mark. I doubt this is any kind of lost classic, but it heated up nicely by the end and I surely would have liked to have seen the missing section. I’m really glad to have Robinson on this tour as I’ve not been bowled over by his showing so far this year, but if the final few minutes of this is any indication then it’s going to be a blast following him through this tournament. Terry and Robinson got heated, exchanging vicious slaps on the apron. Terry as always knew how to milk these moments for all they were worth and the cat and mouse game around Terry and Dory tagging in was enjoyable. Dory throughout just seemed like Terry’s minder, trying to keep him out of too much trouble, instead of the former World’s Champion that he actually was. Robinson nearly took the match with a gorgeous backbreaker on Dory but in fact it was Dory who sealed things with a sneaky back body drop into a pin on Thornton that caught him unawares. 1980-12-05 AJPW Billy Robinson & Les Thornton vs Jim Brunzell & Nick Bockwinkel Real World Tag League 1980 Match Prefectural Civic Hall, Kochi, Japan ★★★ Card Well this was a long one. It went the total 45 minutes for a time limit draw. Had that real 1970s vibe to it. Bockwinkel and Robinson put on a clinic to start, really cycling through the mat routines and it was fantastic. Brunzell and Thornton however had shaky starts, whether in there together or matched up against the team captains. Brunzell specifically looked really hesitant, like a scared child at times, but I’ll concede he still had a killer dropkick. The majority of the first half was Bockwinkel and Robinson though and the match was the better for it. The underlings however grew into the match and had their own little neat squareoff, punctuated by Thornton getting Brunzell in a headlock and clubbing him full-on in the face, even giving him a bloody nose, which was probably the most brutal sequence of the match. It was lovely to see Robinson in full swing. I’m not sure whether a Robinson squash or sprint would actually be any good, and by his showing in Memphis it probably wouldn’t be, but when he’s allowed to slow burn and show off his skills he really is something. Like the Terrence Malick of wrestling. By the 30 minute mark the draw was looming, and while things never dragged, it did lose some steam in parts and we never got that final gear to push things over the edge. This is something that I’d describe as very good, but never great, despite some excellent performances from Bockwinkel and Robinson in particular. 1980-12-05 AJPW Abdullah The Butcher & Tor Kamata vs The Funks (Dory Funk Jr. & Terry Funk) Real World Tag League 1980 Match Prefectural Civic Hall, Kochi, Japan ★★ Card I’m tempted to say that this was actually good, but it suffers from too many flaws to reach that level. Having said that there are a couple excellent elements to this that made it so fun to watch at points. The aim of the game early for the Funks was keep-away from Abby on the outside. This mostly meant holding Kamata in a standing headlock, but at least Terry made this engaging, showing struggle when Kamata was edging his way to his corner and also kicking out at Abby to fend off any potential tag. When Dory was in however we just got a plain old headlock and his blank stare off into the distance. Finally they started actually dishing out some double team moves on Kamata to get some action going and Dory busted him open with a series of punches to the head (Dory is 2 for 2 making someone bleed with punches in this tournament. Were his punches the low key most deadly move in AJPW at this time or what?) Terry whiffed on a cross body and took a tumble to the outside which gave Kamata an opening and it wasn’t long before he finally made the tag to Abby. I should mention that Abby got what could almost be described as a face reaction when he was introduced, so I have a sense he wasn’t a straight up heel at this point, and the finish to his match vs the Sheik would play into that narrative as well. Face or no, Abby still loves his forks, and Terry took one right in the eye here for a nasty cut. Dory got juice too, brawling in the crowd with Kamata, but it was the Terry show from this point on, flailing about blinded from the attack and Abby sadistically just took him to pieces before nailing a series of elbow drops. In the end Kamata tagged in, found himself on the top rope for some godforsaken reason, Dory took him out with a chair shot before he rounded on Abby and into the crowd they went. Terry was done for after his beatdown from Abby and Kamata wasn’t moving a muscle either, so Joe was forced to count, and to 10 he did count and we finished with a tie. This stretch has been the most fun I’ve had watching Abby outside of the classic Funks tags in 78/79 but this time round he’s impressing me against different opponents. Dory was fine I guess, and Kamata I can take or leave (I’d rather leave to be honest), but Terry, as always, shone the brightest. The little additions he added in the earlier stages, which otherwise would have been a real bore, were excellent, and from taking that shot to the eye until they went off air he was pure magic. 1980-12-05 NJPW Andre the Giant vs Hulk Hogan City Gymnasium, Tokushima, Japan Card These two continued to have great chemistry with each other and I still am continually impressed with Hogan’s improvement over this year. This match only lasts 3 and a bit minutes though so a flash and then it’s gone as they both are counted out. A big hoss battle that was fun while it lasted though. 1980-12-05 NJPW Kantaro Hoshino & Riki Choshu vs Kengo Kimura & Tatsumi Fujinami MSG Tag League 1980 Match City Gymnasium, Tokushima, Japan ★★★ Card After watching several All Japan tags in a row it’s interesting to see how starkly different the New Japan style actually is. Whereas All Japan seemed to veer between wild brawls or old school mat work, New Japan has a crisper pace and a more rough, formless structure. This match could very well be described as workrate-y, and maybe it’s because I’m less familiar with 80s New Japan in general, but I do struggle at times to pluck the narrative threads out of their matches. This was eminently enjoyable though, but had the air of more style than substance, lacking any real character or soul. It was fun to see two Japanese teams face off, which feels like a novelty at this time, and despite my comments above, this didn’t feel like a disappointment. It was good, but never close to being great. The Fujinami/Kimura team felt a bit more established, with Kimura operating as the younger brother or kohai member, looking to Fujinami to lead the way, and they ended with the Lucha finish of hitting the big dive to clear the ring which allowed Fujinami to pin Hoshino with an O’Connor Roll. 1980-12-05 NJPW Antonio Inoki & Bob Backlund vs Tiger Jeet Singh & Umanosuke Ueda MSG Tag League 1980 Match City Gymnasium, Tokushima, Japan ★ Card Inoki and Backlund seem like some kind of dream combination, but in reality they feel like the oddest matched pair in the tournament. I understand the reasoning of having the top guys from NJPW and WWF together in a MSG titled series, but it just feels like Inoki should have been tagging with someone like Sakaguchi, because this thing with Backlund is completely off. Most of that could be because Backlund here put on a stinker. His bumping, which can be iffy at times, was at its worst. Lots of over exaggeration and just felt counter intuitive to what you’d expect based on the moves he took. Singh and Ueda were no better, their offense consisted of 90% chokes. At least Abby and the Sheik are posing some legitimate threat with their use of weapons, but this just gets old and boring real fast. Inoki was the only good thing here by a long shot and he was by no means fantastic either, but at least he showed tons of character and injected energy at the right times. He’s a star and he knows it, and more importantly he knows how to leverage that. He couldn’t save the finish though where he got caught up awkwardly with Ueda, who seemed set on being uncooperative, but Ueda ate an Enziguri followed by a suplex in the end, whether he liked it or not, he did the job. 1980-12-09 AJPW Ricky Steamboat vs The Sheik Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium, Osaka, Japan Card This was barely a match, they went straight into the brawling and it never let up from there. The Sheik did Sheik things, and was pretty bloodied within a minute or so, and his attacks with his hammer did the same for Steamboat (has it always been a hammer? For ages I’ve been thinking it was a spike but he must have just been holding it by the head). Sheik attacked the referee for some reason, which led to the no question DQ. I loved the referee’s sheer fear at being chased but otherwise this approach didn’t make much logical sense to me. Overall there was nothing Steamboat did “wrong” here, but he felt like a passenger, like a school kid in his first fight, like an afterthought. Later on he tried to reignite the brawling even though the energy in the building had completely disappeared by that point. So as far as brawls go, this was nothing special. 1980-12-09 AJPW Jim Brunzell & Nick Bockwinkel vs The Funks (Dory Funk Jr. & Terry Funk) Real World Tag League 1980 Match Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium, Osaka, Japan ★★★ Card This was almost a great match. If the finish hadn’t come out of nowhere and Dory had been more than a walking zombie it would have made the cut. Having said that, Bockwinkel was clearly in his element on this tour, delivering yet another excellent performance - fantastic offense, just snarling and calculating, plus his combination with Brunzell almost got the deal done as they were extremely successful in isolating Terry early on and then when given the opportunity later, they focused on his left leg and relentlessly assaulted it with a series of attacks including consecutive figure four attempts. It wasn’t to be though as we got the hot tag to Dory and he was able to use his veteran wiles to outmanoeuvre Brunzell and catch him in a pin. I wish they’d built up the hot tag more though and executed the finish a little cleaner, plus Joe was uber liberal with the tags, allowing Bock and Brunzell to switch numerous times sans tag which pulled me out somewhat. Can’t finish this without waxing poetic about Terry, once again. This was TEXTBOOK face in peril. The bumping, the selling, he didn’t give anything away at any point so every advantage Brunzell and Bockwinkel gained they had to earn at every step. There was one moment where Bockwinkel gave him a nice clubbing blow to the chest while he was up against the ropes and he did this crazy back bump over the ropes to the floor and it just wow’d me. It wasn’t particularly integral to the match and they didn’t dwell on it at all, but these are the little moments where he really separates himself from the rest. Every single match he does something like that which gets me out of my seat. 1980-12-09 AJPW Abdullah The Butcher & Tor Kamata vs Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta Real World Tag League 1980 Match Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium, Osaka, Japan ★★ Card Who would have thought that a match that was 90% standard wrestling fare would still finish with 3 of the 4 competitors bloodied? Well when Abdullah the Butcher is involved you can expect nothing less. The Abby face turn is fully sealed. I can’t pinpoint when it happened, but there have been signs in his most recent matches, but here it was irrefutable. When he and Baba eventually faced off we had a massive Butcher chant from the crowd, and once the mayhem had died down post match, it was Abby, not Baba or Jumbo, who was standing tall in the ring being cheered on by his adoring fans. Really a surreal sight to see. As for the match, Jumbo held his own, but once Baba was in Abby and Kamata really swarmed him and he hardly had a chance, save a humongous dropkick that nearly killed Kamata. But generally they had their way with him and it was Baba who was the first to bleed after a brief foray to the outside with Abby. But to his credit, Abby was probably the most successful in the ring as well, using his sharp jabs and elbow drops to great effect and really felt like the standout performer. As to be expected, this did break down by the end though, but this time it was the hometown team who went over the edge, battering Abby in the corner with a chair, and with Joe trying to break things up he was sent flying by Baba to the floor outside and ultimately got the the DQ. I think to set up the final match against the Funks, Jumbo & Baba needed to lose here so the result isn’t that surprising, and to a degree they leaned into the strong reaction Abby was receiving from the Osaka crowd and delivered a reasonable climax here. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted June 10, 2023 Author Report Share Posted June 10, 2023 1980-12-09 NJPW Hulk Hogan vs Dusty Rhodes Kyuden Memorial Gymnasium, Fukuoka, Japan ★★ Card Competent but forgettable is what this was. Other than some cat and mouse acting by Dusty around an early test of strength spot and a 5/10 on the fire scale bloody comeback from Dusty at the end there wasn’t much of note. Nothing bad, but nothing really good either. I’ve found Dusty matches in Japan always supremely interesting. I can’t help but get distracted during them thinking about whether the audience are “getting” the Dusty experience or whether something is getting lost in translation. Sure he gets some reactions here and there, but he just doesn’t seem like somebody they’d really warm up to. I feel the same with Backlund. Does anybody have a list of Dusty’s best matches in Japan? Are there any really good ones? Does he have any particularly memorable tours there? 1980-12-09 NJPW Bob Backlund vs Stan Hansen Kyuden Memorial Gymnasium, Fukuoka, Japan ★★ Card Maybe it was just in light of my expectations of a match between these two, but this felt pretty uninspired, all the way down to the finish. Hansen put on the pressure throughout and Backlund was forced underneath, the impetus placed on him to carve out some sort of resistance. The problem was that he didn’t push back on his end strongly enough and when he did it wasn’t that interesting. Hansen, as always, looked singularly credible, but this highlights a flaw, in that a match being interesting or compelling often relies on his opponent’s willingness or ability to rebuff him, and that’s not always the case. At this point I don’t think you could call him a broomstick worker. Bob had a mini comeback at the end, but as soon as he applied the Abdominal Stretch Hogan appeared, they laid the beatdown on him and left. So a DQ loss for Hansen but I guess the logic is they dealt some damage to him before their final tag league match coming up. The attack was maybe a couple clubbing blows to the back from Hogan and a stomp or two from Hansen and that was it. If they were trying to get across what I think they were then it fell way short from what I felt was satisfactory. Nowhere near as interesting as Hogan carrying Inoki back into the ring with a rope tied around his neck for sure. One thing is that it will be fascinating to see how Hansen and Backlund differ in how they worked this match compared to Hansen’s upcoming run in New York in ‘81. I’m fascinated to see if Hansen changes things up based on the environment. I’ve seen smatterings of him in Georgia and SECW this year, but all in studio settings so it’s been hard to judge his versatility on that front. 1980-12-09 NJPW Antonio Inoki vs Andre the Giant Kyuden Memorial Gymnasium, Fukuoka, Japan ★★ Card It was curious to see a man of Inoki’s standing come across like a mere child, as he did here when faced across from Andre. Obviously Andre’s been in countless matches against smaller men, but at least from what I remember, they’ve mostly been in throwaway squash matches. All his real singles challengers have been bigger - your Hansens, Hogans, Sakaguchis, so the size disparity isn’t so big. Inoki is the first serious opponent who’s been significantly smaller and it certainly was jarring to say the least. It worked in getting across Inoki’s, for lack of a better phrase, “fighting spirit”. Whenever he locked on a move or connected with a strike it felt so much bigger than it would normally. Andre’s offense here also looked tremendous for the most part. Major gripes would be Andre applying too many static holds in the first half of the match and a botched Enzuigiri that missed by several inches but Andre sold like death anyway. Probably not fair but it shows how one wrong move can somewhat ruin a match. This finished with the predictable countout, which they didn’t work towards in any uniquely interesting way, so that would be a demerit too. 1980-12-10 NJPW Andre The Giant & The Hangman vs Riki Choshu & Seiji Sakaguchi Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium, Osaka, Japan ★★ Card Choshu and Sakaguchi here were such a fantastic team. They were completely in sync when trying to topple the Giant (albeit often unsuccessfully) and, when given the chance, they swiftly tagged in and out to overwhelm the Hangman and gain a foothold in the match. Unfortunately the same can’t be said for Andre and Hangman, as I’m pretty sure the Hangman only existed as Andre’s partner so that the other team would have somebody to beat up on. Most of this was Andre in charge and the Japanese guys trying to figure out a way to solve this puzzle. I loved how eager Choshu was to get in and help his partner but how completely aware he was of how outmatched he was if he ever found himself alone with Andre. The best of their limited success was a series of high knee lifts that Sakaguchi put on Andre, and Andre sold them expertly, but they couldn’t maintain the pressure long enough and it probably was a foregone conclusion that Choshu would be the one to do the job, ultimately getting sat on for the pin. 1980-12-10 NJPW Antonio Inoki & Bob Backlund vs Hulk Hogan & Stan Hansen MSG Tag League 1980 Final Match Osaka Prefectural Gymnasium, Osaka, Japan ★★ Card This sadly was a disappointment for me. I was kind of expecting them to pull something fun out the bag for the tournament finale but this really felt lacklustre. These four couldn’t really point to any external factors either, the crowd were electric to start, so clearly they were engaged, and to his credit Inoki from the off was giving the requisite energy. My main issue I think is that it came across like both teams were really winging it. Neither had any clear defined plan of action or strategy and everything felt really haphazard. Backlund in Japan continues to bemuse and is beginning to irritate and Hogan was a peripheral figure, always merely following Hansen’s lead. Hansen displayed good viciousness, especially with those connective tissue moves like stomps or clubs, but he was never able to really put his stamp on this match at all. Inoki probably was the best of the bunch, again the energy he exhibited went a long way but he had another woof moment here, whiffing on a dropkick by a good bit, so 2 for 2 in consecutive matches with a botch like that, feels like it’s becoming a pattern. This had a pretty heated final 2-3 minutes, but the ending felt premature, they certainly needed at least a couple more minutes to really get things primed for a finish. But at least that stretch was kicked off by the Lariat of the year on Inoki, they timed the sequence perfectly so that it kind of snuck up on me and the connection was just perfection. As I mentioned, the finish though felt anticlimactic, with Inoki sneaking a backslide on Hogan, and it was amusing to see Backlund celebrating the win during the post match interview while Inoki just looked like he wanted Bob as far from him as possible. 1980-12-11 AJPW Billy Robinson vs Nick Bockwinkel Kuramae Kokugikan, Tokyo, Japan ★★★★ ¼ Card It’s been said before but this feels like one of the last hurrahs of the 1970s matwork style. They displayed glimpses of what they were capable of in the tag league matchup between their respective teams, but here the focus was solely on them and they surely delivered. Robinson and Bock were such a fantastic pairing and they worked seamlessly together to hit the mark on those matwork sports, blending counters and new moves into each other with absolute ease. Then, just at the halfway mark they brought things up a notch and we had distinct periods where each man was in control, able to press for the victory, only for the momentum to swing organically to their opponent. I’d seen this match before and this time I’ll admit I’m a smidge down on it in comparison. To nitpick, after a strong several minute spell where they’d really begun to show the exhausted selling, they decided to do a spot where Bockwinkel bridged out of a pin attempt and then transitioned into a test of strength. It just felt out of place for that to be plonked right in there and would have felt more natural much earlier in the bout. Seeing as they were both selling how tired they were it didn’t make sense to me that they would have logically gone that route, and if they did I’m doubtful it should have been successfully pulled off. Secondly, down the stretch I don’t think they were able to really get the crowd to buy into any of the pinfall attempts. They were probably pretty certain it was heading to a draw at that point, but there were a few bombs that perhaps could have caused them to bite a bit harder and they didn’t, so that level of drama and furor the best matches have is lacking here. It’s certainly one of the best matches of the year, but it may fall short of being the best match of the year. 1980-12-11 AJPW Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta vs The Funks (Dory Funk Jr. & Terry Funk) Kuramae Kokugikan, Tokyo, Japan ★★★★ ¼ Card The greatness in this lay with the dynamic between Jumbo and Terry. I’d probably take Terry’s performance overall, as he was what pulled it all together and many of the key moments relied on his involvement, but for the few highest moments this reached, it required Jumbo to deliver in kind, and that he did in spades. He hasn’t been this fired up in an age and the ferocity of his attacks on Terry, especially when breaking up pins, was extraordinary. They really teased these two squaring up excellently at several points, and I was getting worried they weren’t going to follow through and deliver on their promise, but after several sliding door moments they finally collided and it was great. Both Terry and Dory did a great job selling Baba’s big chops and he looked like he was having a blast out there, even nailing a spectacular dropkick on Dory at one point. In turn Baba did his best woozy selling for Terry’s jabs, which was a lot of fun. Dory had some moments, his offense can look grizzly when he wants it to, but it always feels like his designated role is to be “The Cooler”. When he needed to take control for his team, without fail, it was back to the side headlock. That was a bit deflating, and I sensed it was for the crowd too, as every time the energy built up in the arena it just - poof, disappeared. In addition to Dory’s penchant for a headlock, the finish left some to be desired. They brushed right up against the time limit but Baba and Jumbo succeeded with a count out victory. I’ve come to accept these as par the course now, but you still can’t excuse such sloppy execution here. It was very unclear what was happening and when Joe raised Jumbo’s hand everybody, Baba included, looked mystified. I kind of knew the finish, so I was expecting it, but I couldn’t see where Jumbo had slid in the ring before Terry, and certainly didn’t see how Joe had seen it. The call for the bell was slow and delayed as well, coming after he broke up a pin by the illegal men of Dory and Baba back in the ring rather than as soon as he seemed to have completed the countout. As a finish for the whole tournament and to decide the champion team, this felt like a strikeout to be honest. 1980-12-12 Houston Wrestling Harley Race (c) vs Gino Hernandez NWA World Heavyweight Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, Texas, USA ★★ Card Interesting dynamic with two nominal heels going at it. Both usually work light and from underneath, giving a lot to their babyface opponents, but here they had to shake that up a bit. Gino took the initiative in the first fall, jumping Race at the bell, and the nail in the coffin for Race was when he ate a Piledriver on the floor. Race took the same approach in the second, suplexing Gino onto the floor on the outside to solidly put himself in charge and I liked the mirroring of both men using a similar tactic to deal a punishing blow to their opponent. After Gino was posted his forehead opened up something fierce and it was only a matter of time before Race put him away, which he did by actually hitting his diving headbutt. The third was a see-saw affair, with a few moments where it seemed like Gino might have been able to pull it out, but an inadvertent suplex to Race which sent him over the top rope triggered an automatic DQ and the champion retained. This was pretty nice. Gino was far more aggressive than he usually is, he bled well when called for and they teased a potential title change pretty well, but I really wished that Race had been more assertive. Much like his matches against Baba, he seemed quite content to work at a methodical slow pace, but his offense didn’t have enough oomph and the match relied a lot on Gino bleeding and selling to generate the necessary drama. 1980-12-13 PNW Cowboy Lang, Jonathan Boyd & Lone Eagle vs Billy The Kid, Buddy Rose & Little Tokyo Six Man Tag Team Match Sports Arena, Portland, Oregon, USA ★★ Card This was a mixed-midget match which was essentially a vehicle for Rose to show ass and look a fool. It was actually Cowboy Lang who was the star here, Boyd taking a back foot and allowing his partner to shine. They worked it pretty well, pulling off several banana peel spots and keeping it interesting, but I get the feeling that if I watched this match run several times in different towns, I’d see a very similar match each time. In the end Rose was his usual slimy self and capitalised on Boyd letting his guard down and heading to the locker room too quickly and jumped Lang and nailed him with a backbreaker after the match. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted June 21, 2023 Author Report Share Posted June 21, 2023 1980-12-13 WWF Sgt. Slaughter vs Dominic DeNucci Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA ★★ Card I CAN’T HEAR YOOOOO! Slaughter’s mouth was running non-stop throughout this one. Jawing at DeNucci, the announcers and the crowd. This wasn’t a flashy affair (DeNucci’s KIP UP notwithstanding) but Slaughter’s character was present to full effect. DeNucci showed off some of his waning athleticism and sold Slaughter’s meat and potatoes offense pretty well. I’d call this decent for a throwaway 9 minute match at the start of the card. Slaughter unsurprisingly picked up the win, getting his knees up in the corner to block a charging DeNucci then grabbing the win following a characteristically fast count from Dick Woehrle. 1980-12-13 WWF Tony Atlas vs Larry Zbyszko Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA ★★ Card Presumably this came about from the aftermath of Zbyszko’s match against Backlund where he got into it with Atlas who was the special referee for the bout. It was announced as the first of two main events of the evening and was a “Special Grudge Match”. Larry took the stalling at the beginning to a whole new level. I’m not sure we got an initial lock up until well past the 5 minute mark. Maybe it went a bit too far here but it always feels in line with his character and never is stalling for stallings sake. Once things got going I thought this was a very good and understated Zbyszko performance. Doing all the little things, executing well, good timing, but nothing too big, flashy or memorable really. Honestly what stood out was Atlas, and not in a good way. He’s grown on me over the year, and he’s certainly improved, but I have to say this felt like a regression all the way back to January. If ever there was a performance that screamed “Playing wrestler”, this was it. I can’t get the image of a 4 year old play fighting out of my head when Atlas works the way he did in this match. We finished with the, by now, standard referee trying to break things up in the corner and getting shoved to the mat DQ finish, this time for both men, which was pretty sad. But overall, the crowd at this show was absolutely electric. Maybe it’s because it was at the Spectrum, using the usual arena crew who are used to filming other sporting and musical events, but both here and at MSG we get the best crowd reaction shots and this arena every time becomes a character unto itself. As Larry walked in there was a guy who looked like Louis C.K. was auditioning for Joe Pesci’s role in Home Alone. He pushed his way to the barrier just so he could give Larry the finger up close and personal. There were multiple in-ring shots where you could see fans in the seats air punching along with the action in the ring. I’m just not sure I’ve seen fans so heavily involved in what was actually happening. Really good stuff. 1980-12-13 WWF Rick Martel & Tony Garea (c) vs The Wild Samoans (Afa & Sika) WWF Tag Team Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA ★★★ Card Maybe Martel’s best performance of the year. Certainly the best Samoans match of the year by a mile. They had shed some of the “impervious” aspects of their gimmick which allowed them to show a bit more vulnerability and avoided what was a major issue with their matches, which is that they were incredibly DRY. The Samoans jumped the champions to start and pummelled Martel in particular. He took some brutal attacks to his back, and generally this style of offense suited the Samoans, just clubbing and headbutting Martel in the back repeatedly. The referee tried his best to establish some order but the Samoans wouldn’t relent so within the first 30 seconds they were DQd and the champions were 1-0 up in a flash. Martel didn’t look in good shape to start the second fall but he endured long enough to get the tag to Garea. It was from here that we saw the good stuff from the champions. In terms of booking I’m sure the idea was to give them a strong win here to firmly establish them as the champs, make it clear that winning against the Samoans in the first place wasn’t a fluke, and it can’t be long now before the Samoans run in New York was up. Either way, Martel and Garea worked like a finely tuned machine, in and out, quick tags, and worked relentlessly on the leg. Martel in particular had some hellaciously kinetic elbow drops on the knee and I was wondering where on earth a Samoan leveller was going to come from. I shouldn’t have bothered as it wasn’t forthcoming and in fact it seemed like Martel actually secured the fall a few times, confusing both commentary and myself, before an eventual Samoan collision allowed him to seal the deal. Bit of a messy finish, but a pretty fun match all round up until that point. 1980-12-13 WWF Pedro Morales (c) vs Ernie Ladd WWF Intercontinental Title Match Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA ★★ Card This might be the first Ernie Ladd match I’ve ever seen and he is certainly somebody I need to see more of no doubt. Wikipedia lists his height at 6’9”, which seems preposterous. I’m not sure if he went to the Bill Walton school of height deflation, but he looks several inches taller than that. As a giant though he stands out specifically for just looking like a ridiculously tall but regularly proportioned man. He’s pretty smooth with his movements and from what he showed here, he had the charisma and “soft skills” to compliment his physical tools. Pedro was essentially a crash dummy here who occasionally threw a few left hands. The crowd seemed a little burnt out as the energy wasn’t there from the earlier matches. Perhaps Pedro just wasn’t as over in Philly as he was in New York, maybe time will tell on that one. I liked Ladd’s schtick throughout but this went only 9 minutes and we got yet another DQ finish, this time with Ladd refusing to break a choke using the ropes. This is a booking finish I just can’t comprehend. If you’re wrestling for a title, why on earth would you allow yourself to get DQ’d so easily? Just makes no sense. 1980-12-13 WWF Bruno Sammartino vs Ken Patera Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA ★★ Card This was essentially an extended squash. Patera jumped Bruno at the jump but Bruno took control in short order and from then Patera never had a chance. He took a beating, took a bump to the outside, injured the leg, then Bruno went at it relentlessly to the point that Dck Woehrle had to call it. Patera’s selling of the leg in those final few minutes was superb and I loved how matter of factly Bruno just left to the locker room after the decision was made, job done, nothing more to see here, what did you expect? Bit too short and too one sided to be anything special though. 1980-12-16 AJW Jackie Sato vs Rimi Yokota Fuji TV Cup WWWA World Single Title Tournament Final Match Ota City Gymnasium, Ota, Tokyo, Japan ★★★★ ¼ For Yokota, this felt like a step up for me. She’d shown glimpses, and I know she has a pretty strong rep for this year, but there were certainly a few other Joshi candidates who stood out more over the year. Whether that’s just a footage issue, I don’t know. At least here, in a big singles setting, she delivered the goods and certainly pulled her weight. The first moments had her tentatively going for some low kicks, getting way down onto the mat, but positioning herself so that she could retreat quickly enough if required. This displayed her wariness at taking it to Sato right from the off, respecting the senior woman. It didn’t take long though before she did manage to gain control and this stretch, with Yokota working over Jackie, was my least favourite bit of the match. Yokota’s work was good. She displayed viciousness, raking Jackie’s hands along the ropes, but hand work in general doesn’t hit home for me like some other body part specific offense does, but more importantly, I felt like Jackie gave her this portion way too easily. She was just taking the offense, with no resistance or fighting back and Yokota wasn’t ever forced to double down to consolidate her control. I shouldn’t have worried though because from the halfway point onwards this was pure fire. Jackie managed to find some footing in the match and mounted some offense of her own. I might be at the point where I think Jackie may have the broadest and best looking offensive arsenal in all of wrestling in 1980. It wasn’t present all year round, but the last few months I think she stepped up a gear and just the sheer amount of moves she had in her bag is unbelievable, capped off by the ludicrous suplex into a backbreaker. But on top of that pure insanity, she delivered at least 2 or 3 other moves here that would be candidates for moves of the year. Then when Yokota managed to nail her with some comeback moves, Jackie’s subtle selling, not going overboard, but showing off that vulnerability, did the business. They finished the first “section” of the match with a double countout. Desperately grappling on the outside and then, with the count reaching 20, Yokota clung onto Jackie to stop her getting back into the ring. Seeing that this was a tournament final, things couldn’t finish on a double countout, so we got an extra 5 minutes and the intensity was up to 11 right from the jump. Both women did a fantastic job of getting across the urgency. They had a small window to secure victory and they were going to pull out all the stops. The kitchen sink was all that was left by the end, and the bell rang with Yokota locked in a Boston Crab, screaming and clawing for the ropes, but refusing to give. Things finished on yet another draw, but this time the “judge” made the call and Jackie took the honours. However, Yokota had stuck with her bell to bell, she had arrived and moving into 1981 it looks like a new star is ascending for sure. 1980-12-17 Joint Promotions Alan Dennison vs Alan Kilby Anniversary Cup Final Match Leicester, Leicestershire, UK ★★ Earlier on the card Kilby was forced to face off against Chris Adams once again to decide who would be challenging Dennison in the final. That semi final was carried out in a throwdown format, the first to put his opponent on his back 10 times would be the winner. We’ve seen these before in WoS but this wasn’t as fast and frenetic as the ones that came before, perhaps because it didn’t come at the end of a long drawn match, but instead both men were fresh to start. While it was relatively cagey, it was interesting to see how different Kilby was in that match compared to this Final against Dennison, as the throwdown was still worked pretty quickly and this final match was what I would describe as “leisurely”. Probably unsurprising considering that Dennison was involved, but we didn’t get more than 20 seconds in before we got some strong man spots from him. I feel like a broken record at this point so I won’t labour over it, but let’s just say it wasn’t my favourite stuff. There wasn’t anything offensive here, but nothing inspired either. There was a friendly competitive edge displayed throughout, with both men trying to gain an edge and catch their opponent out, but never going over the line and breaking the rules out right. Kilby managed to take it in the final round after a flash pin when it looked like he was likely to submit a second time to Dennison. 1980-12-27 PNW Buddy Rose (c) vs Jay Youngblood NWA Pacific Northwest Heavyweight Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Sports Arena, Portland, Oregon, USA ★★ Card Buddy was back in “Playboy” mode, reverting to his bleached blonde look. Both guys focused their offense around using the arm. First Rose but then Youngblood to far greater effect in the second fall. Youngblood caught Rose with an O’Connor Roll to get the first fall and then he was up against the TV time limit to seal the deal and win the belt. Youngblood was all over Rose for essentially the whole second fall and Rose had to resort to serious stalling at the death to cling on. Eventually the bell rang, and due to not securing that second fall, Youngblood was unable to win the belt, but Sandy Barr wasn’t having any of Rose’s shenanigans and he decided to hold up the belt so we’re gonna do this all over again next Saturday. I think I would have liked more from Youngblood here. It was a pretty rudimentary performance from him. He hit the spots he needed to but he didn’t exude much character and he certainly lacked the exuberance that I’ve seen from him before. He feels like the kind of guy who has his peaks and valleys. He’s never bad but he can fade into the background at times. Rose however was really good here. He was feeling himself, after going back to blonde look and you could sense his confidence early on. Then he transitioned into some great prolonged selling and he avoided any of the big “bouncy” bumps which I feel are the weakest part of his work. Overall, due to the booking, this was never destined to be a true banger, but it definitely piqued my interest for the rematch and they avoided the iffy finish being any kind of turn off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted June 25, 2023 Author Report Share Posted June 25, 2023 1980-12-29 WWF Bob Backlund (c) vs. Killer Khan WWF Heavyweight Title Match Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York, USA ★★ Card This ended up feeling like a generic Backlund title defence in the end, but it started off with fireworks. Khan’s TV appearances up until this point have been exclusively squash matches, and pretty terrible ones at that. Here he dialled up the intensity so that those exaggerated screeches he delivered on his chops came across as threatening instead of goofy. Things calmed down a bit as Khan settled into his nerve hold routine and they built to Bob’s comeback. I still consistently feel like Backlund sells being totally out of it far too early in his matches, which makes his comeback just feel “less”. If I don’t actually feel like he’s taken a lot of punishment then a) why does he seem so fucked up and b) why is it impressive that he managed to mount a comeback in the first place. He did manage a pretty amazing 2.9 kickout, bucking the trend of usually kicking out at 1. This came off a top rope knee drop from Khan which had Vince calling the match then and there. The crowd were pretty hot for this throughout but I was surprised by how little reaction that kick out actually received. Pushing for the final blow Khan gave Backlund an opening which he happily took, hitting him with a German Suplex and picking up the win. The finish didn’t do much for me as I think Backlund should have been required to have dished out a bit more to put his monster foe away but hey ho we move on. The crowd erupted and were happy to cheer their hero in his victory. 1980-12-29 WWF Rick Martel & Tony Garea (c) vs. The Moondogs (Moondog King & Moondog Rex) WWF Tag Team Title Match Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York, USA ★★ Card What early on felt like it would be a straight up squash for the champions ended up following a pretty tight match structure. The shine at the beginning went on for a while though. The Moondogs were unbeaten on TV up until this point, easily dispatching the jobber teams they’d been up against, but here the Martel and Garea tandem were making mincemeat out of them, and as is often the case, the heel team looked incredibly foolish. I’m not the greatest fan of shine segments, especially long ones, unless the face team does something really nifty, but I’ll give Martel props here as his offense hasn’t looked this crisp before. Finally we got a switch up and the Moondogs made some headway into the match. Moondog King got in and managed a couple audible chops on Martel that drew gasps from the MSG crowd. From there they were able to isolate Martel and he did a great job of being in peril. A quick shout out to Moondog Rex though, after getting his leg worked over pretty heavily during the shine he displayed some very subtle limping after they had taken control that I really appreciated and added a certain level of verisimilitude that you don’t always see.. The Moondogs on offense were decent, nothing too flashy, which was to be expected. In fact they remind me a lot of the Sheepherders, who if they had been brought into WWF at this time would occupy the exact spot on the roster that the Moondogs did here. It wasn’t long though before Garea managed to finally get himself into the action and both he and Martel looked to put the Moondogs away. However, with Garea locking on an Abdominal Stretch, he was bonked with one of the Moondog’s bones, busted open and that was that, the referee was forced to DQ the Moondogs. Not the best finish, but they managed to avoid a clear defeat, drew blood on their opponent and the aftermath was a bit wild, so it didn’t feel like a complete letdown, but surely there’s a better way to navigate this kind of booking decision than the logic of, “Oh we’re about to lose, okay let’s just get blatantly disqualified instead”. 1980-12-29 WWF Ken Patera vs. Pat Patterson Madison Square Garden, New York City, New York, USA ★★ Card Nice start and a good final few minutes but missing any significant middle portion and had a weak as shit finish. I wish we’d gotten more from Patterson this year, as he looked really good here when he was on offense. He just displays so much charisma and character at all times, making him extremely watchable. After a hot start where he took it right to Patera, he ended up getting dumped to the outside and I think he spent a tad too long selling there as it took the heat out of the match. Like my complaints during some of Backlund’s matches, within the WWF in general it feels like they jump from one end of the extreme to the other on the selling scale, and despite the match having been going for only 5-10 minutes, they start selling like they’ve been going at it for 30+ minutes. Just feels a bit jarring to me. Patterson had a fun comeback though but that was cut short and Patera ended up being disqualified while he repeatedly clubbed Patterson in the chest while they were both in the ropes. The finish kind of just came out of nowhere and it certainly didn’t seem to elevate either man, so really disappointing on that front. 1980-12-30 Joint Promotions The Royal Brothers (Bert Royal & Vic Faulkner) vs Sid Cooper & John Wilkie Burnley, Lancashire, United Kingdom ★★ The ring for this show was absolutely tiny, it was a wonder they managed to pull off a tag team match in it at all. I came into this extremely high on Faulkner. He has only appeared twice so far in ‘80, but both times he knocked it out of the park. Here though he was merely serviceable - instead this time the match was driven by the heels, and they were all too happy to play the roles of the bumbling idiots, the deciding fall even coming on an unforced error from Sid Cooper as he tripped himself up re-entering through the ropes. This was pretty much as pantomime as wrestling can be. Overall pretty fun and solidly in the comedy match grouping, but it lacked the requisite pacing and slick execution needed to elevate a comedy match to that higher level. 1980-12-30 Joint Promotions Mark Rocco vs Marty Jones Burnley, Lancashire, United Kingdom Damn I wish they showed the full thing. We entered in the 4th round, which was quickly won by Jones to apparently level things up, so essentially we only have the final two rounds, but what a fantastic two rounds they were. I haven’t been too impressed by Marty Jones from what I’ve seen so far. He has felt competent, if a bit stale, in the footage from this year, but he gave a great performance here as a foil to Rocco’s usual antics. Rocco always pushes the boundaries, and this match was no different, but this time Jones reached the point where he rose to the challenge and outright broke the rules in a way that felt earned and justifiable, culminating in a tombstone piledriver followed by an illegal senton bomb from the top rope that literally squashed Rocco into the mat and was absolutely glorious. The urgency from Jones to secure the win in that final fall and gain some measure of revenge for losing a tournament final the previous year was self-evident and Rocco was doing his damndest to stall for time. They even had to contend with a broken board beneath the ring which clearly forced them to improvise in the final moments. When the bell sounded however neither man had managed to deal the finishing blow so Jones would be forced to try again another day. The perfect example of when booking for delayed gratification feels invigorating rather than deflating for the viewer in my opinion. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted July 6, 2023 Author Report Share Posted July 6, 2023 Q4 Recap October - December WWF As we moved into the twilight of the year WWF’s television product received a makeover of sorts, out went Bruno and in came Patterson and the gold blazers were replaced with less eye-watering blue ones. Patterson probably was an upgrade on Bruno, which wasn’t that hard, but he wasn’t much of an upgrade. Considering how long their relationship continued it’s a bit strange how little chemistry they have in the booth together and it certainly feels like Patterson is trying to find his footing as the year closes. Too often during a TV match he would start rambling about something completely unrelated or inconsequential and he lacked the charisma or humour you would expect from a worker of his calibre. At the same time we had a strong exodus of talent working tours in New Japan, first Hogan, but eventually Backlund, Hansen and Andre were also gone to take part in the tag league. On the Spectrum and MSG shows this opened up more spaces for Patera, Morales, Bruno, Zbyszko and the tag teams to have more prominent positions on the card, but new talent was being brought in to eat up TV time as well. Hansen, before heading back to Japan briefly, was presented very strongly on TV, as was Killer Khan and Sgt, Slaughter, the latter of which separated himself from the pack due to his penchant for locking on the Cobra Clutch on each of his victims. We all know where this is heading but it hasn’t quite become an open challenge yet, but he was mowing through the undercard for months and only Rick McGraw was able to scuttle away after defeat and avoid suffering its effects. The biggest shift during this period would be in the tag division where the Samoans were memorably dethroned by Martel and Garea, with Martel finally getting some limelight after his lacklustre start in the company. They pretty decisively won their rematch versus the Samoans, got decisive wins on TV and were booked strong against newcomers The Moondogs in their MSG debut. The Moondogs themselves were brought in by Albano, and it felt a little transparent that they were merely replacements for the outgoing Samoans. Memphis It felt like Memphis was doing pretty good for itself in October and November. They had a top heel in Tommy Rich who I thought was on a hell of a run, each week providing entertainment in the ring or doing guest commentary. He eventually joined Jimmy Hart’s stable along with Bobby Eaton providing a strong cohort on the heel side of things. I guess the problem lay in the fact there were no prominent faces for him to face. Valiant lost the Southern title to Rich in a pretty innocuous TV match that lasted barely a minute and it seemed like he had lost some of his lustre as the year had progressed. Dundee should have been a good candidate but for reasons unknown he was still tagging with Yamamoto primarily. With Lawler’s return imminent I get the sense that they wanted a reshuffle and reshuffle they did, culminating, or rather kicking off, on the November 11th episode of Championship Wrestling. This almost certainly was the single best episode of television that anybody produced all year. And if it wasn’t the best, it was the most impactful. We had a battle royale to determine the new TV champion and Tommy Rich’s mother was going to make an appearance. In the battle royale, Valiant looked to be the favourite, but was ultimately defeated by Koko Ware. Valiant was none too pleased and the shiny new TV Eddie Marlin tried to present to Ware ended up being floor decoration and the first domino of the episode fell. We finally got the segment I have in my listings down as merely “Tommy Rich’s Mother”, but I’ve been waiting all year for this, and it didn’t disappoint. Despite being a blowhard heel, it seems like there’s some sadness beneath the surface for little old Tommy. His mother gave a killer interview to Lance Russell outlining Rich’s initial departure from Memphis to pastures new, his achievements in Georgia and his excitement to return home as a star, only to feel, in his heart, that he wasn’t being accepted as such. This was the reason why he acted the way he did. Not enough to sway the audience on its own, but it planted seeds for what was to come next. Eventually Valiant came from the back, he’d heard enough, and he started berating the old woman before pushing her to the ground. That was all it took and Rich was out there to defend his mother, Tojo Yamamoto appeared out of nowhere and for reasons that are still unclear to me, sided with Valiant and began beating the hell out of Rich, leaving him a bloody mess on the floor. Finally Jimmy Hart and Bobby Eaton came from the back but it was too late, Rich knew who he could, and more specifically couldn’t, rely on and we had the setup for a Rich & Dundee tag team (due to Yamamoto’s strange alliance with Valiant) which they leant on heavily during the next few weeks. Overall, they did manage to reinvigorate Valiant but it did feel like they neutered Rich somewhat. As a face I think he’s excellent, but he wasn’t getting the same reactions from the crowd and I don’t think they were prepared to really get behind him. With Lawler waiting in the wings as well he was never going to be anything but second best anyway. Speaking of Lawler, another result from this reshuffle was pulling Rich out of Hart’s stable and forcing him to find another main man to act as a shield. Lawler was pissed at how Hart treated him after he broke his leg and he wants revenge. Hart in return conjured up the Dream Machine, a fast mouthed, burley guy who wears a pink condom on his head. The conclusion for this occurs in ‘81, but I think this stretch for Jimmy Hart is his strongest. When he had Rich and Eaton he had his best stable since Lawler went down initially and even after Rich left his character felt like it had some real narrative momentum. Georgia Georgia was a weird one. In some ways they had some excellent things going on, but this wasn’t their strongest stretch and they were almost kneecapping themselves with some of their decisions. Tony Atlas finally won the Georgia Title, but to confirm my suspicions that they didn’t care about this title at all, they introduced a National Title at the same time which Jack Brisco initially held. So a sucker punch to Atlas. However the National Title was quickly hoovered up by somebody named the Mongolian Stomper. If anybody’s seen more of him then maybe they would disagree, but this leads me to believe that they cared as much about the new National Title as they did about the Georgia Title to be honest. Is everybody just waiting around until Race comes to town and they can challenge him for the World’s Title? The most prominent TV segment and a mainstay on the arena loop was Saito’s $5k challenge. I honestly don’t know how they strung this angle along so long considering how many times Saito seemed to actually lose. But he managed to go from feuding with Steve Keirn to feuding with both Armstrongs and finally to Mr. Wrestling II. The story was the same each time and lost any juice it initially had pretty early on. But I guess it must have been drawing if they continued to run with it, but I was checked out of this. Georgia had the Freebirds on the roster and decided to lump them with Robert Fuller and Stanley Frazier, of WWF Uncle Elmer fame. Okay, initially they were involved with Sullivan and Idol, which delivered some excellent TV segments, but I can’t see how a Fuller and Frazier feud does anything for anybody. By the week, the Freebirds look weaker and weaker. Yes, they are presented as cowardly heels to an extent, but I question whether that’s the correct path when you have Terry Gordy and Buddy Roberts in the team. I just don’t buy it and don’t understand it beyond the fact it works best for Hayes. Speaking of Sullivan, he may have been the absolute best thing on Georgia TV, which was a surprise to me. He began things teaming with Idol, but it always felt like he was the lesser of that team. Sullivan on his own feels a bit too try hard. I mentioned that this team and the feud with the Freebirds delivered some great TV and Sullivan was the main driving force behind that. He was the one who pushed to challenge the Freebirds in the first place. He was the one who tricked them into signing a contract to face him and hiding Idol’s role as guest referee in the fine print, it was he who wouldn’t believe that Idol would stand him up as his tag partner despite no-showing an entire show. Sullivan was on a roll to say the least. He followed this up after his team with Idol kind of dissolved after the big tag tournament in November by unexpectedly turning heel on his friend Steve Keirn during a TV title match. This definitely had Bruno/Larry vibes in the way they worked the match and Sullivan ended up with the title due to underhanded tactics. Every time we’d see Sullivan after this he would look sleazier and sleazier - he grew out his hair and beard, eventually having mini-dreadlocks jutting out of his mane and he continued to try every trick in the book to retain his new title. What I loved about this period from him is that he never went full heel. In his mind he was still a face. He was still loved. What happened in the ring was just business and his former friends, the Steve Keirns and the Tony Atlas’ were just ignorant and jealous and didn’t understand the fans properly. As he so eloquently said to Atlas, “Even your own people know I’ve got more soul than you”. Just unbridled delusion. Portland Jay Youngblood returned to Portland with revenge on his mind for Rose breaking his arm a couple years back. He quickly established a tag team with Joe Lightfoot and began a series against the current tag champions, Fidel Cortex and Rip Oliver. I think they did a fantastic job of establishing Youngblood to any of the audience who weren’t already familiar with him, and perhaps even more credit should go to him actually for his performances early on as he immediately stood out from the rest of the existing roster. Rose’s Army began creaking as soon as Youngblood arrived, with Fidel taking the brunt of the blame for their latest poor performances. They held back on pulling the trigger far longer than I expected, but it was inevitable that, much like with the Sheepherders, Rose was going to turn on Cortez and kick him from the group. Initially it was a demotion, with Rose filling his space in the team with Oliver (which allowed him to face Youngblood more regularly than anything else), but eventually during a big 8 man tag, Cortez was at fault for the loss and they savagely beat him to confirm his departure. By mid November it finally felt like they were building some momentum for the first time since Martel and Piper’s departures and Youngblood was being solidly positioned as a solid, legitimate challenger for Rose heading into the New Year and 1981. It’s not clear moving forwards how much we’ll see of the lower card, but Buzz Sawyer being in the roster was an interesting development, and from the teeny-tiny amount we saw he looked pretty good. The Destroyer however was a bit bland as a heel and Youngblood’s rapid ascension highlighted the failings of Jonathan Boyd, and specifically how he didn’t capitalise on the face vacuum during September and October. New Japan They finally pivoted from the Inoki/Hansen pairing, but that meant that Inoki was forced to have main event matches with an improving but young Hogan, a very green looking Orndorff and a terrible Tiger Jeet Singh. Hansen himself was limited to just one singles match against Backlund (probably in preparation for his upcoming WWF run) that was fine but still perhaps was a tad disappointing. Kengo Kimura, coming off his NWA International Junior Heavyweight Title defence against Fujinami at the end of September, followed up with another serviceable showing against Chavo Guerrero before settling into a pretty decent tag team with Fujinami for their tag league to finish the year. This was an extremely strong period for him after being very much on the periphery for most of the year. Speaking of the tag league, the most interesting teams were Fujinami/Kimura and Hoshino/Choshu. Outside of this, Hansen/Hogan was much better on paper than in reality and I had my reservations from the start for the Inoki/Backlund pairing that bore fruit when watching the actual footage. I can’t shake the image of their post-match celebration with Backlund jumping around like an idiot and Inoki appearing to want nothing to do with him. It didn’t help that the final match of the tournament was really underwhelming either. Overall: This was probably NJs worst stretch of the year. The tag league suffered from a lack of footage if compared directly to All Japan’s tag league that occurred at the exact same time, but they also had some interesting events that made tape but also supremely failed to match the hype. All Japan He peaked throughout this period, reaching a sort of brawling zenith. Having a crazy good match against Terry Funk maybe isn’t anything to brag about, but he pulled out some fantastic performances against the likes of The Sheik as well. It was unfortunate for him though that during the tag league he was lumped with Tor Kamata. At least Kamata was a very willing bleeder, I’ll give him that. Terry was part of one of the main teams of the tournament (probably goes without saying that it was with his brother Dory) giving him the exposure required to put in a series of killer performances. The matches themselves may not have always been excellent, but Terry always seemed to deliver. The tag league final itself, while not necessarily an all-time classic, certainly was worthy of being the finale of the tournament (strange finish aside), and we finally saw something gritty out of Jumbo as well. Unlike New Japan’s tag league with a few uninspired pairings, in All Japan we had the old mainstays (Baba/Jumbo & Funks), flagship talent flanked by an apprentice (Bockwinkel/Brunzell & Robinson/Thornton) and the odd pairing of a couple of blue chippers (Steamboat/Slater). The classic Abby and Sheik pairing was no more, unfortunately, and while Abby and Kamata had their moments Sheik/Mephisto were literally just cannon fodder and might as well not have been there. I’m not crazy about Sheik, but Mephisto certainly was the worst single participant in either NJ or AJPW’s tag leagues. All Japan Women Footage, as always, was pretty sparse but we did manage to see glimpses of future stars (Dump and Lioness Asuka in rookie matchups). Really though this period was about Jackie Sato solidifying her position as the top star after a patchy up and down year in my opinion, and Yokota establishing herself as next in line with her excellent match with Sato in December. World of Sport We got a tournament to celebrate 25 years of wrestling on ITV. It delivered some nifty matches but unfortunately was hindered by some iffy booking. Grey was “injured’ and we barely saw any of him, Breaks was funnelled into Dennison yet again and before the match took place he walked out, and the final ended up being Dennison, my opinion of him is well documented at this point, and Alan Kilby, who is serviceable but not outstanding in any respect. It just felt like a missed opportunity to be honest, with so many exciting and deserving wrestlers waiting in the wings. There were two Jon Cortez matches that made it to TV against Keith Haward around this time. While I feel like Cortez made a firm step forwards in Q4 compared to his showings earlier in the year, I shouldn’t be too quick to gloss over Haward, who with his amateur background showed some elite tier technical skills and definitely carried his weight, but it was at the edges that Cortez really shone, delivering some of the most nuanced performances I’ve seen so far in this project. Finally, Dynamite Kid made a rare appearance back in his home country, having a smashing match against Mark Rocco. Chris Adams started making waves, getting all the way to the semi finals of the aforementioned challenge cup and displaying some of the more unique offense in the whole world, even if he was lacking in other areas. Finally Sammy Lee (otherwise known as Tiger Mask/Satoru Sayama) made his debut to a great reception in the UK, wowing audiences with his flashy moves. Didn’t translate into excellent matches however but a fun time nonetheless. Others IWE feels like they're on a downward trend. We got the most consistent stretch of footage from them but without any uptick in match quality. They brought in John Quinn, Ron Bass, Alexis Smirnoff and Charlie Fulton (working under a hood as The USSR) to work against Risher Kimura, but none of these ever ended up being captivating. The strong point of the promotion has always been Hamaguchi and Inoue as tag champions, but they ended up in an endless series of matches against Carlos Plata and El Doberman. The first bout had its moments, but that’s where the series peaked and it was a downward slide from then on as the flaws in the Luchadores’ work began to appear and the Japanese guys themselves looked awkward trying to work in Lucha type spots they were unfamiliar with. Houston was never terrible, but they literally did nothing that I feel was worth remembering. The concept of a Dusty Rhodes/Ivan Koloff Coffin match piqued my interest, but the match was average at best. The whole promotion continued to be the Gino Hernandez show, pitted against a wide variety of opponents, but the matches never elevated above just decent. And we did get a pretty eclectic bunch of opponents for him in Mark Lewin, Dusty Rhodes, Les Thornton and Harley Race. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted July 10, 2023 Author Report Share Posted July 10, 2023 I'm not going to lie, part of my reason to embark on this journey was to be able to do a post like this and, at least for my own sanity, provide a comprehensive summary of the year as a whole. When I first found this board, the yearbooks and the GWE discussion, are what peaked my interest the most and @PeteF3's yearbook wrap up posts are still some of my favourite on the entire board. So here I'll be aggressively ripping him off and providing an end of the year wrap up following the same WON award template. For anybody who hasn't read those posts I'm referring to here's the one from 1990, but they are all fantastic and are well worth your time. Without further ado, onto the awards! 1980 End of Year Awards Wrestler of the Year Taking into account in-ring impact but also promotional value. Original Winner: Harley Race 1. Terry Funk 2. Buddy Rose 3. Antonio Inoki/Tatsumi Fujinami I find it hard to separate the two from New Japan, as while Fujinami carried the junior division on his back, delivering an array of great matches against a slew of different guys, Inoki was the face of the company, was still getting monster reactions from the crowd, and managed to have a pretty strong (not quite classic) series against Hansen that ran the majority of the year. No promotion relied so heavily on a single performer than Portland did on Rose. Everything revolved around him. They had other hot acts, specifically Martel and Piper, but their actions always were guided by what Rose and his army were doing. All the while it felt like they were drawing big houses, at least to the Sports Arena. Funk feels like a pretty uncontentious pick here for #1. I thought he was unparalleled in the ring, but he was also the hottest babyface in All Japan, and was getting obscenely strong crowd reactions right in the middle of matches against the likes of both Jumbo and Baba. Most Outstanding Original Winner: N/A 1. Terry Funk 2. Tatsumi Fujinami 3. Larry Zbyszko I’m quite set on my top three and I think there’s a slight gulf before we reach the next tier of wrestlers. Figuring out a top ten would be extremely hard, so I threw my hands in the air in exasperation and gave up trying. These were the three who I never really felt had a bad showing. Not all of their matches were good even (Zbyszko against Atlas was disappointing, I hated Fujinami vs Tony Rocco, and Terry against Baba or Jumbo in singles should have been better than they were) but never felt like the problem lay with them or that they had an off night. Terry in particular I feel could put this individual year up against the great years in wrestling, just a total tour de force from start to finish and would be a cornerstone of any GWE candidacy for him, and from what I’ve seen floating around, this year IS Zbyszko’s key GWE selling point. I’ll just say it lived up to the hype. The major feather in each guy’s hat would be Terry’s rise to top babyface as a foreigner, within a Japanese promotion, and backing that fan support with the most electrifying performances all year. For Fujinami, it was carrying an entire division on his back, running through the gamut of challengers and getting good matches out of (most) of them. Best Babyface Original Winner: Dusty Rhodes 1. Terry Funk 2. Bruno Sammartino 3. Steve Grey There’s an argument that Grey could have been in the top stop if he’d actually appeared on tape more often. He was just so eminently likeable and rootable, and along with Cortez, had the best grasp of nuanced selling within the WoS universe. Sammartino was helped by having the perfect nemesis and a spectacular feud to work within, but Sammartino is the man of the people, the “Living Legend” and he continued to get molten reactions both at the Spectrum and MSG all through the year. Funk goes for the trifecta here. This one is a lot tighter as I think there were a lot of strong candidates, I just feel that Funk’s achievement, in winning over the Japanese fans and becoming the top face despite being a foreigner, something that had never been done before, had a higher degree of difficulty than what Bruno and the others did. Best Heel Original Winner: Larry Zbyszko 1. Buddy Rose 2. The Black Pair (Mami Kumano & Yumi Ikeshita) 3. Mark Rocco (Honourable Mention) Larry Zbyszko This is one of those ones where I think Zbyszko was the best wrestler who was a heel, but not necessarily the best heel. In fact, while he so obviously would be categorised as one, he sort of feels above it all, the dynamic he and Bruno had established being very “other” to what else was happening this year. If I were to include him then he likely would be first, but I just feel like he’s just too sympathetic. With that in mind we’re left with a foursome who were never shy at pushing the boundaries in the squared circle. Rocco always felt like he was seconds away from a final public warning, the Black Pair were experts at swarming their opponents, like a pair of jackals on the hunt, and Rose was the bumbling kingpin of Portland. I think what pushes Rose over the edge was the slapstick Machivellian nature of everything he did. I wish the matches had hit a little harder for me personally, but given the circumstances he was still the best in this category. Feud of the Year Original Winner: Bruno Sammartino vs Larry Zbyszko 1. Bruno Sammartino vs Larry Zbyszko There were some other decent feuds, but this is a one option category. Nothing came close to the emotional impact on display here. Week by week this kept adding layers without spilling over into farce or jumping the shark, and they were able to sustain the heat all the way from January until September. The final cage match at Shea Stadium wasn’t the best of their series, and certainly wasn’t a MOTYC, but that doesn’t prevent this from being one of the all time classic feuds, and would be a candidate for feud of the year for any year. Tag Team of the Year Original Winner: The Freebirds (Terry Gordy & Buddy Roberts) 1. Ricky Steamboat & Jay Youngblood 2. The Black Pair (Mami Kumano & Yumi Ikeshita) 3. Mighty Inoue & Animal Hamaguchi A pretty terrible year on the tag team front. The WWF product was burdened with the Samoans as tag champions for most of the year, it wasn’t a banner year for AJPW despite a very good tag league, but I know the Jumbo/Baba team have done better and Dory felt like the weak link in his team with Terry. New Japan didn’t have any true teams of note. In fact I’d say that the best promotion for tag teams would be Memphis, but there’s just no full-length arena show matches to get a solid picture. Up until the tag leagues that finished off the year, the best matches BY FAR, were those with Steamboat and Youngblood. They had a miracle match against Bulldog Brower & Tor Kamata and a couple bangers against Snuka and Stevens. Even the random snippets from JCP TV show them in a good light. They would be my vote. Some of the same traits that made The Black Pair great heels also made them a great team. The working style and their aesthetic went a long way to distinguish them from the rest in AJW. I could have done without a lot of their involvement in other women’s matches, but that’s more of a promotion problem than with them in particular. Finally I wanted to shout out Inoue and Hamaguchi as the lone bright spots in a dying promotion. IWE feels more and more like it’s in its death throes but every card, basically bar none, they were the highlight, and specifically Inoue, who really needed a change of scene sooner rather than later. Most Improved I’m treating this as most improved over the calendar year rather than any improvement from previous years. Original Winner: Larry Zbyszko 1. Hulk Hogan 2. Bob Anthony 3. Tony Atlas Hogan went from a guy bumbling around in handicap squash matches and delivering a few embarrassing performances, especially in Japan, to establishing a real presence and confidence as the year wound down. Bob Anthony didn’t reach the same heights, and didn’t have the same opportunities, but his first appearance on TV made him look like one of the worst wrestlers in the world. By the time he reappeared he actually looked semi-decent, which should count for something. I absolutely hated Atlas through the first few months of the year. His babyface working style felt so phoney and awkward but he redeemed himself somewhat with a legitimately excellent performance at Shea against Patera and I did end up liking a lot of what I saw from him in Georgia. Best Interview Original Winner: N/A 1. Bruno Sammartino 2. Larry Zbyszko 3. Roddy Piper A lot of the Memphis and Georgia guys could have made the cut here, but maybe it’s the separation these three seemed to have in comparison to the rest in their respective promotions that gave them the edge. Piper was all about delivery rather than content. A lot of hype and raw energy that helped whip the crowds into a frenzy and buoyed a lot of his matches. Choosing between Bruno and Larry is really hard, it’s probably more like 1A and 1B than 1 and 2, but I think Sammartino tapped into something a little extra and was more consistent in delivering those A+ “that gave me shivers” promos. Here's an example just before the Showdown at the Shea. Most Charismatic Original Winner: Ric Flair 1. Jimmy Valiant 2. Roddy Piper 3. Michael Hayes Flair probably wasn’t a bad choice at the time, there’s just not enough footage to get an accurate gauge on him this year. The third slot was up for grabs, with a good chunk of guys who separated themselves from the pack (Dusty or Terry Funk of instance), but I’ll hand it to Michael Hayes for being the mouthpiece of the Freebirds and being the key reason they had the aura they did when they broke onto the scene. I think the top two are solidly a notch above the rest though, and it’s essentially picking nits between them when choosing who’s first. Valiant gets the nod over Piper purely due to the fact that his affable and effortless charisma spilled over into his matches in a more organic way then it did for Piper. Piper has his quirks and mannerisms, but there’s a lot of time where he may wrestle similarly to his partner for instance - there’s no wrestler who wrestles like Jimmy Valiant. Best Technical Wrestler I’m treating this as best on the mat. Original Winner: Bob Backlund 1. Johnny Saint 2. Jon Cortez 3. Jim Breaks Lack of exposure is the only justification for Backlund winning this award originally. His “exhibition” against El Olympico was one of the worst things I’ve ever seen in wrestling, so that should have disqualified him right off the bat. I thought Fujinami, for what they were trying to do in New Japan displayed some excellent technical qualities and was uber consistent plus strong consideration went to Billy Robinson and Bockwinkel for their displays throughout the RWTL, but it was a slam dunk to make this a World of Sport white wash at the top of the board, even accounting for the lack of inclusion for Steve Grey, who just didn’t get enough screen time. I may come to regret choosing Saint #1 but he had the most stuff as it were, even if consistent viewing highlighted a minor penchant for repeated spots. Cortez’ series with Hayward solidified his value in my view but they both may have been pipped by Jim Breaks if he hadn’t been stuck with Alan Dennison all year trying to get his shitty strong man gimmick over. Ultimately there are probably at least 5-10 British guys who could have made this list considering how the style is so heavily based around intricate mat work. Best Brawler Original Winner: Bruiser Brody 1. Abdullah the Butcher Not a classic year for brawls really. AJW had their fair share but I don’t think many of them were particularly good. John Quinn stood out within his context as a brawler in the gentlemanly scientific world of WoS. Much of the Bruno/Larry series were essentially brawls, but only the final cage match spilled into real violence. Memphis had its moments, with a concession stand brawl between the Blonde Bombers and the Gibsons, but I think we have to go back to AJPW for the real stuff. Terry Funk and The Sheik are clearly in the conversation, but any good brawls they were involved in were also those matched against the brawling king of ‘80 - Abdullah The Butcher. I really liked his November match against Funk, but I think I liked Abdullah the most when he was the de facto face against his former partner, The Sheik. Both times they collided the Sheik was forced to retreat and Abby was left standing in the middle of the ring like a gladiatorial warrior, soaking in the adoration from the bloodthirsty crowd, giving us some of the most memorable moments of the year. Best Flyer Original Winner: N/A 1. Tatsumi Fujinami This award didn’t exist in 1980 and there’s a reason for that. I guess Mark Rocco nailed a number of illegal moves off the top. Chavo had his stupid signature backflip in the corner spot he did every match. Race had his diving headbutt that I think he nailed once all year. Ultimately the only wrestler I could honestly consider was Fujinami for his tope through the ropes. It was one of the most electrifying moves in all of wrestling and even teasing the move was enough to generate a surge from the crowd, so he gets my vote. Most Overrated Treating this as the most overpushed wrestler. Original Winner: Mr. Wrestling II 1. Alan Dennison 2. Tojo Yamamoto 3. Mark Lewin I was not the biggest fan of Gino Hernandez this year and I certainly felt like they leant too heavily on him, but at least he was able to have some serviceable matches with a wide variety of guys. Tony Atlas is a strong contender here too, getting monster pushes in New York, Houston and Georgia based on his physique rather than in-ring ability, but he was able to pull together some decent performances to somewhat justify his standing. The top three though, just irredeemable. Mark Lewin was similar to Atlas in that he got pushed HARD in several territories (Houston, Georgia and SECW) but he had zero good matches to back it up and I hated his gimmick of a crazy man who needed a handler (the equally terrible Great Mephisto). At least they seemed to love him as a face in Houston for what that’s worth. Tojo Yamamoto was never at the top of the card in Memphis, but I’m thinking of him as being overpushed just due to the fact that he was allowed to work like he was invincible as a face. Despite being shorter than Dundee and literally having a single attack (obviously a chop, you know, because he’s Japanese) he would shrug off literally ANY move his opponents tried on him and in return they treated his pathetic chop like death. Why on Earth they let a middle-aged, portly guy like him get away with that for most of the year is beyond me. Finally, Alan Dennison. He was pure unbridled irritation to me. I would certainly have skipped the majority of his matches if he hadn’t been tied up with Breaks for the most of it (somebody I was really keen to watch) and then progressed so far in the Challenge Cup to finish off the year. Much like Yamamoto, I have no idea how they thought that somebody who looked so very much past his prime could sell being a strongman of Herculean proportions, but the crowds seemed to love it and they put him on TV again and again and again and again. Landslide victory for Dennison and for the love of God I hope he plummets down the card in ‘81. Most Underrated Original Winner: Hussein Arab (Iron Sheik) 1. Steve Grey 2. Mighty Inoue 3. Bill Dundee Two horse race for this one at the top but I thought I’d give a shout out to Dundee who was never given a main event run despite Lawler being on the shelf for the entire year. They quickly turned Valiant face and then skyrocketed Paul Ellering up the card but at no point did they look to good old reliable Dundee, who showed he had what it took with a number of truly excellent TV matches. Memphis overall was decent regardless but I’m certain it would have been better with Dundee given more focus. Inoue was a true bright spot in the darkness of IWE, giving some effervescent energy to all his matches, rocking the most bonkers combover hairdo and having one of the funnest signature spots in the rolling senton. He and Hamaguchi were tag champions all year, so hard to argue they were truly underrated, but I feel like he should have been more prominently positioned in the main event with Kimura instead of cycling through some terrible foreign imports as heavyweight challengers instead. Finally Steve Grey, what can I say. Appearing on TV a mere three times and with only one of those matches not being clipped is a travesty. Even getting the Jon Cortez treatment and only getting four decent matches would have been enough. Either way I’m disgusted with ITV and this just consolidates what we all know, they were always the worst channel, yes, even worse than Channel 5. Best Promotion Original Winner: N/A 1. WWF 2. NJPW 3. Joint Promotions Portland may have pipped Joint Promotions to third place if a few more of the Tuesday night blowoff matches had made tape, but the consistent quality match to match of World of Sport was hard to ignore. New Japan, despite a really lacklustre MSG tag series to finish the year, had the least footage gaps; consistently good to great matches all year; a very good, if not fantastic heavyweight series between Inoki and Hansen; Fujinami running through a slew of top juniors; and they had the best foreign imports out of the four Japanese companies. I’ll admit it, WWF had trash TV, albeit I only watched the B-show, but from what I’ve seen of the newest Championship Wrestling episodes going up on the network, they don’t appear to be much better. But we got nearly all the major televised Philly and MSG shows and they delivered nearly every time. They always had that “event” atmosphere, the crowds were bonkers, and we had solid feuds, including THE feud, that didn’t disappoint in the match quality department. Perhaps they never broke through with any all time classics (I’m obviously lower on Backlund/Patera than most, plus it originally was the WON match of the year) but I’m not sure any company had a higher rate of great matches. Best Week to Week Original Winner: N/A 1. Georgia Championship Wrestling 2. Portland Wrestling 3. World of Sport In many ways Georgia probably benefited from a lack of footage. Unlike Memphis for example, I’m pretty sure not a single episode was there in full and there were several points throughout the year where footage dropped off entirely, but almost everything we do have is gold. They had the most consistent angles running week to week, interweaving storylines, an absolute plethora of guys parachuting in. Not counting the main roster, we managed to see Terry Funk, Dusty Rhodes, Wahoo McDaniel and Stan Hansen just off the top of my head. Needless to say, the roster quality was second to none. Portland severely lacked an interesting undercard, or at least we never saw it, and I thought the general idea of Rose at the top trying to run all his challengers out of town got a bit tired after 12 months of the same thing, but there weren’t any particular “dead” periods, I would have absolutely loved to have lived in the Portland area at this time, with the ability to go to these events on a weekly, or even twice weekly basis, and given the resources available, this was certainly the most consistent product, far better than it had any right to be. World of Sport gets the edge on Memphis due to the consistent match quality. Memphis had the angles, of which WoS severely lacked, but if you were tuning in to catch a fun to great match, ITV on a Saturday afternoon was your safer bet. There were a few stretches in Memphis where an entire hour would go by and nothing happened at all and it goes without saying that they missed Lawler terribly. Match of the Year Original Winner: Bob Backlund vs. Ken Patera (5/19/80) 1. WoS - Johnny Saint vs. Steve Grey - 1980-01-28 ★★★★ ½ 2. MLW - Jimmy Snuka & Ray Stevens vs. Ricky Steamboat & Jay Youngblood - 1980-06-29 ★★★★ ¼ 3. AJPW - Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta vs Terry Funk & Dick Slater - 1980-05-02 ★★★★ ¼ 4. AJW - Jackie Sato vs Rimi Yokota - 1980-12-16 ★★★★ ¼ 5. AJPW - Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta vs Terry Funk & Dory Funk Jr. - 1980-12-11 ★★★★ ¼ The best technical match of the year by an absolute mile between Saint and Grey. A banger of a southern tag in the north for the NWA Tag Titles. Maple Leaf Gardens is always rocking, which adds a little something to all the matches there, but these four put on a 30 minute clinic. The two All Japan matches are here pretty much for the Terry Funk factor. I just thought the May tag was a better performance from him and didn’t suffer from the bad ending that the RWTL one did. Sato vs Yokota was a slow burn. If the first half was as good as the second it may have ended up at #1, cause no match had as heated a final 10-15 minutes as this one did. Manager of the Year Original Winner: N/A 1. Jimmy Hart 2. Freddie Blassie 3. Gary Hart I’m not as high on Jimmy Hart’s year as I’ve seen from others, but he certainly had some great moments, especially from autumn onwards. I don’t think he particularly added anything when he was managing Ellering or Killer Karl Krupp, as they both could do enough talking for themselves, but his prominence grew as the year went along, I felt like he got considerably more TV time that was dedicated to him specifically, and his role as, and position among, managers, rather than about who he was managing which I felt rounded out his character a ton. Freddie Blassie was easily the best of the four WWF guys. He was a solid choice behind Hogan, who needed support early in his run, but grew on the mic as things went along, but specifically he carried any interview involving Tor Kamata or Killer Khan. Him constantly forgetting the interviewers name, whether it was Bruno, Vince or Patterson, and just not giving a shit was classic. In contrast Albano was just a loony toon, matching his teams, Skaaland did nothing but accompany Bruno or Backlund to the ring, and the Grand Wizard seemed out of place with his most high profile clients, Patera and Sgt. Slaughter, as they both aesthetically didn’t match him at all, but also they were both completely capable of carrying any interview or promo segment single handedly and therefore didn’t even need a manager, making him surplus to requirements. Gary Hart takes third spot merely on account that he was involved in both a “Gary Hart in a cage above the ring” match and a “Gary Hart in a straight jacket” match, so at least he was doing something and didn’t end up being a net negative. Best TV Announcer Original Winner: N/A 1. Gordon Solie (GCW) 2. Kousuke Takeuchi (AJPW) 3. Dick Graham & Kal Rudman (WWF - Spectrum) Lance Russell in Memphis and Frank Bonnema in Portland both took the high road approach, adopting a gentlemanly demeanour and sticking to it while chaos swirled around them. Russell in particular I felt was integral to the presentation of Memphis TV, but his style worked best during interview and angle segments, not for calling the action in the ring. Dick Graham and Kal Rudman were the announcing team for the WWF Spectrum shows. These two started the year annoying me quite a bit but finished it being welcome partners in my viewing experience. They gave the vibe that they didn’t quite know that wrestling wasn’t real but had an inkling but were going to dive all-in anyway. There’s a sense of childlike exuberance when watching Spectrum broadcasts from this era and a match like Larry Zbyszko vs Ivan Putski maybe wouldn’t have been as good without these two really living it at ringside. Takeuchi takes the award for best Japanese announcer, in part because he’s one of the easier ones to actually follow along with, but mostly because nobody delivered top tier hype like this guy. If you get the chance to check out AJPW 10/22 Funk & Robinson vs Asteroid & Avenger you’ll see what I mean. Finally I went with Solie in the #1 spot, mostly because he did the exact same thing Russell was doing in terms of interview segments and being the general face of the programme, but he also was able to deliver grade A commentary at the same time. Georgia had a glut of the best TV angles and Solie was a key factor in building the excitement in the moment. On a side note, as good as Bruno was on the mic as a wrestler, he was bad as a commentator, easily being the worst guy in the business. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted July 20, 2023 Report Share Posted July 20, 2023 No mention of Kent Walton! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted July 21, 2023 Author Report Share Posted July 21, 2023 I'll hold my hands up and admit that I made a terrible oversight on that one! Actually I just listened to @Superstar Sleeze 's excellent podcast series with @Ricky Jackson where they run through their greatest WWF matches 78-87 (Pro Wrestling Love #36 to #40) so it might be more apt for me right now to just quote Kelly, "I totally snoozed on that one!" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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