April 1978

4 minutes of silent footage. Race defends the NWA Title in St Louis against Terry Funk

Just a pure wrestling match. Still finding their work very interesting. Something like the section where Sakaguchi has Inoki in the crucifix position and tries to do an arm slicer and pin him out of it is very cool. Sakaguchi gets some big offense (loved the running knee!) and dominates most of the match, Inoki slows him down a couple of times but is almost always very overwhelmed and ends the match escaping the manjigatame just a bit before the time limit draw. A remarkably flat finish, but they restart the match! This second match is also very technical, with both wrestlers struggling to defend from the double underhook position. Inoki does a belly-to-belly suplex outsi…

These two faced each other the day before in Greensboro, but that was part of a World Tag Title tournament. At the end of this match, you can hear the ring announcer say that this was a NWA Mid-Atlantic Tag Team Title defense.

Jumbo is defending his championship in 2/3 falls vs pre-NWA champion Ric Flair. Dick Murdoch is Flair's cornerman. Fall 1 was a surprisingly well-paced round with varied offense with realistic submission holds. The 1st fall is technical, longest, and 50/50, i.e an actual legit wrestling match. I could tell both men had unbelievable cardio and everything was nice and snug, if not stiff. Ric and Jumbo are working their bodies and have good matwork to see who will get the advantage. Jumbo wins the 1st after reversing an atomic drop in 14:39, so is sitting pretty. However, Fall 2 had Ric unload on the leg and was fantastic on offense to wear it down. This is basical…