November 1987

This is the infamous match where Choshu gets shoot kicked in the face. Aside from questionable morals, it‘s a really hot match with the crowd being absolutely white hot for all the Choshu/Maeda exchanges. Maeda kicking the hell out of Choshu is fun, but Maeda outgrappling Choshu may be even funner. I wonder if that is what caused Maeda to snap because Choshu seemed not ready for Maeda to actually wrestle him and just wanted to do his usual spiel. The initial moments after the kick are some of the most intense you‘ll ever see in a wrestling ring, with Maeda egging Choshu on further and Masa Saito tackling the big guy. Really a thrill to check out, pity the kick was real be…

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMuMIHLXS1Y Hell of a competitive squash here. You know coming in that Misawa and Nakano have no chance, and appropriately enough most of the match has them selling a rough beating from Tenry and Hara, only getting in enough offense to keep it interesting. I dug Nakano's performance in this as a sort of proto-Kikuchi, spending most of the match getting beat up but still insisting on getting into strike exchanges that you know he has no chance of winning. This is also the closest I've seen Tiger Mask look to the ace he would later become. In othermatches, he often sits in holds like he has no has no idea what to do. But here he wrestles…

The crowd is pretty thrilled to see Brody and Hansen go at it. They do a fine job of giving them what they want. I liked the off the ropes ducking lariat action. There's one point where Gordy already has Brody down in a submission, but Hansen can't wait to get his hands on him, so he runs in starts attacking Brody anyway - good stuff. There's a good (but short) chop exchange between the two. It's fun to see them on opposite sides. This isn't a great match, but there is some solid fun to it. Can't say I enjoyed the finish. I liked the shot of Brody in the crowd holding the chair and chanting with the fans.

WWF Womens Tag Team Champions Glamour Girls vs Jumping Bomb Angels - MSG 11/24/87 Holy shit! Hart Foundation & British Bulldogs eat your hearts out, this is how you do a workrate match in the 1980s. You expect the MSG crowd to shit all over this, but they come out so blazing hot that all four women are immediately over with the Garden. I know watched this for Tag Teams Back Again, but this match blew me away all over again. It was the perfect combination of workrate and babyface/heel dynamics. I have no clue which Japanese girl is which and in fairness I have a hard time keeping track of the Glamour Girls. I just know Judy Martin as the woman with the Kick of Fe…

WWF World Tag Champs Strike Force vs The Hart Foundation - 11/87 MSG From what I have seen, this is the best match from heel run of the Hart Foundation. It should come as no surprise as Tito Santana & Rick Martel are not two of the best babyfaces of the 80s, but of all time. Plus this had Bock on commentary!!! I did not know Bock was ever in the WWF. He had no singular gems that stood out just added a lot of intelligence to usually bereft of intelligence WWF commentary team. The early story of the match told very well by commentary was that Bret is a technical wizard, but can be a mental marshmallow in there. Once things start going against him he is too…

Stan Hansen & Terry Gordy vs Jumbo Tsuruta & Yoshiaki Yatsu - AJPW 11/26/87 I did about an hour of work and then I was like it is fucking Sunday night, why am I doing work? I need to honor the Good Lord and watch some badass pro wrestling! Hansen has a new partner and it is Terry Gordy. Gordy is an upgrade over DiBiase in that he fits the bill a lot better as a roughhousing bully heel. That being said, I have always found Gordy to be very alright. He is an athletic big man, whose true strength is bumping which is not as valued in Japan as it is in America so I think he is always solid as Hansen's partner, but it is always the Hansen show. I have …

Good match but felt like a Flair one man show to be honest. His great selling and the usual cage match goodness carry this. *** 1/4

The crowd boo at the announcement of the ladies' match about to take place. How classy. The audience are the worst thing about this match by far as they show zero enthusiasm until the Jumping Bomb Angels rock their world with their fast joshi puroresu style. The one good act that the crowd did during this was heckle whenever babyface Fabulous Moolah was the legal woman, although I'm sure they were booing because she was old and unattractive, and not because she was a vile and repugnant human being. She hits a barrage of crisp looking snapmares here at least. Can we talk about the Bomb Angels again? They were so great, wrestling a frantic pace and performing sequences neve…

Thankfully, Jim Duggan gets eliminated early. Sadly, he takes Harley Race with him when they both brawl too long on the outside and get themselves counted out. So, swings and roundabouts. Danny Davis continues to be one of my favorite unsung talent from the Hulkamania era, he's great as a sneaky little shit. The heels gain control during the middle, but the last few minutes the result never felt in question. The match ends with the three surviving babyfaces punishing Honkey before he decides to leave town and take the countout loss. While this finish lacks the drama of a sole face in peril, I can forgive this seeing as it's the first match of it's kind in the WWF. This al…

This is hard to write about because of the frantic pace. There's tags every few seconds and it's such a fast tempo for a match of it's era. The 'Russians' are eliminated first, allowing the more talented teams to get some action. The rapidity of this reminds me of that amazing ten man tag from Canadian Stampede. No one man is legal for long (with the exception being when they were building for a hot tag), and everyone gets a time to shine. Valentine once again reminded me that I need to dive into his work as he was brilliant at isolating the babyface into his corner and he's a phenomenal bumper to boot. No one here looked bad, even Volkoff looked decent during his brief t…

WWF World Heavyweight Champion Hulk Hogan vs King Kong Bundy - SNME 11/28/87 Andre is back! Returning at Survivor Series '87 Andre was the sole survivor defeating Hogan's team in a major victory to get him primed for a big rematch. Bundy is resurrected as a Hogan opponent here. It had been a year so I think there is some mileage again. The beginning is the same as the OMG match which I liked with Hogan putting over the size. Bundy is not as mobile as OMG besides standing on Hogan's back clear out there was no holy shit spots. Lots of gaga over Andre tripping Hogan and the ref throwing Andre out. Pretty standard Hogan match but it is fun. Twist ending with Bundy winnin…

Randy "Macho Man" Savage vs Bret "Hitman" Hart - SNME 11/87 Unless I am forgetting some Rockers match, this is definitely my pick for best match in SNME history (Rockers/Busters match is close). Make no mistake about it, this is the Randy Savage show and one of the few times in his whole WWF career where Bret takes a backseat to someone in a match. As much as we can debate whether this is Bret's coming out party, this is definitively Savage's coming out party as the number two babyface in the company. Thus it is only logical that Savage is the star of the match, but that being said, there are very few heels at this point in time in the promotion that could have del…