August 1987

NWA World Tag Team Champions Rock N Roll Express vs Ric Flair & Lex Luger - NWA Superbouts 8/1/87 There's just something about the Flair/Luger team I am a mark for. Even when I was a kid and they teamed up in 2000 I thought it was the coolest thing ever. They were dubbed The Dream Team a month or so prior and that's how I feel. In the promos on Saturday Night leading up to this, Horsemen has noticed everyone has gold but Arn, but they arent dogging him. They want to help him get tag team gold. Tully Blanchard out of the kindness of his heart has volunteered to be his fulltime tag partner in the quest to win tag gold. Pretty cool storyline. Interesting that we sti…

IWGP Heavyweight Champion Antonio Inoki vs Bam Bam Bigelow - NJPW 8/2/87 Inoki is the newly minted IWGP Champion having defeated Saito two months ago to become the inaugural champion. He is defending against cartwheeling, wet behind the ears Bam Bam. Look I can’t cartwheel, it is impressive that he can. But cmon it just makes him look silly. I mean nothing says menacing like a well-executed cartwheel right? Gimme a break. Whoever told Bigelow to knock off cartwheeling was a wise man. This is not the Lawler classic but this is still a pretty fun Inoki vs generic monster match. Bigelow looks really green at the beginning with Inoki basically feeding him and d…

Taped on 7/16/87 Lake Placid NY. This is the second of nine televised matches between the two teams. Judy Martin & Lelaini Kai defend the WWF Women's Tag Team titles. Talk about it here. Available on the Network, Vault, Prime Time Wrestling, 1987. August 10th episode. Starts at 37:00

I haven't watched this one in years, and since OJ relieved my nostalgia for middle european pro wrestling, I gave it another spin. The first trivial observation is how much more play matches like this would get had they been filmed professionally. After watching so much different wrestling over the years I can say that the quality of these vienna handhelds is the dirt worst. Bad camera angle, unnatural colors, clips, crowd noise eating up most of the sound, you may see footage like this as an experimental foreign arthouse film. That aside, this being a rare 30 minute middleweight title match from austria with absolutely no shenanigans is worth powering through the video q…

Good grief finding accurate dates for european matches (accurate as in them matching up in OJ's list and the youtube upload description) is nearly impossible half the time. I really like the way Murphy uses holds to control his opponents and how he will resort to cheapshots and grinding away at their face once he's in trouble. He's also really good at cutting his opponents off-him goading George into attacking him while he was playing to the crowd in the corner only to cut him off with a Back Elbow ruled as did his Clothesline. The spot where George countered Murphy ramming his head into the corner post because his head was too hard was neat but George wasn't that interes…

It's a multi man tag between the old generation and the new one. Strangely, Muto, who was really young at the time, is with the old guard. Like in others New Japan tag matches from that time, you can eliminate your opponent by removing him from the ring. At the end, Fujinami and Choshu on one side, Muto on the other, are the only ones remaining. It's a really surprising and interesting booking because the less experienced of the match, the underdog is the last survivor of his team. It's pretty obvious he will be annihilated. But he's not. Yes, he lost but did well, showed offense and resistance. The crowd supported him. I believe the bookers already intended at this point…

This never quite hit the heights that the pre-match mugging promised. It wasn't really worked like a match where one of the participants had been smashed into a ring post several times by the other opponent in the not too distant past. No real sense of Maeda being out for revenge, even when SSM jumped him again here and they had to be separated before the bell. And I know that's judging something for what it isn't rather than what it actually is, but when you're all about the chaos and you've got the prospect of Maeda right there ready to bring it then it's sort of hard not to be disappointed. Still, this was alright and even pretty good when they started whomping on each…

Talk about it here.

Talk about it here.

WWF Intercontinental Champion Honky Tonk Man vs Ricky Steamboat - MSG 8/22/87 Lumberjack I figured I should watch at least one full-length Honky Tonk Man match in my life (correction: I have seen the Savage SNME match that leads to the MegaPowers forming so I guess this number two). This seems like his most critically acclaimed match and I have to admit this is a pretty damn good way to spend about 15 minutes. Highly entertaining. Honky Tonk feels like an overpushed jobber. Like if they gave Heath Slater the IC or US title and let him run with it. I think Slater is horribly underutilized and would shine. My point is that Slater's value is in bumping and stooging. That…

Rick Martel vs Haku - 8/87 MSG I couldnt find this match either. My review from five years ago. Both Islanders play King of the Mountain and won't let Rick Martel into the ring. Ricky is like two can play at that game and goes to back to bring out Tito Santana! STRIKE FORCE, BABY~! This angle has been excellent and the addition of Tito as Martel's partner due to Zenk's departure only makes it better. Gorilla explains that during of the Islander's 2 on 1 muggings of Martel, Tito made the save from the Spanish Announce Team. After a great 3 year run anchoring the upper midcard, it only made sense to use Tito in a new capacity as he stil something to give as a ma…

Tito Santana vs "Outlaw" Ron Bass - WWF MSG 8/22/87 The first ten minutes of this is just a fantastic shitkicking by Tito Santana. If you want to see Tito in his element watch the beginning of this match and you will understand Tito works his matches. At the previous MSG show, Bass pulled a Bray Wyatt and randomly attacked Tito with his whip named Betsy. This is why Tito is so pissed off. This is one of the best shines I have ever seen. Tito just hammers right away as soon as he gets in the ring. Bass cant even get his jacket off. Bass ends up on the outside so Tito picks up a chair and smashes into his head. ARRIBA! There is an awesome standoff with Bass grabbing his…

WWF World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan vs One Man Gang - Houston 8/29/87 It is from WWF Houston so it features the commentary team from Hell: Bruce Pritchard, Mike McGuirk and the Duke of Dorchester, Pete Doherty. Doherty wont shut up about One Man Gang's brains. McGuirk has the shittiest comebacks imaginable. There was one funny moment. McGuirk comments on Hogan's good looks and Doherty responds "Why are you always bringing sex into it?" Which did make me laugh. One Man Gang was one of the big four Hogan opponents in 1987 along with Harley Race, Kamala and Killer Khan. What is interesting is that you don't think of these four (maybe Harley) as classic Hogan op…

Yoshiaki Fujiwara vs Akira Maeda - NJPW 8/29/87 I am a little surprised this was not ranked higher along side the other two Fujiwara vs Maeda matches. I thought this was a terrific standup contest. Maeda scored first with the spinning heel kick that caught Fujiwara in the corner. Again Maeda knocked Fujiwara down in the corner with kicks. Fujiwara held onto the foot and as he got, he really wanted to slap Maeda. Boy, did he ever when he got him on the ground. Fujiwara took over from there. Maeda made his comeback off a wild uppercut and then sent Fujiwara down. Maeda knows the playbook against Fujiwara and started working in on the body. Fujiwara has a notoriously ha…

A fun match but not an all time classic or anything, really brought down by Jumbo's lackluster performance. Interesting opening with them teasing some bigger moves and stealing each other's signature stuff, the graplling wasn't much but there were some interesting holds, the matchw was really made by them smacking the shit out of each other. I really dislike the way Jumbo sells immediate impact, it feels like something I'd see from a modern indy guy and all I can think of when he does are countless debates about limbwork on DVDVR re: Tanahashi title matches from 2009, I think it's overly expressive for japanese wrestling and don't think it enhances the match in any way. T…