moribund

Oooh, World of Sport, hooray! Thanks @AxB, looking forward to it. Here's something I'm going to guess you've seen, but I have always liked this late era, unexpected glory from William Regal...

@SirSmUgly, @HarryArchieGus, I see the matches you sent me. I'm off tomorrow, so I'll get the watching and reviewing done by Friday night. Thanks in advance, they look cool.

Replying to @Matt D regarding earlier stuff: Just in case @Curt McGirt missed my match for him from week 1 it's above - I know @HarryArchieGus spotted his as he mentioned it above. I got the review of Curt's match done. HarryArchieGus, you can send me just about anything for week two (though I'm not really a fan of death matches, so I'd like to avoid those if I can). Same request for @SirSmUgly for this week. Speaking of this week @SirSmUgly, here's a decent little confection (I thought) for you from the days of Crocket's studio with The Midnight Express putting their belts on the line against Ronnie Garvin & Barry Windham with bonus jawing from Jim Cornette to open:

Holy mackerel! That is some high-quality grappling in front of a hot crowd that is hungry for the native hero to emerge triumphant, and anyone who suffered through the worst of WCW / 2004 WWF will be shocked (Shocked! I tell you!) when the crowd gets what they want. It's all so godsdamn satisfying... I've settled into a Pro & Con rather than play-by-play for my breakdowns & reactions, so let's see what there is to see... Pros: - Rick Rude is the most magnificent, arrogant, strutting peacock of a heel that a naturally charismatic babyface like Masa Chono (at this point in 1992) could hope to have sneer at him. - I know it's recency bias talking, but both of these guys just drip physical charisma. I'm sure there are 'better' examples, like maybe Nick Bockwinkel & Terry Funk in the same ring would qualify in that regard, but when you have to pull out those two names off the top of your head to make a comparison it just goes to show how talented Rude and Chono are at this point in their careers. - I'm quite sure other folks have thought of this, but I literally just realized with this match that Rick Rude's heel shenanigans, specifically his arrogance, demand that he be made to look like a fool as his comeuppance. That's why his sometimes ridiculous sells work so well, and it's in contrast (as I bring up his name again) to someone like Terry Funk, who's bully-heel act is payed off by his being revealed as a coward. I think maybe it stood out so much because it's actually a very small part of this particular match. - I love this finishing stretch to this match where once it starts it is clear that the first man who strings three moves together will be the victor but they exquisitely tease who will actually manage the feat. Beautiful near falls, fantastic selling, great timing *chef's kiss*. Cons: - Yeah, the racial slur in Rude's entrance/pageant can fuck right the Hell off. He didn't need it, and it's just ugly. - There's an obvious rest-hold chinlock, and I get why it happens when it does, but it looks so bad in contrast with all the other limb/mat work where there is constant movement and struggle. I mean, the other stuff is not always the absolute best but there is, at least, something going on whereas the chinlock is just a couple minutes of nothing. - I honestly can't decide if I wish Madusa had been replaced by Sherri Martel or not. Probably not since the match was in Japan, but part of me kept thinking "Maybe if Sherri was there and the match was in Hawaii or something?" Just wishful thinking on my part. Thanks @Curt McGirt, that was dope.

@Curt McGirt: Here's a belated match for you: Wahoo McDaniel & Tully Blanchard & a leather strap. I posted this once upon a time in the "It's Clubberin' Time" thread, which got me a like form the late, great DEAN~!!! (which I will treasure forever and think of whenever I confuse my co-workers by praising them with a 'million billion stars'), so I'm hoping you will enjoy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJagDBLUISU @HarryArchieGus: Also belated, but here's some Macho chicanery from Puerto Rico, with Tito Santana as the world's most exasperated babyface. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KiAuRwlytlE

Hey all, My most sincere apologies, I've been recovering from a bought of Covid (dodged it for over 4.5 years, but my number finally came up!) and in my brain-fog I completely forgot that I signed up! I'm at work at the moment, but when I get home I will start getting caught up. Thanks in advance for having patience with me.

<raises hand, somewhat sheepishly> I confess I petered out in a previous Secret Santo, but if you guys will have me I'd love to spend some time contemplating Ye Olde Professional Grappling while my partner is off watching opera in another state...

Why I can't remember that we reset this project on Saturday rather than Sunday will forever remain a mystery to me. Apropos of that @SirSmellingtonofCascadia I will get to my review of the Regal/Brookside v. Barrett/Nagasaki you gave me later this afternoon. In the meantime I don't want to leave @Casey hanging and with Regal on my mind, how about this? BTW Casey, if you want to send me that Megumi Kudo match you were thinking about our first go around I am down.

Hey, neat @SirSmellingtonofCascadia! I also really enjoy Regal, and haven't seen any of his early work - nor have I seen any Robbie Brookside, so I'm looking forward to this. For you, how about some NOAH tag action? Yoshihiro Takayama and Minoru Suzuki are putting the IWGP Tag Titles (yes, New Japan's tag titles!) on the line against the baby-faced, beefy boi team of Takeshi Rikio and Takeshi Morishima. It feels to me like this one has a bit of a southern tag formula influence to it, but see what you think for yourself: OH! Forgot to mention originally that there are a good 6-7 minutes of introductions at the beginning of this footage, so the match is about 16-17 minutes.

Thanks for this @Zimbra, your assessment is spot on. PROS: I'm not even entirely sure where to begin with this one there's so much cool stuff, so how about this: Looking at the four guys involved my first thought was "Kikuchi is eating the fall. Okay, maybe Fuchi, but c'mon..." Now I was right but you know what was awesome? Kikuchi never once performed as if he was the obvious low man. Kawada chops the snot out of him the first time the two of them are in the ring together and Kikuchi is all, "Nah, I don't think I'll be intimidated today - I think I'll elbow you in the neck instead." It's very cool. Surly old dudes who mock one another before trying to make each other's joints bend the wrong way are fantastic, so Fujiwara and Fuchi provide an embarrassment of riches on that count. Speaking of surly, Fujiwara's repeated demands for Kawada to join him in the ring only to immediately tag out just as Kawada finally gets in and the crowd goes nuts was such championship level trolling that I can't actually do it justice with words *chef's kiss.* Fuchi spends every moment locked up with Fujiwara doing something: Advancing a hold, looking for a counter or escape, etc. It's the sort of thing we don't get to see nearly enough of these days and it's a real treat. CONS: I have to really start picking at the nits to come up with something negative about this. Umm - Fujiwara kind of lays in a hold early on for, like, 15 seconds. Other con: I have not watched nearly enough Fujiwara, but that's on me not the match. Is this a match that is going to be rated as an all-time AJPW classic? Not even close, but if I was at this show and this was the last match before intermission? I would be totally happy with it. It's 12-ish minutes of perfectly acceptable puro, and sometimes it's great just to be able to enjoy that sort of thing. Give it a watch, you'll likely be glad you did. Thanks again @Zimbra

@Zimbra Tenryu punching guys in the jaw? Perhaps this will fit the bill: With Chosu & Fujinami in the match as well I'm thinking everyone is getting punched real hard...

Thanks @Casey I think I've settled into pro/con for my reactions, but haven't yet gotten over my propensity to let the match sit for a week before I write it up. You are dead on about the video quality: The Starch-o-Rama Vision makes me feel like I'm sitting in the rafters and wearing reading glasses that have vaseline on the lenses. But no matter, we press on... Pros: Lance Russell on the call once again. I am starting to wonder if Memphis style is truly up my alley the more I see of it but you know what? I'm going to keep watching it with no problem because my lack of exposure to it has also limited my intake of Lance Russell and that needs to be fixed. Once again this is the culmination of a long program and Lance gets me everything I need to know about the whys and hows of the match within the first few minutes. After that he's just pure gold on the mic, though I think I need to look up one of his calls on a match where Lawler is a heel: Lance does have a bit of a homer-ish bias toward Lawler here, but even that fits in with the whole Memphis vibe as I currently understand it. I really like the unusual barbed wire set up here. It more or less fulfills the same function as a cage would in the meta-context of the match: Keep the wrestlers in the ring, add an element of danger, and be a useful tool for violence. I've never seen a setup like this before, so the uniqueness of it is kind of neat. Dutch Mantell seems a high quality nasty brute, one whose work I am also mostly unfamiliar with (again owing to my lack of Memphis viewing). Based on this match I think I am going to look up him squashing jobbers, it seems like that would be a good time. Also for the second time running I think Lawler's opponent has better punches than Jerry, at least in this footage. Cons: The match has been clipped, or rather footage lost (I suspect due to tape degeneration given the overall quality of the video), and we're missing about five or six minutes of the match which includes at least two transitions. The ending fell flat for me once again but for a different reason this time: They go through roughly twenty minutes of violence and torture, end up exhausted, knock their heads together, Lawler ends up bouncing off the ropes and falling on Mantell, 1-2-3, oh look, he's champ again. Maybe they were trying to keep the program going or something, but after what felt like the lead up to the culmination of a story this 'got the title essentially on a fluke' was pretty unsatisfying to me. Lawler's more cartoony antics make me wonder if Hogan lifted a bunch of Lawler's act for The Hulkster character. If there is speculation around this I've never read it (or don't remember doing so). I'm pretty firmly landing at @SirSmellingtonofCascadia's position on The King: I think I'll be rooting for the heels against Lawler going forward. Overall I liked this match a bit less than the last one, but do still think folks should at least give it a try: Call it a tepid thumbs-up. No shade on @Casey here at all, as I am pretty willingly engaging with material I would have passed by entirely if not for my partner's good faith efforts. Also, I will check out Megumi Kudo on my own time.

Thanks @Casey, and no worries about the violence content in that one: It's only when we get to light tubes/guys carving each other up with gardening equipment/etc. that I start to back away from the violent graps. This is probably on the downside of NOAH's peak, but I have always had a soft spot for Akira Taue and his bizarre, grumpy, awkward grace: Edited to add: The match itself is just a hair over 20 minutes of the 35 in the video.

Original post no longer relevant, but to respond to @Curt McGirt below: Damn, that sounds like a fine afternoon/evening!

@Super Ape How about some Houston Wrestling?