1974

Jack Brisco defends the NWA World Title in a 2/3 falls match. Many places list this as 1/29, but that was the TV airdate. Talk about it here

NWA World Heavyweight Champion Jack Brisco vs Jumbo Tsuruta - AJPW 1/30/74 2 out of 3 Falls Check out those sideburns on Jumbo! This is baby Jumbo Tsuruta who just debuted earlier in 1973 and was only recently dubbed "Jumbo". He does not look out of place one bit against the NWA Champ Jack Brisco. I just love these sports-feel world championship bout: great tie-ups, leg dives and struggle for every move. Basic, fundamentals-oriented layout let the rookie shine with strong holds and coming back to that hold, lose control due to an underhanded tactic, a nice hot run up to the close of the first fall before Brisco puts him away. Jumbo's home base was an armbar. Every tim…

Talk about it here. Two versions of the same footage. The infamous Ox Baker Cleveland Riot!!!! (The second footage mistakenly says 60's)

If you've seen one McManus match you've pretty much seen them all, but don't let that stop you from watching him. McManus is an expert heel but more importantly an expert on how to build interesting matches around the same formula; that he never lost on TV for 20 years straight while still keeping it fresh speaks volumes about him. His clinical holds and violent jabs in this were pretty great. St. Clair is about as good as any other babyface would be in this situation, playing it pretty basic for the most part, altough he did have this cool flipping arm snap move that should be steal worthy to today's flip-loving indy wrestlers and McManus did this cool noodle arm sell in…

Peter Szakacs is the brother of Tibor. He is not as charismatic, but on the mat he was fast and graceful like a panther. Baron is one of the more freaky WoS workers and this a terrific contest full of wonderful and outlandish matwork. Great moments include awesome body scissor work, Szakacs countering a roll up by just dropping on Baron's legs in really painful fashion, and some really dreamy luchaesque pin attempts. It almost resembled carny BJJ (which is how I fantasy booked brazilian wrestling in my mind to be). The bout also got a wee bit temperamental towards the end and then Peter busts out this nasty Volk Han-like choke hold. Great great match, may have the best ma…

Watching Andre is always a joy and this is a younger and in good shape Andre in a cowboy vest. Early on we are going through armlocks and standing counter wrestling. Andre is pretty good at this and it's real neat to see a situation where normally the guy would be tripped and brought to the mat, but with Andre being so big it just slows the momentum and leans him back a little. Seiji starts to pick up the pace with a barrage of chops and slaps, which are sold well, but one Andre headbutt and Seiji goes down. I love these moments in Andre matches where it shows how much of a force he is. Back to holds and Seiji goes for a grab the head with the legs and flip hi…

Strong Kobayashi, a rather troll-like looking wrestler (to put it mildly). Dude looked like a DNA experiment between Inoki and Baba. This was a rare early match between top natives and a hell of a fight. Basically Inoki bullies Kobayashi some and then gets his shit pushed in repeatedly. What a weird way to work a match against an outsider, but they did succeed in garnering tremendous heat. Inoki dominates the early going with a bunch of quasi-amateur holds which I dug a lot. He scored a really nice toe hold riding takedown and would constantly do leg rides and toe holds. After getting grinded for a while Kobayashi finally scored a simple arm roll which felt like a nice vi…

This was another cool match altough way closer to your typical 70s match. The opening was pretty hot with Sakaguchi taking the fight to the outside to bash Inoki's head in and then landing a big press slam and atomic drop soon after. They move into a more technical bout and it's pretty much akin to something you'd see in WoS or AJPW. Lots of hold/counterhold stuff, monky flip sequences, Inoki working 4 or 5 Indian Deathlock variations etc.. Nothing mindblowing but they looked good working this style and the 30 minutes flew by.

I'm watching this on the WWE Network and we are joined in progress and miss about the first ten minutes of this 24 minute match. Bruno tries to cut down the big guy with some leg stops and Kowalski sells them well, staggering all over the ring. Bruno hits a strong leg kick and sends Kowalski falling flat on his arse, must to the crowd's delight. The crowd eating up everything these guys are dishing out makes this worth watching. When Kowalski climbs up the top rope, you can feel the worry that their beloved Bruno might be seconds away from losing. When a bloodied up Bruno finally unleashes his rage after being beaten down for the past few minutes, the reaction is huge. Ju…

Lou Thesz at the Mid-South Coliseum!!!

This was one of the more "experimental" WoS bouts with all kinds of weird positions and transitions that you don't see in any other match and a story largely about Boscik trying different ways to break Baron's neck bridge. I'd like to see how this kind of bout would go over in today's pro wrestling. It was basically carny jiu jitsu to the max and a little bit ballet here or there. Boscik is much shorter and some of they stuff they did had the feel of a big rudo vs. mini exchange in a lucha match. Not the most heated match but I dug all the different pin attempts and there was one especially nice submission attempt on an Octopus Hold. Not everything needs to be fast paced …

This match is covered in detail on Road To New Japan 's G1 Climax Pilot Episode. A highly recommended match , this is slow at first and can loose you pretty quickly but I can assure you that If you stick around for the middle and finish you will not be disappointed if you do. I like this match and recommend it because it shows a great example of the Japanese fans and how they can become very hostile when a hero they love is being threatened or taken advantage of. The energy switch and extreme reaction to the situation that is going on is very entertaining. If you like blood and a great heat spot that gets tons of heat within a few minutes and explodes a crowd then thi…

NWA World Heavyweight Champion Jack Brisco vs Harley Race - CWF 6/8/74 An abridged walk today. Looking for something short & sweet. At 8, 9 minutes of footage no rating but still very revealing. Coming off watching so much WWWF footage from the mid-70s. This is night & day. I think what is most revealing is the Southern workrate style is pretty much fully realized at this point. Compared to the WWF style of romp em stomp em with power holds, in 90 seconds you’ll see a back body drop, piledriver, and a missed diving headbutt. You see some big bumps. I counted three different Suplex variations. Superstar Graham brought the big bumping North so that’s not uncomm…

Talk about it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amJLfdirfZg

The first ever Openweight Judo Olympic Champion faces off against Gorilla Monsoon in a special “judo jacket” rules match. In practice this essentially means they have to wear a judogi and pins last 20 seconds instead of 3, otherwise it’s the standard 2/3 falls formula of the times. I think this was well structured-Geesink carried the first half of the match which looked more like proper judo with him trying uchi mata, ouchi gari etc. but being stopped by Monsoon’s sheer size. Monsoon didn’t really do much there outside of his antics about his belt untying, but really took over in the second fall by going back to the pro-wres playbook and using chops and punches. There wer…

Pretty simple match. Tiger comes in with his goofy rapier and is ambushed by an overzealous Inoki throwing wild punches. Jeet produces forth a foreign object and stabs the fuck out of Inoki and from then it's Singh procuring every dirty tactic in the book to work over Inoki. Choking, hits to the throat, bashing his into turnbuckle post, tables and chairs, and then some more chairs... Inoki quickly comes up bloody and there seems to be a DQ of some sort but the match is restarted (or 2/3 falls?) and Singh continues the beating. Inoki finally makes a pretty cool comeback by ramming into Singh like a bull. After some good payback using the steel posts again Jeet is bloodied …

My full review of it is here: http://prowresblog.blogspot.com/2017/02/world-of-sport-7121974-tibor-szakacs-vs.html Tibor Szakacs and Big Bruno Elrington went to a 6 round draw with 1 fall a piece. Excellent match. They started off slow, working holds and reversals and trying to get the edge on the mat. Tempers started to flare and Bruno started clubbing Szakacs down to size. Tibor couldn't quite match the blows and Bruno hit some beautiful european uppercuts. Bruno got the first fall kind of of out nowhere after clubbing him and then using the Gory Special. Bruno kept on pounding and not letting go of holds that an old lady in the crowd tried to put a stop to him, wh…

Jerry Lawler vs. Jackie Fargo Barbed Wire Match - Gulas Promotions July 24, 1974 We open with a view of a large crowd packed into a small dark building. This would be more appropriately titled a "Barbed Wire Fence Match", with the ring surrounded by cattle fencing and the turnbuckles also wrapped in barbed wire. The combination of the fenced ring with the compact audience in a small dimly lit arena give this match the feel of a total cock fight. How appropriate. Sam Bass is at ringside with Lawler but will be unable to interfere due to the fence. Lawler starts fast heeling it up and using the relaxed rules to immediately choke Fargo. Fargo comes right back with …

The first fall of this match is about fifteen of the most beautiful minutes of professional wrestling I’ve seen, combining Destroyer’s methodical old-school approach with the lucha elegante matwork of Máscaras. With Destroyer, every movement has significance, every strain or expression conveys meaning. The transitions, reversals, counters, evasions, and takedowns are all so masterfully executed, not only from Destroyer, but Máscaras as well, who seems more in his element on the canvas than pinballing around the ring. While "Woken Twitter" is quick to proclaim wrestling as an art form over an impressive but largely meaningless aerobatics display, the way these two seamless…

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This is an arm wrestling match. Superstar is a master of this gimmick. This was worked so well. SSBG stalling early. The back and forth. SSBG leg movement with the table. Then ultimately cheating and beating on Patera. I absolutely loved this angle, and hope we get the match.