SAMS Posted August 1, 2023 Report Share Posted August 1, 2023 Another year, another thread. Just managing to finish 1980 is a milestone I initially wasn't 100% sure I'd reach but it turned out to be a good starter year to find my footing on a project like this. As I delve further into the decade the task only becomes more daunting as more promotions have more footage exposure, and the sheer quantity of matches is about to explode in a few years. But that's a problem for another day. For 1981 I'm thankful that we seem to be getting more matches from the Mid-South Coliseum, AWA footage takes a big jump, by the end of the year we have both Mid-Atlantic and Mid-South TV, and the Network has finally started uploading Championship Wrestling episodes. On the down side, WCCW footage doesn't seem to take off until 1982, I only have one Puerto Rico match and maybe no Lucha matches at all lined up in my watch list, so will have to wait until future years to begin on those. Just as a recap for anybody who actually cares, I try not to go too deep in the play-by-play of each match, but I'll cover the key moments for context and it helps my memory when I go back and look at my reviews, otherwise I try and focus on the individual wrestlers, their performances, and how that weaves into a general GWE discussion. I know not everybody does star ratings, but for me it helps just demarcate stuff into general tiers. I'm much more picky and granular at the top level, so I do quarter stars for those that I think are 4 stars and above, but otherwise I just pool matches into three tiers for simplicity: 1 star = not good, 2 stars = fine, 3 stars = good. January 1981-01-XX AJW Mimi Hagiwara vs. Lucy Kayama Japan ★★ It’s been a long while since Hagiwara made tape and it felt like she’d put it all together here a bit more than her last time around. There weren’t so many dead spots where she seemed a little lost. I can’t say that she made a strong impression on me though, she still just feels a bit like the pretty girl of the roster that the guys come to see. And there certainly were some leering looks from the front row for this one. Kayama herself appeared decidedly older here despite it only being a few months since her last taped match. She definitely looked more mature. I’m not sure what effect this’ll have on her work as I thought one of the most endearing qualities she had was how her Bambi-ness made her offense feel more earnest and made her eminently more rootable than most of the roster. If she loses that moving forwards then I’m not sure she necessarily has the tools to compensate. She still has a beautiful looking neckbreaker though which she pulled out a couple times here. The match itself was completely forgettable really. Not a good sign when the most notable event was Hagiwara braining Kayama with a giant yellow melon that one of the commentators had inexplicably brought to ringside. It went the full 20 minutes for a time limit draw, but I can’t really remember any point where either girl looked like they were properly in the driver’s seat and pushing for the win. A real placeholder match that didn’t seem to elevate either woman. 1981-01-XX AJW Devil Masami, Mami Kumano, Wendi Richter vs. Yukari Omori, Mimi Hagiwara, Tomoko Kitamura Best Two Out Of Three Falls Six Man Tag Match Japan ★★ As to be expected with these six person matches, it was all a bit chaotic. AJW isn’t noted for its coherent match structures and this was no different. The face team of Omori, Hagiwara and Kitamura were so nondescript as to almost fade away entirely, and perhaps it shouldn’t have been a surprise to me that the heels won the thing in two straight falls. All the best parts of the action were driven by the heel team. I much preferred Richter when she showed up in the Guam footage from August ‘80 - here her actions felt much more clumsy, but Masami and Kumano displayed their chops and kept this ticking along just enough to make this somewhat enjoyable. Despite being the smallest of the bunch Kumano certainly felt like the team leader and I wouldn’t be hesitant to say that at this point she’s a little further along than Masami as a worker as well, as she does a few little things each match that it feels nobody in the company is doing, especially in terms of heel psychology and characterisation. That said, I would absolutely be down to watch these two partner as a permanent tag team. I feel that they would have excellent chemistry together and I have a hunch Ikeshita isn’t long for AJW. 1981-01-XX AJW Jackie Sato vs. Mami Kumano Japan ★★ Both women had their entourages at ringside, and we know that means the faces will stand around and do nothing while the heels will interject themselves into the match with impunity. Kumano’s main ally was of course Masami, and she liberally interfered, to the extent that this may as well just have been a handicap match. It feels like a lot of Jackie’s run on top over the past year has been booked similarly, giving her insurmountable odds that she, you know, surmounts. From a match quality perspective I think it definitely hurts her matches, as the push to get her over with the crowd comes from booking rather than through her actual performances, when I feel they could have got the same result by just letting her do her thing. Kumano had several neat little moments, like shadowing the referee and using him as a human obstacle, that added some nice flavour to the match, but the aforementioned interferences broke up the flow of the match. Jackie was forced to work underneath for nearly the whole thing, but wasn’t given the room to sell due to just being swarmed most of the time, so it lacked that narrative hook you’re looking for. That said, the stretches when Jackie was on offense just consolidated my view that nobody had better offense than her in the world at this point in time. Things finished with an awkward pin that the referee seemed to botch for a very anticlimactic Jackie victory. This could, and should, have been so much better than it was. Increasingly I feel like AJW are getting in their own way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted August 2, 2023 Author Report Share Posted August 2, 2023 1981-01-02 Houston Wrestling Wahoo McDaniel vs. Gary Young Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, Texas, USA ★★ Card They worked this short and sweet, it being only the second match on the card and all. Young tried his best to work the referee and chip away at the edges to gain some sort of advantage, even getting a few entertaining moments out of it, but his fate was inevitable. As soon as Wahoo got the opportunity to shift into third gear it was lights out for Gary and a swift chop had him down for three. 1981-01-02 Houston Wrestling Tully Blanchard vs. Don Diamond Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, Texas, USA ★ Card Don Diamond has the physique, the looks and the right attitude, but I just can’t see how anybody could look past that daft hairstyle. The perm he was rocking here made him look like he had a hedgehog on his head. He was serviceable as a babyface here I guess, but everything felt learned rather than natural - all faux fire. Tully did Tully things, and really seemed like a dog with a bone working over Diamond’s leg, but there just wasn’t enough meat here to make it any good. 1981-01-02 Houston Wrestling Andre the Giant vs. Tank Patton Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, Texas, USA ★ Card A classic example of how Andre’s size works against him. Patton’s a big man himself, but immediately he just didn’t seem like a threat. Ideally I would have liked to have seen Andre just blast through this guy, but with the ⅔ falls stipulation that wasn't going to be the case. Andre tried his best to give Patton some moments, and him wearing a cast and using it as a weapon was a neat little wrinkle, but Patton is no Stan Hansen, and he couldn’t bring the heat like he needed to to make this compelling. Andre won in straight falls. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted August 3, 2023 Author Report Share Posted August 3, 2023 1981-01-03 GCW Les Thornton (c) vs. Kevin Sullivan NWA World Junior Heavyweight Title Match WTBS TV Studios, Atlanta, Georgia, USA ★★★ Card Sullivan, during this new heel run of his, adapted his working style perfectly for his character. Week by week he became sleazier and sleazier; he cheated his way into the TV Title and would do whatever it took to keep hold of it. Here though, matched up against a more technical, “British” style wrestler, he showed that he could at least hang with him and the first ¾ of this match was competitive, worked in an amateur style, and he certainly didn’t look outmatched. When the opportunity arose though, and perhaps he felt the momentum slipping away, Sullivan cold-cocked Thornton in the mouth and suddenly switched to a rough and ready brawling attack then consistently kicked Thornton back to the outside as time expired, building on his recent penchant of surviving his own title defences by any means necessary. 1981-01-03 PNW Buddy Rose vs. Jay Youngblood NWA Pacific Northwest Heavyweight Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls No Time Limit Match Sports Arena, Portland, Oregon, USA ★★★★ Card A little truncated due to the booking, and I would have liked a little more from Youngblood when he was asked to sell, but narratively this was absolutely airtight and Rose gave a tour de force performance bell to bell here. It might be my favourite Rose performance yet actually. This was ALL about the arm. Rose was in the ascendancy early on and he was relentless. His offense was crisp and vicious. I think overall the offense on display in Portland, from all the guys, can lack a certain “weightiness”, but that certainly wasn’t the case here. The entire first fall was Rose cranking the arm and Youngblood trying, and initially failing, to turn the tables. When he did manage to get it right though his energy levels jumped through the roof and now it was his turn to work the arm. Rose sold the shit out of it and a savage series of chops to his twisted arm forced him to submit in the first fall. The second fall had Rose try and level things by posting Youngblood’s arm but ultimately it wasn’t enough and it appeared he would suffer a similar fate to the first. Calculating that the only way to prevent Youngblood from winning the vacant title was to lose via DQ he outright clocked Sandy Barr in the head. There was confusion for a few moments while Barr seemed to weigh his decision, but he did in fact end up disqualifying Rose, giving the match, but not the title, to Youngblood. Youngblood I thought came on stronger as the match wore on, but his selling in general was a tad lacklustre and he definitely seemed more engaged when it was his turn to dish it out. Rose however was clearly putting in 110% regardless and had, as I mentioned earlier, the best offense I’ve seen out of him, but also an excellent display of selling the arm. This certainly was a Buddy Rose match through and through and he shone very brightly indeed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robert S Posted August 3, 2023 Report Share Posted August 3, 2023 You have labeled the matches with "1980", force of habit, I guess. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted August 3, 2023 Author Report Share Posted August 3, 2023 You are completely right there! Initial copy and paste bug that my brain never registered Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted August 4, 2023 Author Report Share Posted August 4, 2023 1981-01-04 AJW Tomoko Kitamura vs. Noriko Kawakami Junior Heavyweight Title Match Japan ★ This was at its best when Kawakami was doing her heel stuff, learning from the Black Pair didn’t hurt it seems. But as soon as they settled down and actually tried to do a straight up wrestling match this kind of fell apart. They completely lost the audience, who were totally disinterested down the home stretch, and they didn’t find a hook to make the match work. These two I guess were pretty green and I just don’t think this should have been near the roughly 20 minutes it actually lasted. Kitamura won with a pin out of nowhere and was declared the new champion. 1981-01-04 AJW Devil Masami & Wendi Richter vs. Ayumi Hori & Hitomi Okumura Japan ★ Masami was feral and vicious when given the opportunity, but Richter felt like she’d regressed slightly from her last appearance back in August, looking far more lumbering than before; Hori had some moments early on but her offensive range felt really limited, in the end seemingly repeating the same moves over and over; and Okumura was merely a warm body to be beaten down on and eat the pin. 1981-01-04 AJW Nancy Kumi vs. Lucy Kayama Japan ★★ Poor VQ and the fact they made the decision to wear pretty similar turquoise outfits made this a distracting watch. I spent 70% of the time trying to figure out who was who, especially now Lucy has ceased to be the tiny waif she was before. This was pretty meandering regardless. Nancy laid on a nasty looking crucifix leg scissors submission around midway and finally won the thing with a Romero Special which I thought was pretty cool. There was a lot left to be desired with this but competent enough. 1981-01-04 AJW Rimi Yokota, Jackie Sato & Mimi Hagiwara vs. Mami Kumano, Yumi Ikeshita & Leilani Kai Best Two Out Of Three Falls Six Person Tag Match Japan ★★★ This suffered from the same fate a lot of multi-person matches do, as it often felt like they had to run through each person and give them an opportunity to showcase themselves a little but without a broader sense of creating a cohesive whole. For two falls Yokota felt like an afterthought as she faded into the background and Hagiwara’s lone standout contribution was breaking out her unique boxing style and throwing a few jabs at Leilani. Leilani herself also really felt like an odd one out, sticking out like a sore thumb amongst the other five women. BUT, I thought the Black Pair were consistently good and I can’t help but enjoy watching Kumano work every time she appears on screen. Yokota did level up in the final fall as things started to go off kilter, and Jackie once again showed why she was the ace. It kinda felt like her team were outgunned and she was the leveller, coming in and cleaning house when she needed to and giving her team that edge they needed to compete. I wasn’t crazy about the way they worked the first two but the final stanza was a real doozy, including the post match afters. Yokota got a chair wrapped around her neck, and Jackie and Ikeshita in particular really were going at it, potentially foreshadowing an upcoming encounter? The chippiness between the two teams flirted with being “real”, and whether it was all a work or if they actually let their emotions get the best of them doesn’t really matter to me, I was here for it either way. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted August 5, 2023 Author Report Share Posted August 5, 2023 1981-01-07 IWE Rusher Kimura vs. Mighty Inoue Lou Thesz Preliminary Block C Match Civic Center, Tateyama, Toyama, Japan ★ Card It felt very on the nose to have Lou Thesz referee a match within a tournament bearing his name. At least this time he didn’t involve himself in the action too much, maybe he was finally beginning to feel his age. Surprisingly Inoue was allowed to take the majority of the match here, working over Kimura’s leg for the first 10 minutes or so. I repeatedly asked for Inoue to get a more prominent showcase in ‘80 and finally I got it. What can I say, it was disappointing. I don’t think I can really blame Inoue to be fair, he was clearly trying his best, but for the most part it felt like he was wrestling a piece of cardboard, with Kimura only visibly showing any emotion or character, or even the ability to not look like geriatric pensioner, when he was on offense himself. I think the match would have been better served with Inoue having to struggle more and push himself to the limit against the champion. Overall this just felt sad. The arena was mostly empty, crowd enthusiasm, from start to finish was pretty much non-existent and the finish, with Kimura countering a spinning toe hold into a cradle. Instead of this feeling like the wily veteran getting one over the younger upstart, which I think is what they were going for, it felt like a slap in the face after Inoue controlled most of the match. 1981-01-09 Houston Tully Blanchard (c) vs. Tiger Conway Jr. Southwest Heavyweight Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, Texas, USA ★★★ Card Arguably the best match of the ‘80s in Houston to this point. Granted, coming from me that’s damning it with faint praise. Tiger I thought was more competent than good here, lacking the flourishes needed to really get the crowd behind him and merely doing the “expected” thing at each logical point. It was Tully who was what elevated this, great understated selling, a little facial expression here, a well timed bump there. Was a very good performance from him. Overall they built each fall upon the previous until they reached a crescendo in the third. I wasn’t buying Tully losing his title in Houston, and he did in fact pull it out the bag with a sneaky O’Conner Roll and a handful of tights, but there was a flurry at the end there where it felt like anything could have happened and that’s a testament to these two guys. 1981-01-10 WWF Bob Backlund (c) vs. Sgt. Slaughter WWF Heavyweight Title Match Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA ★★★★ Card Nobody bumps like Slaughter. Right from the off he dived at Backlund, caught nothing but air and took a full scale drop over the ropes to the floor outside. He just set the tone on his end for this match. In comparison, apart from the final flicker of fire Backlund showed before the finish, I thought he was pretty one dimensional. His selling style doesn’t resonate with me and, his piledriver aside, didn’t show anything offensively here that got me excited. I won’t dwell too much on Backlund though because this was the Slaughter show through and through. Great facial expressions, great bumps, great punches. He constantly worked the headlock, jawing at the crowd the whole time to keep things ticking along. Legit nasty offense on the outside, including a backbreaker on the railing. Jumping around like an excited schoolboy when he realised Backlund was busted open (Backlund did an excellent blade job here to be fair). I loved how the moment Backlund dove under the ring to blade Slaughter was up in the ropes to draw the referee’s count and that constant interaction would work to divert the fans attention away from Backlund and make the blading less obvious. During one of Backlund’s comebacks they were exchanging punches and Slaughter’s became weaker and weaker until he was loosely flailing at air. Just so many moments to pick out and I’m sure I’m missing a few more. Can’t express how good I thought Slaughter was in this match. Yes, they had the cheap countout finish. They were kind of slugging it out on the apron and Slaughter happened to enter the ring a split second earlier, picking up the win. This kind of thing is more frustrating because it doesn’t seem like either guy is even aware of the count, so Slaughter winning isn’t even him being more observant than Backlund, it felt like pure luck. So a bit deflating there. But they redeemed themselves afterwards with top tier post match action - Slaughter grabbing the belt, absolutely clocking Backlund in the head with it and then following up with a home run on the referee for good measure. He dumped the belt on Backlund’s broken body before bouncing. Just fantastic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricky Jackson Posted August 5, 2023 Report Share Posted August 5, 2023 Yeah, that's an underrated great match. That 3 match series between Bob and Sarge in Philly is probably my fave from Backlund's reign. Haven't seen the 2nd match in years. The cage is a classic. Those two had great chemistry Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted August 6, 2023 Author Report Share Posted August 6, 2023 I'll admit this one came out of nowhere a bit for me. Their previous match at MSG in October '80 was good but not that memorable, however this blew that out of the water. Not to spoil any future posts but I've already watched the second one in this series and while it's good it's doesn't reach the heights of this one but it does an excellent job of setting up the final match. I did watch the cage match a few years ago and from my notes it seems that I thought favourably of it, so hopefully with added context it least holds up to my last watch. It's some ways off, but in terms of Backlund series during his title reign, I remember originally really loving some of his matches against Adonis from '82. Again it's been years since I've seen them, and I'm a god chunk of time away from getting to them chronologically, but those are the ones I'm really interested in seeing whether I think they are still as good with fresh eyes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted August 6, 2023 Author Report Share Posted August 6, 2023 1981-01-13 AJPW Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta (c) vs. Abdullah The Butcher & Mark Lewin NWA International Tag Team Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match City Gymnasium, Shimabara, Nagasaki, Japan ★★ Card Fascinating to see Lewin in a different environment and I’m interested to see whether his act will travel East. They entered the ring and I can’t tell if it’s just the way the light bounced off his head, but Abby looked like he was bleeding already. This was pretty muted for the first two falls and the challengers had control for almost 80% of it. For the first fall in particular, Baba didn’t even tag in, Jumbo just got swarmed and eventually they wore him down. Abby and Lewin looked like a smart little team actually, isolating Jumbo, efficient tagging and Lewin was very enthusiastic when asked to just chop away, coming off the top several times to nail Jumbo in the head. We finally got a Baba sighting in the second, but apart from winning a brief chop exchange against Lewin (longer limbs = more force generated. Physics!) he mostly got his hand worked over some. This all felt like a bit of a mess. Energy was middling and it definitely had the “we’re out in the sticks so let’s go half speed” kind of vibe. The champions mounted a mini rally and managed to pummel Lewin for the equalising fall. The final fall was the “wild” brawl we all paid to see, but the crowd decidedly didn’t care when Jumbo was getting his face torn open, Abby felt like the biggest babyface in the whole match, so the champions managing to grab the weapon and use it on their foes fell extremely flat. In the end Abby gave Joe a little shove and by God THAT was apparently the step over the line and he got disqualified. Obviously jabbing a weapon into your opponent’s head repeatedly for the previous 10 minutes was absolutely fine though. So some nice little moments here. I can’t say it was bad, but it only just made the cut for serviceable. Lewin was actually pretty fun, but we didn’t get to see the best out of Abby or Jumbo, and Baba was almost a no-show. 1981-01-13 Joint Promotions Bobby Barnes vs. Pat Patton Civic Hall, Wolverhampton, West Midlands, United Kingdom ★★★ Fantastic example of how to really utilise the allotment of public warnings and really work the crowd. Barnes took his sweet time to untangle himself from submission holds at the end of rounds or while in the ropes, elongating the damage to his opponent. He was able to pick up the first fall with a nasty double arm submission and then, when finally Patton was able to make his comeback, it was very clear that they were cheering Barnes’ failure rather than Patton’s success. He really had them in the palm of his hand. On the flip side Patton didn’t have much character beyond being the martial arts guy who wrestles barefoot. Barnes dominated much of this and I felt the finish was particularly harsh on him, both from a kayfabe and non-kayfabe perspective, as a dropkick sent Barnes over the top, Patton somehow injured his arm in the process of doing said dropkick, and the double countout by the referee resulted in a draw. I think that Barnes, already being a fall up, should have been awarded the match 2-1 or at minimum given a referee’s decision. But being a heel I guess that was never on the cards. 1981-01-13 Joint Promotions Big Daddy & Sammy Lee vs. Grand Vladimir & Mel Stuart Civic Hall, Wolverhampton, West Midlands, United Kingdom ★ Crowd were really up for it this evening. Vladimir and Stuart made it down to the ring first and Vladimir had barely taken off his robe before a housewife in the crowd was giving him two fingers. Then it was time for Big Daddy’s entrance and he had a full-on chorus line of women in top hats. Quite the spectacle. In fact seeing Sammy Lee line up next to him in his Bruce Lee outfit was bizarre. They were quite the pair. I saw Big Daddy in a match tag involving Mark Rocco in ‘80 and he didn’t look terrible, clearly his opponents did a fantastic job of polishing him up. He was pretty terrible here. I still will never understand the phenomenon of him or how he got so over when he looked like an oversized baby wearing adult diapers. Things didn’t get too much better when Sammy Lee was in, he was very much all sizzle and no steak. Can’t argue that he was very over with the crowd and I can sort of see why. He moves at a million miles an hour, but all too often it’s too fast for what he actually is trying to do and he doesn’t give his opponent a chance to sync up and help him out and the whole thing just looks a little more awkward than it should. He also didn’t seem particularly interested in selling either, blowing off a good chance to gain a little sympathy after a nice punch to the face from Vladimir. In the end, after we got a little cameo from some more housewives in the front row who took it upon themselves to start attacking the heels as they hung out on the apron, Big Daddy and Sammy decided enough was enough and they picked up two quick falls to secure the 2-0 victory in around 7 minutes of action. 1981-01-13 Joint Promotions Johnny Saint vs. Jackie Robinson Light Heavyweight Knockout Tournament Heat Civic Hall, Wolverhampton, West Midlands, United Kingdom ★★ The four participants in the tournament were present in the ring and the MC had members of the audience select numbers between 1-4 to decide the matchups. Saint and Robinson were selected, meaning that Steve Grey and Bobby Ryan would be in the other heat. Each match would be over one ten minute round and first to a fall. One additional tidbit dropped by Kent Walton was that Jackie was actually Billy Robinson’s cousin. This was very exhibition-esque, Saint felt like he was merely messing around while Jackie didn’t give me the vibe that he would have been able to ratchet up the intensity to be a credible challenger to Saint, even if he’d wanted to. After 5 or so minutes Saint caught Jackie for a pretty easy cradle pin. Saint moved on and Jackie was bounced. All in all it was fine, but yeah, add this to a long list of throwaway tournament preliminary matches. 1981-01-13 Joint Promotions Bobby Ryan vs. Steve Grey Light Heavyweight Knockout Tournament Heat Civic Hall, Wolverhampton, West Midlands, United Kingdom Well this was MUCH better than the Saint/Robinson heat, but didn’t even hit the 3 minute mark. The setup was the same - stick a top guy in with somebody a few rungs lower down the totem pole - but in this case Grey was far more willing to give to Ryan than Saint was for Robinson. Ryan managed to get a couple really close two counts early and hit a huge enzuigiri that connected with Grey with an almighty crack. I would have loved this to have gone at least the 6-8 minute range but it wasn’t to be as Grey reversed a sunset flip pin attempt into a forward press of his own and the match was won and done. 1981-01-13 Joint Promotions Johnny Saint vs. Steve Grey Light Heavyweight Knockout Tournament Gold Medal Match Civic Hall, Wolverhampton, West Midlands, United Kingdom ★★★ This went the full 10 minutes, prompting Jeff Kaye, the referee, to have to make the decision. From a kayfabe perspective I think this was presented fantastically. Walton was playing up how tight it was and how he wouldn’t want to be in Kaye’s shoes, and I would have to agree. The way they worked this it felt awfully tight and I honestly had no idea which way he was going to go. Ultimately Saint received the silver medal, giving the gold to Grey. The best part of the match was the first few minutes. Saint controlled with a side headlock and all the struggle revolved around Grey trying to escape. As they transitioned into the middle portion things got perhaps a bit too co-operative, and I could be wrong but it did feel like Saint was leading things here, and one particular sequence comes to mind where they were just going through the motions leading into a tricky Saint pin attempt which I didn’t care for. But as they turned the corner onto the home stretch the intensity upped once again and they managed to pull it together. A lot of near falls, more desperation, a few uppercuts even and the time limit finish felt very organic compared to how these things can sometimes be pulled off. With these two facing off I would have expected a tad more, but considering the stipulation this was very entertaining and certainly a good match. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ricky Jackson Posted August 6, 2023 Report Share Posted August 6, 2023 14 hours ago, SAMS said: I'll admit this one came out of nowhere a bit for me. Their previous match at MSG in October '80 was good but not that memorable, however this blew that out of the water. Not to spoil any future posts but I've already watched the second one in this series and while it's good it's doesn't reach the heights of this one but it does an excellent job of setting up the final match. I did watch the cage match a few years ago and from my notes it seems that I thought favourably of it, so hopefully with added context it least holds up to my last watch. It's some ways off, but in terms of Backlund series during his title reign, I remember originally really loving some of his matches against Adonis from '82. Again it's been years since I've seen them, and I'm a god chunk of time away from getting to them chronologically, but those are the ones I'm really interested in seeing whether I think they are still as good with fresh eyes. MSG vs Adonis is definitely an all-timer. I remember a Philly match between them being very good as well Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted August 7, 2023 Author Report Share Posted August 7, 2023 I don't think I've seen the Philly match. I had a Landover, Maryland Lumberjack match which I remember being good as well. So looking forward to revisiting them. Looping back around to the Backlund/Slaughter series, and Slaughter in particular, in the wrestler of the year thread for '81 Elliot stumps for him as the number one choice. From what I've seen so far I'd give you pretty good odds that that may end up being true by the year's end. But there's still a long way to go. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted August 7, 2023 Author Report Share Posted August 7, 2023 1981-01-16 Houston Wrestling Scott Casey & Tiger Conway Jr. vs. The Dynamic Duo (Gino Hernandez & Tully Blanchard) Best Two Out Of Three Falls Tag Team Match Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, Texas, USA ★★★ Card What a shot in the arm Tully has been for Houston Wrestling. Within a week he’s been involved in two of the best wrestling they’ve had since the decade started. He and Gino were a killer team here, their strategy revolving around blind tags and gaining man advantages rather than isolating either of their opponent’s or targeting any body parts. In the first fall especially they were able to really lay it in on Tiger Conway. The faces rallied though and Casey got the hot tag. It was interesting that Tiger and Casey excelled at each other’s weaknesses. Tiger I feel was much better on offense, when he was dishing it out, but could be pretty wooden when asked to sell. As much as I liked the Dynamic Duo when they worked him over, he didn’t do much to enhance the beating. In contrast Casey was almost comically bad during his hot tag, his strikes were some of the absolute worst I’ve seen, but as soon as Tully turned the tables on him I thought that his selling was superb. It wasn’t over the top, but he made Tully’s offense look fantastic and he was able to generate great sympathy (from me at least). An against the run of play diving headbutt off the top from Tiger sealed the first fall. As much as the heels dominated the first fall, the faces dominated the second. And in the same manner, they were unable to convert that control into victory. The face team had finally got into a groove of their own, got the tags going at a fluid rate and this gave Tully the opportunity to show off his selling chops. Tully overall was just fantastic here in all aspects, offense, defence, psychology, the whole shebang. The finish of the second fall was a bit underwhelming with Tiger missing a shoulder charge into the turnbuckles and Tully merely having to cover him for the pin though. The third was a step up in chaos, as you would expect, and Gino used this to his advantage. Both referees were tied up with Tiger and Tully, allowing him to send Casey flying over the top rope to deal some serious damage. Once they dumped him back in he was vulnerable and Gino nailed his patented diving elbow drop for the win. This had three good performances and one excellent one in Tully. Both teams had moments of great psychology and it was a real joy to go through. I was initially a bit hesitant looking at the matchup and the runtime of 25 minutes, but it was well worth it. 1981-01-16 Houston Wrestling Dory Funk Jr. vs. Billy Robinson Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, Texas, USA ★★★★ Card I fucking loved this and could be persuaded to go higher on rewatch. Honestly a little surprised to see a somewhat lukewarm reaction to it from other reviews. This was a 20 minute time limit single fall match, not prizes for predicting the result, a draw which anybody could have seen a mile off. The second ten minutes certainly weren’t as good as the first, but it was never less than compelling. I guess some people might find it a tad boring but I thought there was oodles of goodness to pick out from both guys here. Robinson was the main man early on. Dory, who’s usually a blank slate, showed a little bit of character, shoving Robinson away and trying to provoke him, and provoke him he did. Robinson really is a 1:1 wrestler, executing little hold variations that you just don’t see other wrestlers try. Everything felt tense, everything carried weight, and all of it was pure struggle and I was revelling in it all. As the tide turned more in Dory’s favour he began pulling out his old friend, the uppercut. In fact it seemed like the uppercut was the only move he had. But combined with his dead blank expressions and just nailing uppercut after uppercut ad nauseam, it began to feel like he was the terminator, and those strikes certainly looked like they were causing serious damage to Robinson, who was looking loopier by the minute. The pace picked up slightly as we began getting time updates, but it never reached the absolute frenzy the best time limit finishes do, so I can see why somebody would ding this for that. I would have liked this to have been 30+ minutes actually as I felt both guys had much more in the tank. Overall though it is gems like this that I expected when I started delving into the Houston footage. 1980 may have been a bit of a downer, but in 1981 business was starting to pick up! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ohtani's jacket Posted August 7, 2023 Report Share Posted August 7, 2023 That Dory/Robinson match was good. I have more time for Dory than most and enjoying watching his post-NWA champion phase. And t's always good to see more Billy Robinson, even if it's not prime Billy Robinson. It helps if you adjust your mentality to the fact that both men were well past their primes. Ten years earlier, this may have been a MOTY, if not MOTD, contender, but it's still pretty frigging cool as a competitive maestros bout. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted August 9, 2023 Author Report Share Posted August 9, 2023 Most of what I've seen from Dory has been his tags with Terry, so I haven't had as much exposure to his singles work, which seems to be the most derided. But I thought for sure he brought a lot of good stuff to this match. I was a tad disappointed with Robinson during 1980. Yes, he had the Bockwinkel match, but I wasn't high on his Jumbo matches from earlier on in the year. He popped up in Memphis, which at the time felt really incongruent to me, but now that I'm more used to him in that context I think the main issue was probably that he never seemed to work TV at all, and in '80 there's basically none of his Omni matches that weren't heavily clipped. So far this year he's had a really fun mini-feud going on with Tony Charles in Memphis, within which he's essentially been the heel, that I feel highlights his particular strengths in the ring far more than I'd seen before (in the 80s at least). This match in Houston adds to those Charles matches in Memphis, in showing more of an edge and a grittiness than I remember seeing at all in his 70s Japan work, but that very well could be me misremembering them as it's been a fair few years since I last saw them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted August 9, 2023 Author Report Share Posted August 9, 2023 1981-01-18 AJPW Giant Baba (c) vs. Verne Gagne (c) AWA World Heavyweight Title / PWF Heavyweight Title Two Out Of Three Falls Match Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan ★★ Card This was apparently part of a series celebrating Baba’s 3000th match. Gagne came out to a disco version of the Star Wars theme which was amazing. The first fall was clipped between the 1st and the 10th minute. They never really worked this with the urgency you’d want from a double title match, but felt more like an exhibition due to it being a Baba landmark. Considering he was solidly in his mid-50s at this point, Gagne still moved about the ring extremely well and just exuded the energy of a “true” wrestler. Just the little ways how he would dodge a lock up stick out compared to the younger guys. So while he didn’t wow me per se, the more I see of Verne the more impressed I am and the more keen I am to check out his earlier stuff. This match was all about Gagne trying to get the sleeper on Baba and Baba trying to use his bombs to counter. The first fall finished with Verne slapping that bad boy on and Baba, after some initial struggle, was down and out. In the second and third falls that was his go to move once again, but now Baba had it scouted and was able to escape. After getting over zealous and going for one too many dropkicks, Verne left himself open and Baba managed to hit the Russian Leg Sweep before planting his big boot right in Verne’s face for the second fall. That boot connected big time with Verne’s face and he went above and beyond selling it throughout the fall intermission. The final fall, unsurprisingly, ended in a double countout. Baba hit the boot again but, for some reason, Joe was overly eager to keep Baba away from Verne in the ropes, and that erratic referee behaviour foreshadowed some booking shenanigans. Promptly Verne got the time needed to clear his head, lock on the Sleeper again, but this time Baba escaped to the ropes and instead of relinquishing the hold they both tumbled over and the writing was on the wall. Nice fun match but that’s all really. 1981-01-18 CWA Jerry Lawler vs. Joe LeDuc (w/ Jimmy Hart) Mid-South Coliseum, Memphis, Tennessee, USA ★★ Card The stipulation was that the loser would receive 10 lashes, with the option of quitting wrestling if they couldn’t take them all. Hart was losing his mind throughout praying that LeDuc could pull it out the bag. Slow start but Lawler unfurled a few dynamite punches to set the tone. To be fair LeDuc came back in kind with some hammer blows of his own. LeDuc was fucking massive here as well. Unfortunately we got a big chunk clipped in the middle, only returning for the finish. Lawler made his comeback but Hart distracted the referee allowing LeDuc to piledrive Lawler. Lawler managed to kick out, but when he ended up returning the favour, Hart made sure that Paul Morton was looking and he had no choice but to DQ Lawler. Lawler took his 10 lashes from Hart, but LeDuc took over for the last and proceeded to absolutely wail on Lawler while he was still handcuffed to the corner. Dundee and Rich dove to the ring to try and make the save and in the chaos Lawler ended up with the strap and he and LeDuc brawled to the back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted August 10, 2023 Author Report Share Posted August 10, 2023 1981-01-19 AJPW Abdullah The Butcher & Mark Lewin vs. Jumbo Tsuruta & Verne Gagne Best Two Out Of Three Falls Tag Team Match Ojigaoka Park Gymnasium, Otsu, Shiga, Japan ★★ Card I believe they were building towards Jumbo challenging Abby for the United National Title on an upcoming card (looks to be the 22nd Jan) but I can’t find that anywhere. They could have gone in a lot of interesting directions with this match. They could have worked some kind of story that bled into the aforementioned title match, they could have had something around the duelling sleeper holds of Lewin and Verne, but they kind of did none of that. There were moments where it seemed like Jumbo was eager to target Abby specifically, but they blew those off pretty quickly and they never amounted to much. Overall the dynamic in All Japan feels off-kilter. Jumbo is challenging, and being the native wrestler you’d presume he would be the favourite, but I get no sense that he’s generating strong positive reactions from the crowd. In fact it’s Abby, unsurprisingly bleeding profusely here from a knee shot to the head, that curried the crowd’s favour and who had the match’s most exciting stretch, where he almost seems to have a babyface comeback of sorts, but it was short lived. In terms of the actual match specifics, we got a double countout in the first fall when Abby and Verne wouldn’t quit it, brawling on the outside, leaving us with a winner take all third fall. I actually liked the finish as Abby and Lewin are able to cut Jumbo off, hit him with a really nice double team where Lewin dove off the top with a flying chop while Abby held Jumbo in a fireman’s carry, then transitioned that straight into a back suplex. He followed up with a nice elbow drop to pick up the clean win going into that title match, giving the sense that the odds were stacked against Jumbo being able to claim the belt. 1981-01-23 Houston Wrestling The Funks (Dory Funk Jr. & Terry Funk) (c) vs. Ivan Putski & Wahoo McDaniel SWCW World Tag Team Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, Texas, USA ★★ Card A rather slow burn opening fall, but despite it revolving almost entirely around Wahoo and Putski controlling the Funks with headlocks, I thought it was far more interesting than it sounds. There was intensity and all involved did their best to work the holds well and keep things interesting. I wanted to praise Putski, as he gets a lot of shit, however I have to admit that his penchant for a rest hold dragged down this fall. The early headlocks were fine, but his major imprint on this match was the bear hug he grappled onto Dory, which took the sting out of the fall entirely after Wahoo had come in and stoked the fires. Despite being completely worn down from the hold though, Dory, with a little help from Terry, was able to grab a sneaky pin on Wahoo to steal the first. The second was entirely clipped except for Dory diving to the outside to avoid the restart then jogging back and forth while clutching his back, trying to loosen it up after the beating it’d taken earlier. From commentary it seemed that Wahoo went back to working over Dory’s back and submitted him with an Abdominal Stretch. The final fall had Terry desperately trying to make his mark after Dory had been worked over so thoroughly. This one had the most action, Terry as usual was excellent, they just never managed to pull it together properly. Putski and Wahoo felt like an odd pair and they didn’t have the best chemistry. The finish felt a bit shitty too, with Terry trying to break up another submission on his brother but being held back from the outside by Putski, his only course of action it seems was to straight up punch one of the referees in the face, thus accepting the DQ loss but retaining the titles. Felt weak to me but the crowd were losing their minds. I’m not sure I’ve seen the Coliseum rocking so much. I guess the faces got their heat back immediately after too as they took the Funk’s giant tag team trophy (one of those you win in Japan) and obliterated it in the middle of the ring despite the pleas from the Funks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted August 11, 2023 Author Report Share Posted August 11, 2023 January Recap On WWF TV they gave ample TV interview time to a couple guys throughout the month. Pedro Morales was repeatedly interviewed, which I feel was purely because he was Intercontinental Champion and they wanted to give him that boost. Stan Hansen also got a lot of time on the mic and this was a great opportunity for him to try and get across his “I hate everybody and don’t give a fuck” character to the audience in preparation for his upcoming MSG series with Backlund. Blassie at this point managed not only Hansen, but Hogan, Killer Khan and the Hangman, and Patterson and Vince would always ask about dissension in the ranks of Blassie’s Army which were all readily dismissed. At the very end of the month they finally got Sgt. Slaughter’s Cobra Clutch Challenge underway after talking about it for several weeks. The Gomer Pyle chants were in full effect and Slaughter was no doubt the number one heel in the territory at this time. His first victim actually was Jim Duggan, who gave a valiant effort but was summarily dispatched and the challenge was up and running. There were no MSG shows in January but we did get one Spectrum show. While Hansen was to be Backlund’s opponent in New York, they did begin a Philly series between Slaughter and Backlund, and they began it with a bang. Moving down to Georgia, the two main storylines that the show revolved around were The Freebirds vs Robert Fuller & Ted DiBiase and the chase for the TV Title between Kevin Sullivan and Steve Keirn with a couple cameos from other contenders. We kicked things off with Fuller putting up his 1979 Lincoln Continental in order to get another crack at the tag titles after the Freebirds had wormed their way to retaining the tag titles at the Omni. The no DQ stipulation in this upcoming match was supposed to be in the faces favour (or at least they seemed to think so) but all it did was allow Hayes to interfere with impunity and they proceeded to lose yet again. The following week on TV Fuller and DiBiase announced that they had raised $10,000 for yet another rematch but the Freebirds weren’t interested. By the time we got to the end of the month there’s clearly some footage and context missing but DiBiase and big boy Stan Frazier appeared as new champions after a match in Columbus, Ohio. The word was that they’d injured Terry Gordy at the event so the title match on TV would have the Freebirds as a duo only with Hayes forced into the ring. No surprises when Gordy appeared to tip the scales in the Freebird’s favour. The match ended in a big to-do with a “legitimately” injured Fuller joining the fray and the referee ultimately holding up the belts as we entered February. Sullivan continued his heel tour de force performance by delivering both in the ring and on the microphone. I’m not even sure how I would describe his character at the moment, but he was simultaneously arrogant, delusional, eager for approval but he kind of also had good points at times. His wrestling was always initially on the up and up but he would absolutely never hesitate to cut a corner and do whatever it took to win. He wasn’t a chickenshit heel, he was the world’s greatest weasel. Sullivan’s entire turn came about from a title match against Keirn and these two would go back and forth for the entire month. Keirn interfered to aid Steve O in winning the title from Sullivan at the Omni and they would face up against each other a couple times on TV as well with tempers bubbling over each time. Eventually it looked like matters would be settled in an upcoming Boston Street Fight (Sullivan’s pet match) that would take place in February. Beyond these two feuds, the Mongolian Stomper was the National Champion. What I saw of him was very minimal but none of it was good, like at all. Atlas was the Georgia Champion, recently demoted from being the territory’s top singles championship, and he pivoted from an original bitter confrontation with Ole Anderson (in which I got the sense there was legitimate bad blood between the two) and a scuffle with the aforementioned Stomper after he ruined a bench press demonstration Atlas had set up. The big deal though was Atlas challenging Harley Race for the NWA Title. They brought Dusty Rhodes in for some words of encouragement and Atlas delivered a couple blistering fired up babyface promos (this is something Atlas has been able to do everywhere actually. When he’s fired up he’s good, when he’s trying to be sombre he’s pretty bad). Further West in Memphis the Jimmy Hart/Jerry Lawler feud was getting into full swing. Feeling like his friend had left him in the lurch after his injury, Lawler was on a mission to rid wrestling of Jimmy Hart. To counter this Hart lined up a who’s who from Lawler’s past as a series of obstacles between him and a fist in the face. Lawler was forced to match up against Dream Machine, Paul Ellering, Austin Idol and Joe LeDuc in turn before he got his hands on Jimmy Hart. They didn’t devote too much studio time to this, in fact the TV contained far more video packages and Mid-South Coliseum clips than I recall ever seeing in 1980, but it got the message across. Lawler cut through this array of challengers and they really were able to re-establish him as THE man in Memphis without ever having to wrestle on TV at all. Another little aspect of Memphis at this time I enjoyed was Billy Robinson returning and starting up a little something with fellow countryman Tony Charles. They had a 10 minute draw at the Coliseum and Robinson delivered a fantastic promo, subtly throwing shade Charles’ way, hinting that no matter how skilled Charles is, given enough time the bigger man, i.e. Robinson would always win. This was definitely leading somewhere and felt like a far better use of a man with Robinson’s talents than what I was able to see from the previous year. Heading even further West all the way to Portland, the Rose/Youngblood feud was top billing. To the side of the main event Jonathan Boyd met some misfortune in a parking lot (this looked legitimate as his face was pretty messed up) and in kayfabe it was some of the other wrestlers. They ran an angle where he realised it was Rip Oliver and The Destroyer but this just resulted in him getting absolutely destroyed by the two. I really feel like Boyd has run his course in Portland. He had his chance as the main babyface but he never managed to build any real traction in a feud with Rose and now he’s been supplanted by Youngblood it’s time for him to go. Rose and Youngblood started the year with an excellent title match and ended the month of January with the Army putting Youngblood’s dad on a stretcher and causing Jay to turn into a blubbering mess. Houston in one month did more than they did for the entire year of 1980. Bringing in a wave of new wrestlers like Tilly Blanchard, Wahoo McDaniel, Billy Robinson and the Funks was such a shot in the arm for the promotion and delivered some excellent matches and potential angles. When I started this project this really was what I was expecting from the Houston footage based on how everybody was talking about it. In World of Sport the light heavyweights were the focus, getting a televised tournament dedicated to them. It was nice to see guys like Steve Grey and Johnny Saint get prominent TV exposure right off the bat. Otherwise it’s obvious that they are giving a monster push to Sammy Lee (Satoru Sayama in Bruce Lee cosplay), even teaming him up with everybody’s favourite(!?!?) walking marshmallow Big Daddy! New Japan had nothing at all in January and AJPW was limited to a tour revolving around Baba reaching the 3000 match milestone. AJW however had their annual 4th January show and the footage from January indicates some new developments. The Black Pair appear to have moved away from each other, with Ikeshita focused more on singles (being the All-Pacific Champion) and Mami Kumano ended up with a new partner in Devil Masami (which I’m not complaining about). Jackie Sato is not long for this world (at least in the ring) but I feel like she really established herself in this period as THE ace of the promotion. She came across as so controlled and at ease and gave some killer performances. While her moving on would open up spots for others on the roster it really is a shame as it feels like she was nowhere near done. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted August 12, 2023 Author Report Share Posted August 12, 2023 February 1981-02-XX AJW Devil Masami vs. Chigusa Nagayo Japan ★★ Short little match that allowed Masami to show off her great facial expressions, she really revelled in torturing the newbie. For Nagayo, she only had fleeting moments where she had the chance to attack but mostly she was just a punching bag. I will say she made the most of those moments though. I felt like she exuded a lot of character, really projecting energy and determination, and above all she came across as scrappy, which is a good quality to have as a babyface. Masami finished her off with a Torture Rack after 7 minutes. 1981-02-XX AJW Rimi Yokota & Tomoko Kitamura vs. Wendi Richter & Leilani Kai Best Two Out Of Three Falls Tag Team Match Japan ★ Had its moments but never came together. Wendi seems to have really slipped, with Leilani Kai clearly looking to be the better out of the two. Kai’s bumping and stereotypical American style stooging jumped out and gave the home team something to work against. Kitamura really felt like a warm body, just there so Yokota could have a partner. Speaking of Yokota, she was the bright spot. She didn’t do anything amazing, and I don’t think she was able to raise the ceiling of the match, but she’s always supremely competent and raised the floor enough to prevent this from being completely terrible. The best part was the midpoint of the second fall after Kitamura and Wendi both tagged out (after botching a sunset flip awfully) and Yokota and Kai were able to have a run with Yokota running through her offense. The Americans got set up in the corner for Yokota’s patented flying cross body but Masami came in to block it for her friends, and for a couple minutes this was extremely fun. Overall though supremely forgettable. 1981-02-XX AJW Rimi Yokota & Jackie Sato vs. Ayumi Hori & Nancy Kumi Best Two Out Of Three Falls Tag Team Match Japan ★★ This definitely felt like an “A” team facing off against a “B” team, and I never got the sense that the B team had a chance. They managed to steal the second fall due to some outside-the-ring brawling, but in the middle of the ring, matched straight up against their opponents, they never really made much of a dent. In fact the whole thing was chugging along rather aimlessly until Nancy finally upped the ante and showed some aggression, and ironically all it did was spur on Yokota and Jackie to finally up their own game, delivering a series of fantastic tag moves and easily secured the first fall. Overall I actually couldn’t point to much that either Hori and Kumi did all match - they could have been replaced by any other pairing on the roster and I wouldn’t have noticed. The same couldn’t be said for the two stars though. Yokota had flashes - and spectacular flashes at that, like a springboard off the turnbuckle into a flying splash and a out of this world handspring to avoid her opponent’s attack during a rope run - but Jackie still feels a step above her as an overall worker, with everything she does in the ring carrying more weight and coming across as more impactful and important. It doesn’t hurt that she herself has a bevy of killer moves and we saw her amazing suplex into a backbreaker once again. It’s a real shame that her retirement match is coming up as it seems like a real waste to remove her from the roster at this point in time. Yokota has a little ways to go to put it all together but she certainly had the tools to make that leap in due course. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted August 13, 2023 Author Report Share Posted August 13, 2023 1981-02-02 Joint Promotions Young David vs. Mal Sanders Civic Centre, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom ★★ On first glance this match seemed to be much of a muchness, but there were little nuggets hidden within which would have been interesting if they’d explored them further. David was consistent with his strategy, targeting the left arm over several rounds and was able to generate the best point-of-attack selling out of Sanders on a number of hard whips into the corner. For Sanders, despite this really being a face vs face matchup, he was happy to heel it up a little more and there was a definite underlying tension that undercut the whole thing, which they teased bubbling over at different points. My main issue was that after the initial selling of the arm by Sanders he would immediately blow it off as they worked into the next sequence which negated any sense that there was a real opening being carved out for David to exploit, especially after he lost the first fall early against the run of play. In the end David did manage to claw a fall back in the fifth and final round, thus we ended up a draw, but it felt like neither man really came out of it better than they went in. 1981-02-02 Joint Promotions Clive Myers vs. Lucky Gordon Civic Centre, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom ★ Myers came across a lot like Sammy Lee, possessing a martial arts offense that stylistically contrasted with the normal wrestling fair, and they played Gordon’s confusion on how to counter it up for a few laughs throughout, but consequently they were never able to actually get any sequences going. Myers would do a few moves, the crowd would pop, Gordon would be a bit bewildered and then they would reset and repeat. Again, like Sammy Lee, Myers felt like more flash than substance. His strange poses drawing woos from the audience and his array of kicks were fun crowd pleasers, but overall his offense felt light, his strikes were often off their mark, and his punches and chops especially were pretty bad. By the fourth round Gordon had had enough and after being unceremoniously dumped to the outside, after receiving an Enzuigiri, decided it wasn’t worth it after all and didn’t bother trying to beat the count, handing Myers the win. 1981-02-02 Joint Promotions Mal Sanders, Lucky Gordon & Steve Peacock vs. Clive Myers, Mick McMichael & Young David Six Man Tag Team Match Civic Centre, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom ★ So the participants of the previous three singles matches were all bundled together into this tag match. Other than Sanders and Young David ending in a draw, the face team came into this with a 2-0 lead apparently, indicating this was some kind of tournament or challenge, but even winning this tag match the heels could only finish 2-1 losers at best. This all screamed a waste of time to me. I bet this was a lot of fun for those in attendance but this was really just a platform for the heel team, and specifically Peacock and Gordon, to look foolish, and to give the faces some shine. There was an interesting dynamic with Sanders being the odd man out on his team, clearly not vibing with their overall approach and tempers flared more than once with him turning on his teammates. The action went thick and fast and lasted a good 12 or so minutes before the faces sealed the 2-0 straight falls victory. But I couldn’t really discern any strategy from the heel team or a path for victory for them which meant that this had zero stakes whatsoever. It didn’t help that the same issues that cropped up in Myers’ previous match existed here, such as his opponents needing to feed his offense in overly cooperative and contrived ways. In addition David kind of faded into the background, and after some early tags, Sanders seemed pretty content to just chill on the apron and watch his team implode. The highlight for sure was Myers going to the top and nailing a vicious splash right on Peacock’s head. From a viewer standpoint it looked amazing but I wouldn’t have been surprised if he actually botched this and was actually aiming for the body. And I bet Peacock was none too pleased about nearly getting his noggin spattered across the mat. 1981-02-02 Joint Promotions Sammy Lee vs. Johnny England Civic Centre, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom ★ I’ll give Johnny England credit here, he had enough offense and athleticism to really take the fight to Lee and force him to earn his shine. The crowd were used to Lee just straight up overwhelming his opponents but England was able to stand his ground for a couple rounds, or at least until Lee got into a groove and then just began showboating. Lee was undeniably impressive, but the more he was let off the leash the more his matches just devolved into meaninglessness. His move where he runs up his opponent in the corner and backflips to the middle of the ring being a perfect example of doing a move just to do a move. As many of his opponents have done up until now England decided that getting embarrassed with a series of kicks and arm drags wasn’t for him and took his ball and went home. 1981-02-02 Joint Promotions Jim Breaks vs. Jon Cortez Civic Centre, Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, United Kingdom ★★★ Fantastic selling of the arm and general fatigue from Cortez but this was simply a singular performance from Breaks. There’s a lot of talk about broomstick workers and I think Breaks absolutely is one of them (not implying that Cortez is a broomstick by any stretch). This was Breaks pushing with all his might against the rules and boundaries of the match, working against the referee, and even ending up at odds with Kent Walton, who felt the need to inform the referee of Breaks pulling Cortez’s trunks to win the final fall. It’s a shame that this only went 10 or so minutes when it would have been even more fantastic to get a 30 minute barnburner between these two. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted August 14, 2023 Author Report Share Posted August 14, 2023 1981-02-06 Houston Wrestling Ivan Putski vs. Gino Hernandez NWA World Heavyweight Title #1 Contendership Tournament Semi Final Match Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, Texas, USA ★★ Card It felt like Ivan was feeling his way through this. The little things that would generate massive crowd pops in New York were given lukewarm responses here. He displayed such confidence in his charisma however that it didn’t ruffle him one bit and he just kept plugging away with his approach. Gino was keen to take a powder whenever things started to unravel for him, but the moments where Putski was able to get ahold of him and throw a few punches were the spark plug moments of the match. Gino had a nice little thumb to the eye that got him a brief heat segment, but as usual his offense was painfully light and the writing looked to be on the wall when Putski hit the Polish Hammer. However unsurprisingly there were a few twists and turns, a ref bump or two as he took a knee to the face getting too close to a Putski power slam attempt. Gino was able to get a pair of brass knuckles from his trunks, nail Putski and steal the win. Even in defeat though, Putski made sure to kick out at 3.00000001 seconds. Classic Ivan! 1981-02-06 Houston Wrestling Wahoo McDaniel vs. Gino Hernandez NWA World Heavyweight Title #1 Contendership Tournament Final Match Sam Houston Coliseum, Houston, Texas, USA ★★★ Card The other semi final match happened first between Wahoo and Terry Funk. Funk got on the mic and demanded that Wahoo apologise for destroying his tag team trophy the last time they were in this arena. Wahoo obviously declined and Funk jumped him to get things going. This was short and sweet but Wahoo picked up the surprise victory after only 2 minutes or so with an O’Connor Roll. In a flash Gino was there and he and Funk administered a beatdown ahead of the final match. Gino did his best to get in as much offense and dish out as much damage as he could before Wahoo gained a foothold in the match, but it wasn’t enough. Finally Wahoo caught Gino on the outside and he motioned that Gino was gonna eat steel. This is when the match elevated for me. I don’t want to attribute it entirely to the blood letting, but I can’t deny that blood adds a special element to a match, and Gino hit a real gusher here. He was constantly wiping the blood out of his eyes and by the end of it his hands looked like he was wearing red gloves due to the staining. He constantly bailed at every opportunity just to catch a breather and his woozy selling here was fantastic. When Wahoo managed to keep him contained in the ring though he was glorious at just annihilating Gino with power moves. I wondered whether another swerve was coming but no, Gino couldn’t overcome the blood loss, the longer it went on the stronger Wahoo became, eventually wrapping him up in a cradle to seal the win and the chance at Harley Race for the World’s Title later on in the month. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted August 15, 2023 Author Report Share Posted August 15, 2023 1981-02-07 GCW Bobby Eaton (c) vs. Steve Keirn NWA National Television Title Match WTBS TV Studios, Atlanta. Georgia, USA ★★★ Card This kind of came out of nowhere. Eaton has popped up in Memphis and Georgia before on TV, but he still felt like a work in progress. Even the previous week where he won the title against Steve O he had his flaws. Here though, in the ring against a solid worker in Steve Keirn, he looked to have turned the corner and they both were fantastic here. Keirn took control early, a lot of old fashioned mat work, and every time Eaton tried to counter and escape Keirn’s holds they would flow through seamlessly and Eaton would find himself still in the hold or in an entirely new one. After several minutes of struggling Eaton finally managed to make some headway and nailed Keirn with a nasty backbreaker that landed right on the coccyx. Now it was time to show off what he had in his arsenal. The fantastic punches that we’re all familiar with were there, but he could go on the mat too, negating Keirn’s attempts to escape with similar roll throughs of his own that were easy on the eye. Up until this point Eaton hadn’t had to rely on any underhand tactics but as Keirn started to rally he felt that the match might be slipping away - a hair pull here, a trunk pull there, he even tried using the ropes for leverage on a pin attempt, which is apparently how he won the belt in the first place (I still dispute this!) Keirn was rolling now though, hitting one of the sweetest swinging neckbreakers I’ve ever seen, and locked on the Sleeper for the finish. Eaton dumped him over the ropes for the automatic DQ loss but he retained his title. The finish is what it is, but Eaton proved he could really go in the ring, and that’s the key factor when you hold the TV Title, and Keirn once again looked mighty impressive. He’s been on a pretty solid TV match roll recently. Another little TV gem here. 1981-02-09 NJPW Antonio Inoki & Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Bobby Duncum & Tiger Jeet Singh Best Two Out Of Three Falls Tag Team Match Akita City Gymnasium, Akita, Japan ★ Card Really interesting to see Fujinami play the role of Inoki’s lackey so much here. Tiger Singh was his usual unhinged self and early on Fujinami seemed overly wary of getting near him, visibly recoiling when Duncum tried to manoeuvre the two of them to his corner. Then when he had the opportunity he beelined straight to Inoki for the tag instead of standing his ground and fighting. That was about where the interesting aspects finished. Everybody, especially as the match wore on, came across like they were operating at half speed, Duncum in particular was aimlessly hanging around on the apron when he wasn’t the legal man, and any time either team seemed to be making any headway the spare man would dive in immediately to save his partner, which killed any tension they were building. Singh got himself disqualified in the first fall for overzealous brawling on the outside, then only a couple of minutes into the second fall, he went ham on Fujinami again with a beer/water bottle causing the second DQ and a straight falls loss for his team, which really gave the impression that this ultimately was a waste of my time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted August 16, 2023 Author Report Share Posted August 16, 2023 1981-02-11 Joint Promotions Mark Rocco vs. Marty Jones Bury, Greater Manchester, United Kingdom ★★★★ ¼ Following on from the draw they had back in December ‘80, the impetus was on Jones to finally get that victory he’d been yearning for. It was a 20 minute single fall match, so no rounds here, just a straight fight to the finish. Only bummer really is that we missed the first 5 minutes or so. As soon as we joined the action one thing was abundantly clear, cheating is akin to breathing for Rocco. It’s a fundamental aspect of his very being. In some ways when he does it it doesn’t even feel like cheating per se, just that he’s working to find the absolute limit of the rules, then repeatedly prods that to see if it’ll break. Here he was absolutely relentless. You could hear Kent Walton’s exasperation at how lenient the referee was being. He should have received a zillion public warnings but didn’t receive a single one until we were well on our way towards the finishing stretch. Seeing what he was getting away with just emboldened Rocco even more and it was glorious. On the opposite side Jones was very subtle with how he played this. He wasn’t constantly whining to the referee about these decisions, he just got on with the job, but you could sense his frustration growing as the match chugged along until he finally snapped. At that point it became a game of one upmanship. Rocco comes off the top, well now Jones comes off the top. Rocco hits a fucking tope to the outside. Well Jones can bloody well do that too! The fact that they were so blatantly breaking from the restrictions of the World of Sport style is what added to this and is why having stringent stylistic rules can be so beneficial - so that when you break them, it means so much more. They went back and forth and the timer started to count down. Jones surely couldn’t settle for a draw yet again? All the while Rocco was clawing at the fringes, taking advantage, sneaking in a dirty punt to the face a split second early, hitting not one, not two, but three elbow drops in a row after a previous move, and any time he hit some resistance his first instinct was always to bail and not give Jones any chance, not even a sliver, of pulling out the victory. In the end Jones once again did have to wait for his win, as a tombstone piledriver that left Rocco sprawled in the centre of the ring came with only seconds left on the clock, so just like in December, he’d have to wait for another day to receive that sweet satisfaction. 1981-02-11 Joint Promotions Mick McManus vs. Sammy Lee Bury, Greater Manchester, United Kingdom ★ For the most part this was fine. McManus had the know-how to actually contain Sammy Lee somewhat, get him to work underneath a little and make sure that it wasn’t a steamrolling. I was somewhat enjoying this until Sammy Lee decided to go super saiyan. A little too much afters from McManus rubbed Lee the wrong way and he flipped and started unleashing a series of sidekicks - left then right, on and on. The issue was that these kicks looked like absolute shit. McManus had to essentially just kneel on the mat, propped up on the ropes and let Lee tee off on him, but yuck. Ultimately the only thing Lee was consistently able to deliver that I actually liked was his mule kick, which had awesome speed and looked cool as hell. But it’s just one move and you can’t build a match around that. Another flurry of shitty kicks later and McManus did what a bevy of competitors had done before him and walked, handing the victory to Lee, who, match after match, was looking cockier and cockier. 1981-02-11 Joint Promotions Johnny Saint vs. Steve Grey Bury, Greater Manchester, United Kingdom ★★★ There was something rather masturbatory about this. Every once in a while they’d ratchet up the intensity and then ease back off, almost edging, if you’ll allow me to continue the analogy, and this went on for the whole 20 minute duration. Even as they approached the time limit I didn’t get the sense that the crowd were enraptured as they should have been and I certainly was convinced this was going to finish as a draw. The style of the match was like they were sparring. The desire or need to win was secondary to putting on an exhibition - exploring the studio space as it were, but I didn’t get the required desperation from either man that I would have liked. Slick and technically excellent as always, but really lacked that emotional edge. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted August 17, 2023 Author Report Share Posted August 17, 2023 1981-02-12 AJPW Harley Race vs. Dick Murdoch Non Title Match City Gymnasium, Tsu, Mie, Japan ★ Card If I’d spent my hard earned money on going to a show and this was the main event I would have wanted my money back. Zero urgency whatsoever. Felt like both guys were in it to just get the match over with and go home. Even the most “violent” spots - like Murdoch nailing Race with chair shots to the head - clearly had cooperation to the extent that Race was essentially hitting himself in the head with it. I’ve yet to see the best of Murdoch so far in this project but I know he’s capable of far more than this. He did have a rather impressive press slam on Race though, which shocked me both because Race is a big boy himself, and also because Murdoch doesn’t give off “I live in the gym” vibes. So a nice feat of strength from him. In terms of Race, I’ve come to expect all his matches to be worked like this now. He offered very little, like almost nothing, on offense. Being the NWA champion it makes sense he’d come into a territory and let the local challenger look good, but this wasn’t a title match, and he’s coming into Japan not some backwater territory, AND he’s facing another foreigner. There comes a time when you need to remind people why you’re the champion in the first place. If there ever was a time to kind of flex your credentials, this was it. But I’m not sure he’s able to work any other way. He sold far too much far too easily and yeah, overall this wasn’t good. 1981-02-14 WWF Hulk Hogan vs. Dominic DeNucci Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA ★★ Card A very basic but clear storyline to this one that they presented in a pretty digestible manner. Hogan was in control, mostly using holds on the arm, and DeNucci again and again tried the slam Hogan to no avail. Finally DeNucci got his second wind, capitalised on Hogan’s complacency, and managed to rebound him off the ropes, using that momentum to get him up for that slam. Some light choking later from DeNucci and Hogan really was on the ropes. His selling was pretty good here, but a Hogan Hammer (or two) took DeNucci down for the finish. The story was clear, the crowd were hot, Hogan’s selling during DeNucci’s brief run on top was great, but both men suffered from a lack of credible offense. DeNucci was even more afflicted as he was also a pretty abysmal seller, including when he took the Hammer at the end, as Hogan felt the need to hit him a second time on the way down because he was so wooden after the first. Ultimately technical execution was the major failing here but this was pretty serviceable. 1981-02-14 WWF Pedro Morales (c) vs. Stan Hansen WWF Intercontinental Title Match Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA ★★★ Card Wow, how a match can flip in an instant. Hansen took the first ⅔ of this maybe, with Pedro all too willing to work from underneath, but he lacked those little hope spots you need to keep it interesting and competitive. Hansen worked the arm, it was a little dull, but once they got onto the ropes he went feral, with one particularly sick headbutt onto the shoulder area. The whole time it seemed like Hansen was daring him, almost goading him, into fighting back. Show me what you’ve got Pedro! But no, Pedro just took it and took it and took it for nearly 10 minutes. The match was just fine up to that point and I thought Hansen was trying his best, but in my opinion like Andre, Hansen needed a certain type of opponent, or for his opponent to work a certain way, to elevate the match, and here Pedro wasn’t pulling his weight and was just too passive. Then, THEN, everything changed. There aren’t many home stretch runs as ferocious as this one. Pedro finally made his comeback and it was absolutely on. What I loved is that Hansen didn’t just let Pedro take over (no surprise there in the slightest) but instead he kept coming back at him. This time Pedro was up to the challenge and they went back and forth. Dick Weorhle tried his best to intervene and I honestly felt a bit fearful for him trying to break these two up. He got slammed a couple times and the double DQ finish was a foregone conclusion at that point but damn, that final minute or so was electric. 1981-02-14 WWF Bob Backlund (c) vs. Sgt. Slaughter WWF Heavyweight Title Match Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA ★★★ Card This may be a quintessential bumping performance from Slaughter. Right off the bat he took a front bump into the corner that I’ve not seen anybody else do and it only continued from there, my favourite being a nutty one through the ropes that looked like he catapulted himself and simply defied physics. Other than a brief segment where Slaughter tried to target Backlund’s shoulder, Bob was on top and in control for the most part. I say in control in the sense that he was the one dishing out the punishment, but actually it was Slaughter who was dictating the tempo by the end. For the final 5 or so minutes Slaughter was bailing to the outside every chance he got, trying to collect himself, recuperate, something, just so he could compete. But every time he came in the ring you could see that he wasn’t fully there and Bob would take advantage, hit a move then he’d bail and we would rinse and repeat. This constant diving to the outside was a fantastic way to build towards their upcoming cage match, with no opportunity for Slaughter to escape and nowhere for him to hide. Backlund was good here, he threw a couple nice stiff forearms and he had a fantastic power spot where he held Slaughter in the air on a suplex, rode out Slaughter clawing at the ropes and managed to muscle him back up to properly hit the move, but we’ve come to expect this kind of stuff from him. He also went for the Cobra Clutch a couple times that I thought was a lovely touch. Overall though Slaughter was just amazing. The aforementioned bumping, his exhausted selling and wooziness down the stretch really is the best example of that kind of selling that I can recall and the narrative of Backlund not being able to keep him in the ring is great storytelling for a middle-of-a-series match. Quick shout out to Kal Rudman as well, who had an all-time performance on the microphone - “He’s gonna kill him. It’s death, it’s DEATH!” is still ringing in my ears. 1981-02-14 WWF Rick Martel & Tony Garea (c) vs. The Moondogs (Moondog King & Moondog Rex) WWF Tag Team Title Texas Death Match (Special Referee: Gorilla Monsoon) Philadelphia Spectrum, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA ★★ Card I’ll admit I had higher expectations for this coming in. When something’s billed as a Texas Death Match you imagine some wild violent spectacle and this really was anything but that. Gorilla as a special referee is always an interesting one. On the one hand he’s very much presented as someone who can handle himself and won’t take any shit, but on the other hand, it means crazy shit isn’t going down on his watch, and in my book that’s a bad tradeoff. The champions started with an extended shine and they really blew the Moondogs out the water. Martel in particular was a whirling dervish, his favourite offensive move being these knee strikes that I can’t remember him using before but they looked snug and brutal. The energy from Garea and Martel were there but the Moondogs were just taking this beating. I’m not really a fan of extended shines, especially when there’s no resistance from the heels. They could have redeemed themselves with some interesting transition into the heat but this was pure laziness. Garea just got bored and complacent, let King tag out to Rex and a stomach punch and a body check was all it took to switch the momentum. The Moondogs didn’t get any better when they were on top though and 5 full minutes with Martel relegated to apron duty was a waste. When we finally got the hot tag though it was excellent. Martel certainly wasn’t resting on his laurels and he really brought the fire. The finish was a bit messy as Martel looked to have the pin but Gorilla was distracted, then King decided, out of nowhere, to come off the second rope and club Gorilla. He was having none of that and chopped King right in the face and the champions hit a double backdrop on Rex for the relatively easy win. This was lacklustre in terms of utilising the match stipulation, the structure and the Moondogs really laid an egg. Garea was decent during that initial run when they steamrolled the challengers but this is worth a watch purely for Martel’s performance. The two best sequences from him bookend the whole match, I’ve never seen his offense look more impactful and gritty, nor has he had a better hot tag up to this point. He gets a lot of love for his 1980 work, but at this point I think he definitely had improved since his time in Portland. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SAMS Posted August 18, 2023 Author Report Share Posted August 18, 2023 1981-02-14 PNW Jay Youngblood vs. Rip Oliver Non Title Indian Strap Match Sports Arena, Portland, Oregon, USA ★★ Card Rose was initially at ringside with Oliver for support but Dutch Savage, acting as referee, indicated that if Rose interfered at all he’d have his wrestling licence revoked indefinitely. Rose then offered to take Oliver’s place in the match, to which Youngblood, Savage and even Oliver seemed all too happy for, but he backed out saying that he just wanted to know if Youngblood would do it. He gave Oliver the proverbial thumbs up before disappearing to the dressing room. Oliver seemed a little thrown by this series of events, perhaps he thought the plan was for Rose to take his place all along, but now he was in there on his lonesome and I’m not sure he ever recovered. Other than a couple of moments here and there Oliver never really gained a foothold in this match. Youngblood took it to him early, used the strap liberally, and the finish was never in doubt. Oliver hit a low blow to very briefly get a reprieve and showed some resistance the first few times Youngblood went for the four corners, but otherwise this was just Youngblood laying it in on him. We also got one of the most casual and indiscreet blade jobs of all time from Oliver, as he just chilled on the apron in full view of the camera and all the fans while he did the act. Overall this was pretty fun. They never let it drag too long and it was over before it could wear out its welcome, but there were no interesting wrinkles or swerves here, essentially it was just an extended squash. 1981-02-15 AJPW Harley Race (c) vs. Giant Baba NWA World Heavyweight Title Best Two Out Of Three Falls Match Korakuen Hall, Tokyo, Japan ★★ Card Baba launched out of the blocks with a big boot off the bat and from there he was in control of the first fall. There were times where he took Race to the mat in a side headlock but he did enough to press his advantage and went for those early bombs and it paid off when he secured the fall. The crowd were right there with him, urging him on, which added to the sense or urgency and occasion. The issues began to emerge in the second fall. The fact that Race didn’t even hit a single move until well into the second fall can be explained by how the first one played out, but once he did finally get his moment on top, both he and Baba really failed to generate anything of merit. Race’s offense was uninspiring and Baba’s bumping was even worse. Most of the second fall was worked on the floor outside and it was clear Baba had no interest in taking any hard bumps on either the floor or the tables that surrounded the ring. After hardly any time at all Race had Baba back in the ring and a simple suplex managed to level things up. I’ll give them credit, they leveraged the crowd’s investment to ratchet the excitement up again in the final fall as Baba pressed hard for that decisive fall. They eked out a few little near falls that had the fans on the edge of their seats, but the actual finish was a real dud. First Race tried to get disqualified by just punching Joe Higuchi in the face. Baba managed to calm him down enough for the match to continue but when Race delivered a low blow only moments later Joe had no choice but to call it then. This is obviously by no means an isolated incident, but I feel like it really devalues a title when the champion can just outright sidestep the rules to retain the title, and a finish like this would make me feel so furious as a paying fan in attendance. Like what was the point? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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