(Also Not March Madness): SECRET SANTO March 2020

[Curt McGirt]

Boy for a match where they got all burned up they sure didn't do much of anything (though given the circumstances, there's not much they could). My favorite part was Funk grabbing a flaming whatever and running around the ring to I guess hit someone with? But there's nobody there so it's just him running around holding fire in his bare hands haha

[Matt D]

Hey, we hit 400 replies. Good job, guys. As meaningless metrics go, that is a pretty good one.

I will re-roll In the morning. Does anyone need to jump off? Even for a week. Does anyone lurking want to jump on? Let us know. We are definitely going to be entering the realm of repeat pairings, but I don’t want to stop given what is going on in the world right now. This is one small thing we can do for and with each other.

[Curt McGirt]

Putting this here to remind myself to review it. I'll do this and the two Portland matches tonight now that kung-fu is knocked off. 

[The Man Known as Dan]

4 hours ago, Matt D said:

Hey, we hit 400 replies. Good job, guys. As meaningless metrics go, that is a pretty good one.

I will re-roll In the morning. Does anyone need to jump off? Even for a week. Does anyone lurking want to jump on? Let us know. We are definitely going to be entering the realm of repeat pairings, but I don’t want to stop given what is going on in the world right now. This is one small thing we can do for and with each other.

I’m gonna jump off for one week to get caught up.

[Curt McGirt]

Franz van Buyton vs. Dave Taylor (Piratenkampf Match)

This was somewhat disappointing. The rules of a Piratenkampf match are basically Capture the Flag with a chain attached to both guys. You would expect this to mean extreme violence but oddly, this match wasn't really that violent. It was more like one long, extended test of strength more than anything. That's not to say it wasn't intense, especially with the handheld camerawork, this felt really seedy, like some creepy German presentation for the raincoat crowd to whack off watching muscular men in an S&M setting (Van Buyton's mustache and the heavy metal wrist gauntlets add to this), and there was plenty of chains getting wrapped around faces and limbs and agonized contorted facial features. But, and I can't stress this enough: THERE WAS NO BLOOD. You've got to be kidding me. These two are rubbing chains across each other's foreheads and there's no blood! Also, there is only exactly one time where a volley of punches is thrown, and nobody whips each other with the chain either. You think those would be prerequisites for this. But instead of Piper/Valentine it's more like two guys just trying to grind each other down and it's kinda boring. Crowd is absolutely at a froth the whole time though, so it worked out in that respect. 

[Matt D]

There are some bloody ones with great comebacks but a lot of them are really focused on the win. 

[Curt McGirt]

The parts I liked best were definitely when someone was going for the flag and the other guy is locked in mortal struggle to keep him down. Some of those would be really cool still photos.

[Curt McGirt]

Sheepherders vs. Adrian Adonis/Ron Starr

This is probably the first time I've seen face Adrian, and first time I've seen either the Kiwis or Rotten Ron not leaking all over the ring. There's a whole fall and a half cut out of this (Portland was usually 2/3 falls matches) but what is there is nice, old school tag wrestling. Both teams cutting off the ring, Steamboatish work from Adonis (armdrags and limbwork), Butch and Luke mugging and selling wildly. Those two are even uglier with the long hair. Now I wanna go watch a Jonathan Boyd promo with them.

Tim Brooks and Roddy Piper vs Adrian Adonis and Ron Starr

More of the same, except this time it's The Roddy Piper Show. Whether he's stalking the apron, plunging his thumb into somebody's throat, or even doing the most boring of wrestling maneuvers ever the dreaded NERVE HOLD, you can't take your eyes off him. This is a guy who really needs a career reevaluation. For years a lot of us watched him do horrible crap like gay-bash Goldust or do his dated brawling against Hogan in WCW and thought that's all he had. Seeing this stuff reminds you why he was so big for so long. Adonis and Starr are kind of cheat-y for a face team with the double switches. Killer Brooks is just kinda there, and Sandy Barr is pretty much the worst ref outside of lucha, with horrible counts (at one point switching hands, who the fuck does that?) and constantly allowing interference, but the Hot Rod was great. 

 

Edited May 3, 2020 by Curt McGirt

[Matt D]

Week 9. I think this is week 9. 

Dan's taking a week off. 

I am pairing @Ace and @supremebve with one another again as they were paired last week and I don't think either got the other a pick, so it's a natural pairing again. 

Here's the random draw on the rest.

Ace
Supremebve

Curt McGirt
OctopusCinema

Goodear
Matt D

Tim Evans
Six String Orchestra

Gordi > Smelly McUgly > AxB (so AxB will give to Gordi)

Goodear, I've been sitting on one for you for a few weeks now. Post to follow.

 

[Matt D]

@Goodear I have a French match for you but, outside of OJ, I don't think anyone in our broad circle has seen this yet, not even the SC guys I review this stuff with. It is remarkable and unique and just for you.

 

[Gordi the former AEW fan]

@Smelly McUgly I wanna give you another heated tag match with a clear heel/face dynamic etc, and I seem to recall you saying that Gino Hernandez is a blind spot (and you didn't enjoy the Sicodelico match-up).

So...

Here, please try this one:

 

Edited May 3, 2020 by gordi

[Curt McGirt]

@OctopusCinema here's a favorite off the '80s Lucha set. I wanted to give you Espectro Jr. vs. Hijo del Santo but it's not online, and neither was my very first choice of Men's Teioh vs. Tiger Mask IV... dammit. I might end up picking something from M-Pro for next week. 

EDIT: And here's another one just in case you like that one a lot

Not asking for a review of both, but they both were tops in my book, so you pick. 

Edited May 3, 2020 by Curt McGirt

[Octopus]

Hey @Curt McGirt. Thanks for the recs. I’ll get to them this week. Aiming to do both but starting up work again. So if not today might do them in separate posts through the week. I really like Satanico and I’ve been meaning to watch more Atlantis.

Also, I keep reading about all these different sets like 80’s Lucha and Portland, etc. We’re these physical DVDs and are they still obtainable? 

———

It may seem silly but this one is a little intimidating. You’ve pointed out a lot of recommendations last few weeks that I really enjoyed and some of your other posts with other people, I’m not exactly sure an area I can recommend that might be gray for you. I’ve recently been trying to watch more Joshi and learn who some of the better workers are. So for you I’ll also do 2 links. No worries on doing them both, like you said. Also, if you’ve seen them both I’ll swing for the fence with something else. One will be longer and one will be quicker. One on YouTube and one on Vimeo. If you want YouTube only I’ll replace that one. Cheers!

 

Dynamite Kansai & Mayumi Ozaki

vs Manomi Toyota & Toshiyo Yamada

 

Jaguar Yokota vs Lioness Asuka 

 

Edited May 3, 2020 by OctopusCinema
Vimeo, not dailymotion

[SirSmUgly]

@AxB This seems like a match that you might well have seen before, but I think you liked brawls? This is a good old sloppy brawl and high-key one of my favorite fun little garbage matches. 

 

 

[Curt McGirt]

I have watched and been meaning to watch more joshi recently so this is just what I need. And FFS I need to watch some Jaguar for sure, she is a definite blindspot. 

As far as the '80s sets go, yes they were physical DVDR sets. You can message @goodhelmet on here in regards to them. I think he had taken a hiatus on selling them last I talked to him but that was in December. And of course if you want to see what was on all of them, they're all listed over here: http://deathvalleydriver.com/forum/index.php?/forum/27-1980s-project/

[AxB]

And for @gordi, some Gordy!

Williams & Gordy vs Windham and Rhodes, WCW '92. You're welcome.

[Curt McGirt]

Okay, I am taking it upon myself to do something fresh with this, since I was dared to review a possibly 30 minute Knockouts match in another thread. 

OPEN CHALLENGE

Somebody review this. If somebody else wants to throw down the gauntlet too, do it; nobody has to pick up the challenge, but if so they get a gold star or something, whatever. We will end up watching good wrestling (or not good wrestling), either way, so hey. 

I will put my money where my mouth is and review the Savage/Garvin match if someone does this.

[Curt McGirt]

Jaguar Yokota vs. Lioness Asuka

This was really great... BUT. After all the struggle they had with the limbwork throughout the match they stopped and went into finisher mode and you had to also stop and say "okay, well I guess they're doing this now". I hate it when that happens. There was no transition at all, it was just bomb time and let's forget about what we've worked on this whole time. But at the same time the struggle and the heart coming through from both performers makes you want to ignore it. The figure four work was epic. Jaguar in particular just has this face representing so many emotions at once; hostility, pride, vengeance, a great sense of passion. It tells you "fuck the psychology, just love this". And it works, to a certain extent. Someone else just please watch this match and tell me what you thought about it, because I need a comparison. 

[Gordi the former AEW fan]

13 hours ago, AxB said:

And for @gordi, some Gordy!

Williams & Gordy vs Windham and Rhodes, WCW '92. You're welcome.

- Obviously, this is my bag. Four big tough guys, four MEN in the ring, working hard, fighting for a title.

- It's absolutely reasonable to say that this is four of the top 100 pro wrestlers of all time in the ring together. How many people would argue that point? Four of the top 50 American wrestlers of all time? Yep, I'd say that's pretty comfortably true as well. Four of the greatest. And they've got their working boots on.

- The work, as work, *clears throat, looks around* ...the work, per se, is unimpeachable. Damn near everything that everyone does in there looks like it hurts, and some stuff (like, to choose just one example: Gordy's lariat) looks as good, as violent, as perfectly executed as anything you are ever going to see in a pro wrestling ring. You could use footage of this match to teach a clinic on big man bumping and selling. This is straight up first class professional wrestling, right here.

- And: It's around 25 minutes of that, on free TV, in 1992! It has got to be on the short list of greatest Saturday night TV wrestling matches of all time. I'd have to imagine it ranks pretty highly on the all time list of great American tag team matches. 

- The structure and pacing are just ideal for a long tag match with four big, tough competitors. The whole thing builds steadily to a very nice crescendo at the end, and they have a good long babyface shine segment that lets Windham and Rhodes shine (if you weel) without making Gordy and Williams look weak or foolish. There is a nasty transition into a long double face in peril sequence where it looks really likely that the champs will retain, and where Gordy and Williams keep cranking up the punishment without repeating themselves. Then, just when all hope is lost, the babyfae comeback, climaxing with a Windham superplex and a Rhodes bulldog, and a win that feels like a huge upset and a real triumph, with the babyface locker room emptying out to celebrate with the new champs.

However:

Man, the (Center Stage?) crowd are just not into this. The first big hot tag (from Windham to Rhodes) and the finish both get huge pops, but other than that it really sounds like there are maybe 50 or 60 people in the crowd who are reacting to anything that's happening in the ring. Given how hard everyone is working, and how technically excellent the match is I found that pretty disconcerting. 

I think that the main problem is that the crowd simply does not hate Doc and Bam Bam. They announce them as being from Japan, and they are big, thick, mean-looking, ugly nasty scary dudes... but on the other hand they are pretty clearly gold old southern boys.  And, well, they mostly fight fair. And Barry and Dustin are big and tough enough that they don't get any automatic sympathy heat, even against these monsters. And the babyfaces do not seem at all interested in playing to the crowd. There are two long face in peril segments. How hard is it to get the crowd to chant or clap or somehow react to that? I mean, it's not like Rhodes or Windham don't know how to pump up a crowd, right? And it's not like Doc or Gordy can't heel it up in there.

Maybe it's down to Williams and Gordy working so much as the MVC in Japan. Presumably, over here, it was more than enough that they are two smelly mcugly foreign guys, and just throwing hard strikes and nasty bombs at the local heroes was enough to work up hatred in those late 80s and early-90s  Japanese crowds. 

Maybe Windham didn't want to play too much of a babyface because they were clearly planting seeds for a heel turn in the post-match interviews? 

With more crowd work and a better response I'd imagine that this match would be legendary as one of the absolute greatest TV matches of all time.

It's still right up there, though. The non-crowd-related portions of the work are really that good. Also, Arn is just great on commentary. He doesn't have the best voice for it, but he drops pearls of insight and wisdom and puts everyone over really well. This might actually be a match that was more fun to watch on TV than it was live and in person!

  

 

 

Edited May 4, 2020 by gordi

[NikoBaltimore]

8 hours ago, Curt McGirt said:

Okay, I am taking it upon myself to do something fresh with this, since I was dared to review a possibly 30 minute Knockouts match in another thread. 

OPEN CHALLENGE

Somebody review this. If somebody else wants to throw down the gauntlet too, do it; nobody has to pick up the challenge, but if so they get a gold star or something, whatever. We will end up watching good wrestling (or not good wrestling), either way, so hey. 

I will put my money where my mouth is and review the Savage/Garvin match if someone does this.

I'm up for it but honestly have no idea who the participants are (this is a big-time blind spot for me).  What match is it and if there's any background information that would be great as well.

[Matt D]

BTW, just by the tenor of how things are going, I think we've got a few weeks left in the tank. I don't want to leave people hanging as lockdown and pandemic and malaise continues,  so my thought on how to keep things moving is to transition to more of a match club, where one person selects a match each week and everyone engages with it and each other.  But it depends on a few things, like if anyone else wants to jump on and give us fresh blood in the meantime, and how this current group does. If everyone's doing well, we might go on for more than another couple of weeks. And the pacing of Match Club is up in the air. Four days instead of a week? Two people go at once? Etc. I just want to keep people engaged right now. 

[Gordi the former AEW fan]

It's an interesting idea. I think I'd enjoy comparing opinions with everyone else here.

[Goodear]

On 5/2/2020 at 1:57 PM, Matt D said:

Hey, we hit 400 replies. Good job, guys. As meaningless metrics go, that is a pretty good one.

I will re-roll In the morning. Does anyone need to jump off? Even for a week. Does anyone lurking want to jump on? Let us know. We are definitely going to be entering the realm of repeat pairings, but I don’t want to stop given what is going on in the world right now. This is one small thing we can do for and with each other.

I should probably jump off.  I just don't have the drive right now with my limited time.

[Matt D]

6 minutes ago, Goodear said:

I should probably jump off.  I just don't have the drive right now with my limited time.

No worries. Life can be overwhelming in general, let alone right now. If need be, I could take the extra match Curt posted if need be and force the Bête Humaine match onto him, to assuredly positive results, but it was definitely a @Goodear special.

[NikoBaltimore]

@Matt D The match club sounds great but I had an idea or two for the pairings while they're still going on:

I've been out of it but with things calming down now I should be able to hop back in.  Though I  was wondering about how many of us have IWTV.  If there's a couple guys that have it I was thinking to maybe be paired up with one of them and we can  use that to review our matches.

Alternatively, what if one week we just went full WresteCrap and picked some gawdawful matches for us to laugh at?  I'd love to have somebody review stuff like Jenna/Sharmell or a Raja Lion match and I'm down to do the same.  If the pairings are going for another few weeks maybe it could be the last week of it before doing the match club.  If these options don't pan out no worries but it's all just brainstorming on my part.