September 1985

A classic Flair title defense match. Wahoo makes for a great larger man with heavy hands to combat Flair. Their strikes looked great and they told simple great stories for each fall. First fall almost entirely as Wahoo's shine and setting up the efficiency of the Sleeper as his finisher. Second fall was all about Flair cheating his way back on top by using the ringposts and the ropes. The final fall was short and sweet, a classic Flair dirty win to end a very fun and engaging 50 minutes or so of action. I really enjoyed this. ****1/4

The Road Warriors (Hawk & Animal) defend the AWA World Tag Team Titles. Talk about it here

The infamous shoot. I searched j-web too but this 4 minute JIP seems to be the most complete video of the match there is online. There are some nice potatoes in there and Maeda's final blow is vicious.

Kevin Von Erich vs Chris Adams - WCCW 9/2/85, No DQ This is the singles blowoff to the Kevin/Adams singles feud that started at last year's Cotton Bowl show and kicked off the Dynamic Duo/Von Erichs feud. Gino is suspended in a cage above the ring. It does not start off as hot as expected as Kevin goes to the bodyscissors, but once Adams takes over. He really kicks some ass and throws Kevin around. It must be exhausting wrestling Kevin, you have to stay on him to stay on top. Adams thinks piledriver, but Kevin kicks off. Kevin is thinking Claw. I love it! You hate that muthafucka you use that claw. Adams retreats to the ropes and Kevin tenaciously puts the claw on the…

When it comes to the execution of the high-flying moves, Misawa was no Sayama. He hits some nice dives and counters here, it makes you wonder if fans at the time were less impressed by Misawa's version of Tiger Mask even if Misawa was by far the better worker. Kobayashi acts like a heel by attacking Misawa before the match, but the crowd was firmly behind him on this night. He has a lot of swagger about him and you can see why the crowd was rooting for him. He's able to cut Misawa off with a variety of spin kicks and work him down with some holds that start to outwear their welcome. The only part of this match that I straight-up didn't like was when Misawa crashes and bur…

John Savage is the future Johnny Smith and this is from the original airing (as opposed to being from TWC) so we join the action just after Savage has surprised Rudge with the first fall. The second fall, or session as they are calling it sees Rudge go to work on every part of Savage’s left arm, from the shoulder all the way down to his fingers which he bends backwards and manipulates. With Rudge everything he does is designed to try and hurt his opponent; that is evidenced when he whips Savage into the turnbuckles. This isn’t just your casual Irish whip you’d see on WWE TV, its full force, everything into it. Three of those postings soften Savage’s back and he submit…

Nobuhiko Takada vs Super Tiger - UWF 9/6/85 Four days after the infamous Maeda/Tiger shoot, which led to Maeda being fired and then UWF folding with all the stars invading New Japan, Super Tiger has his penultimate match for nearly ten years against Takada. I liked this a lot more than the subdued July match even though we are missing about six minutes of a 14 minute match. Both guys are just unloading with rifling kicks. After the clip, we see Takada catch Tiger in the head with one that causes him to take a count. Not to be outdone, Tiger catches with a jumping roundhouse kick to the midsection that doubles him over. Tiger was throwing butterfly suplexes and the str…

Kido's role in this UWF is fascinating. He's not a dominant force and mostly doesn't win matches against the big top card talent, but he's always positioned as a threat that gives them a lot of trouble. There's never a match where he feels like a afterthought despite him having zero strikes or any particular fancy moves to show off, instead just being a super ironed down grappler that you can't sleep on else he snaps on some obscure Gotch-taught move to escape. A main struggle in this match is Kido's defence and trickiness throwing Fujiwara off, especially when Kido has actually beaten the guy already, so you get that sense that this is not a good matchup for him. Seeing …

WWF World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan vs King Kong Bundy - Boston 9/7/85 Bundy has Jimmy Hart as his manager here, which honestly does make him feel midcard. I saw an episode of Tuesday Night Titans where Heenan became Bundy's manager, but there was no date, I expect it was around October of 85 so shortly after this. Bundy broke Andre's sternum at Maple Leaf Gardens in August of 85 during a Big John Studd match, but that was not aired on Primetime until October 1st and then shortly after that Bundy & Studd became the core of the Heenan Family. Wow really boring match. Probably the worst Hogan match I have seen in my recent run. Chinlock city and we follow …

Nobuhiko Takada vs Kazuo Yamazaki - UWF 9/11/85 Last Original UWF show, I feel like this is the most conventional shoot style match yet from the Original UWF. Match would have been helped a lot to JIP's 12 minutes in because the first half is just brutally boring. I was so confused why this was highly rated, but boy did it pick up. Once Yamazaki started unloading those knees in the clinch and they fell outside the ring, the match became awesome. Yamazaki caught Takada right in the face with a brutal left kick. Yamazaki was rolling. German suplex and submissions at will. Takada was able to recover enough to corner him and caught pretty good with a kick to the gut that …

Just a notch below their 1984 matches but still really really good, which tells you about the general quality of the series. It continues the theme of Fujiwara the superior grappler vs. Tiger the superior striker. Snug matwork, good strikes and great selling. Terrific finish as well.

In real life these guys weren't fans of one another. Sometimes that translated into some great wrestling matches. Not in this case. This was pretty boring, and lifeless. When Reed can't or won't get a good match out of you it says something.

This is a total spectacle. It would never work today with how wrestling is presented.It might have worked with Stone Cold and VKM.The key is having a walking tall babyface and a manager who has a shit ton of heat. El Cosario is tieing Duggan up to the corner. While Wendall Cooley is tieing up Akbar. They were alloted a minute to tie them up and they were counting along. We see Duggan nawing and just really working the gimmick. He's about to untie himself, when Doc comes out and cuts Akbar free. Akbar has his riding crop, but at 1st Duggan is fighting him off with one arm. It's not enough though and Akbar whips him good. Duggan makes a comeback. Wrestlers are out brawling…

Bret takes an early modified version of his sternum bump off a catapult, which is pretty cool. I like Bret more as a heel. The way he carries himself lends itself to a stalling heel persona in a big way. And the way he delivers his offense with that signature arrogance screams heel to me. Dynamite sells the FIP better than I expected and makes a good comeback to get the crowd rolling. One thing I like about 80s Bret matches is that a roll-up, any roll-up late, is a big threat to end the match. Bret and Anvil 2 on 1 Dynamite post-match until Bulldog makes the save in very Bulldog fashion. Good match that seems like a test for both as singles guys.

This was a pure 70s grappling epic with an absolutely molten last 10 minutes or so. The grappling here wasn't intricate or anything, but they worked an ultra tight contest and did a good job bringing the intensity up and down. Most importantly, the match never felt slow or dry, so I'll take this over your Dory Funk Jr snoozefest. Inoki is very dominant early on, running through his holds including a great briding indian deathlock, but then Fujinami slaps him like a bitch and finally starts bringing the fight. I especially liked the sequence where Inoki teases the Butterfly Suplex and goes for a fireman carry. He didn't even hit that butterfly suplex later! Inoki's defensi…

I basically remembered nothing about this. It's weird as well, because at least one new Fantastics v Dundee/Mantell match was unearthed during the great summer of NWA On Demand, yet my excitement for that wasn't through the roof. Clearly I was a fucking idiot and forgot what a good thing looks like because this ruled like a bastard and the fact there's another one out there is very awesome. It got lots of time, which meant we got LOTS of Dundee and Mentell Memphis horse-shittin' it up to a molten crowd. My favourite was the hide the foreign object shtick. Dundee hid it in his mouth, his trunks, his kneepad, a new place every time the ref' checked him. When they take over …

This was like the first half of an awesome arena match plugged into a TV setting, and where it would ordinarily be disappointing that the other half of that awesome arena match never materialised, you forgive it because it was presented within the package of an awesome Watts TV angle instead. It's for the North American title and before the bell Butch Reed gets in to say he's challenging the winner. "That's all I've got to say." Murdoch walks up to the mic: "Well if that's all you've got to say then walk on out and sit down." Babyface Murdoch rules because he retains more than a few traits of heel Murdoch, he just implements them a little more...loveably? The opening few …

A match for the World Jr. Heavyweight Championship, which took place during Crockett's 'Championship Challenge Series' on TBS in 1985. Royal and Brown are two job guys wrestling for a title that was never properly featured on television. I have no idea what possessed them to give Royal and Brown 17 minutes to wrestle but they did and it's really good. Flair does colour commentary and he puts them both over really well. These two guys had no push whatsoever and their mechanics are awesome, which really speaks to the depth of talent at the time. Pretty much all the in-between moments are better than what you would see in the equivalent match today. *** 1/2

This is a barbed wire match. Great brawl to start. The wire comes into play. The Invaders are just eating the barbed wire. No teases here. Invaders fight back and it's time for the heels to taste the wire. This is a pretty primal fight. The goal is to mess up the other team. This is just a hate filled nasty fight. I liked it for what it was. Would have preferred a more dynamic finish though. 3 1/2*

Mid-South North American Champion Dick Murdoch vs Butch Reed - Mid-South 9/22/85 I would conjecture that this was to give Reed more practice in the classic NWA World Championship style as he already had one match against Flair and would have a couple more. It would establish Reed as the lead championship material babyface whereas Duggan was the brawling, blue collar babyface. Reed is able to convey not only brute strength in this match, but a great amount of technique, stamina and also some great verbal selling. On the flip side, there is always talk that Murdoch would have been NWA World Championship if it had not been his propensity for comedy and lightheartedness i…

Ricky Steamboat vs Magnificent Muraco - WWF, MLG 9/22/85 Lumberjack Match Ricky Steamboat was fucking over in Toronto! Holy shit! Huge Steamboat chant during the heat segment. Every offensive move was met with a pop. When he won, you would have thought the Leafs had one the Stanley Cup! I don't know if this match took place before or after the hanging angle (highly recommend watching that before any Steamer/Muraco match to get some context). The Steamer came out cooking and a really hot start. Muraco was bumping and stooging. They did well establishing Lumberjack match stip. Besides a long nerve hold, I thought we got good Muraco tonight as he seemed very energetic p…

"The Colossal Jostle" @ MSG King Kong Bundy had interfered in one of Andre's previous matches and delivered several splashes giving the big man a "broken sternum," so Andre is out for revenge here. They lock up and Andre gives him a huge chop, chokes him, and another humungous chop sends Bundy out to the floor to think about it. Bundy comes in and they start going back and forth. The MSG crowd is eating it up, and it feels like big moment. At one point, Andre delivers a big headbutt to Bundy, which sends Bundy over the ropes and to the floor! AWESOME bump from Bundy. If you like seeing two big dudes square off and punish each other some pretty big blows, then I …