1967

One fall match that goes about 30 minutes. The fact that Billy Catanzaro has two televised singles matches almost exactly 10 years apart is surreal. A few things change in 10 years, and in 1967, Billy Catanzaro was a thick veteran heel. You could still see his brilliance in his work, even when he was more interested here in kicking his opponent in the spine and grimacing to the crowd. Even though it was very obvious that this was gonna get chippy, there was a ton of ridiculously high end technical work here. Mantopolous was a wrestling dynamo, no kidding about it. Just a ridiculously fast moving worker with a ton of tricks in his bag. Most of this was wristlocks and armlo…

I prefer their match frp, the following year but this was still a solid contest, with a lot of dedicated work from both guys down the stretch. Great first fall with Baba rolling around the mat, trying to shake Bruno’s arm control before turning the game around on Bruno. Sammartino has some nifty escapes but Baba keeps him in check. When Bruno goes for an arm drag, Baba just deadweights him to counter, reasserting control. The crowd digs the sportsmanship as the two go back-and-forth targeting the arms, trying to weaken their opponent’s respective offense – Bruno with the bearhug and Baba with his giant chops. At times, the match feels sluggish and repetitive, and the exec…

Gene Kiniski defends the NWA World Title. Seven 1/2 minutes of silent footage. Talk about it here.

The atmosphere of this match is incredible, with the outdoor seating, fans puffing cigarettes and fanning themselves off as two dudes sweat for an hour inside a small wrestling ring. It’s the kind of match you put on in a dingy hip bar somewhere and let play without any context or explanation. The no good cheatin’ Gene Kiniski against the surprisingly more aggressive Giant Baba. On a whole, this match isn’t going to burn any barns down but there are a lot of neat nuances dashed throughout, like the way Baba uses his long legs to hammer the back of Kiniski’s neck while he’s got him in the leg scissors, repeatedly pushing his own knee into Kiniski’s face. The little extra m…

This was a really rewarding match to check out. It may have peaked in the first 5 minutes with both guys trading awesome wristlock reversals. I'm absolutely dead tired of wrestlers flipping out of wristlocks so the fact they made it cool here speaks volumes. Match had everything: brilliant athletic spots, pin-point accurate technique, fierce strike exchanges, and everything made sense. Prince tagging Saulnier with a savate kick to the face also caught me off guard. I didn't think the draw ending was as flat as Phil described it, they clearly kicked it up a bit. This match feels a bit weird to give a YES in project, for all we know there may be a dozen Prince matches in th…

The next time I see someone complain about old matches being slow, I'm going to show them this incredible match. It's amazing how a fantastic match can suck you in, even when you have no idea who the wrestlers are. This goes just over thirty minutes and there's ZERO downtime! The action is quick and a lot of exchanges feel like they were ripped right out of a World Of Sport match, only with some insane aerobics thrown in! This isn't just a spotfest though. The guys in the darker trunks are the heels and they get more and more frustrated as the faces out-shine them. They eventually show their vicious side by laying in some snug strikes and by the third fall, this is an all…

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