June 1988

This is the last of nine televised matches between these two teams. Jumping Bomb Angles return to Japan to defend the WWF Women's Tag Titles against Lelaini Kai & Judy Martin in the All Japan Women's promotion. Only televised in Japan, not available anywhere else. Talk about it here

Breaks is only wrestling part time at this point spending most of the time running his pub in Batley, whilst Bainbridge is just 16 and resembles Danny Collins with acne. This is a crafty veteran versus rookie bout with Breaks controlling the majority of the match. There seemed more of Breaks' schtick than usual in this one with plenty of interaction with the crowd (telling some lady that 'I'm paying your pension!'), the referee (a closed fist to the face of Bainbridge, sees the youngster retaliate with one of his own, Breaks isn't happy 'you ought to give somebody a public warning!', 'do you know how to give public warnings?', the ref gives one to Breaks) and even the M…

I loved this when it first appeared on the VAP Tiger Mask II set that released something like 10 years ago, and I think I loved it even more rewatching it today. Serves really well both as a high mark of the 80's AJPW 6-man style and an appetizer for what was to come in the 90's. Even though Hara and Misawa are the top guys on their respective teams, the focus on this seems to be more on putting the captains up against the plucky underdogs on the opposing teams. That means Hara/Ishikawa and Misawa/Kawada feel like the main pairings we see in this match, and both carry the same theme of the lower ranked guy getting their moments but still clearly being the lower ranked guy…

Horsemen (Ric Flair, Barry Windham & Arn Anderson) vs Lex Luger, Nikita Koloff & Steve Williams - NWA Houston 6/10/88 After a lot of 21st century wrestling, need some 20th century wrestling to change it up. Crockett is on the road to the Great American Bash and more specifically Wargames. Flair is feuding with Luger as the main event program. Luger is red hot chasing Flair before he can even get in the ring. The Horsemen are bumping and feeding big for the the babyfaces. It is a total melee to start with the babyfaces dominating. I really like how the Horsemen throw offense at the babyfaces like kicks and eyepokes only for the babyfaces to absorb, no-sell and…

The young guns are sent out for 30 minutes to warm the crowd and set the tone. Does it go well? Quite. The pace the match in the exactly how you’d expect from a 30 minute draw. There is a lot of tentative stand-up initially with the occasional kick and shooting for the takedown for a good while. But they are always high in intensity. The holds are always snug and worked well from hold to hold. Miyato threws some wicked kicks to the head and then a low kick before trying to tap Nakano out with a head-trapped double wrist lock. I loved how Nakano began getting wise to the low kicks so began checking them more often, although Miyato’s persistence caught him out every now and…

I believe this was the second show of UWF 2nd stage and so they did this match as a bit of strong style in it's stiffest format. For example, they picked one another up, there was a snap mare and a large number of rope breaks instead of escapes. So with that said, it's totally understandable that they opted to do this. They had to ease people back into the U-style and not discredit everything they did in '86, '87, and the first half of '88. That's wild when you think about it. There was a three year gap and three years in wrestling is a long time...basically a seachange from 1985 to 1988. Ok so we take this more as a NJPW match. If that's the case then this is awesome! Th…

Well here we are again for the Secret Santo, this week's match was given to me by SirEdger and it's from possibly my favorite company ever UWF(Newborn). It's from their second show and it's the debut of Norman Smiley! Norman gives a nice little prematch promo giving us his Black Magic nickname, his trainers like The Malenkos and Gotch and telling everyone he's well conditioned and going to try his best. So the two square off and my god was Smiley well built here, it's funny how so many guys associated with the Malenkos school had such fantastic physiques, must be all those squats and bridges with Karl Gotch they were doing there in Florida. Kazuo Yamazaki …

Another fine entry into one of the greatest match-up scrapbooks in history. This wasn't as heated as the two matches from '87, but it had a lot of the same things going for it. Initially I thought they were going to work a more grounded contest, one that wasn't built on Fujiwara being a bastard and forcing Choshu to be the same. They even started with a knucklelock, much like a nice sporting contest might. Then Fujiwara headbutted Choshu dead in the face and I mean DEAD in the face and that was the end of that. I don't know what it is about Choshu but Fujiwara is a man possessed every time he steps in the ring with him. Did he hate him for real? I've never seen him not tr…

Tatsumi Fujinami vs Riki Choshu - NJPW 6/24/88 Vacant IWGP Championship Fujinami was the IWGP Champion going into their May match but lost match to Choshu on a referee's decision based on being hobbled with a bum wheel by Choshu's attacks. Rather than award the title to Choshu, the title was declared vacant and this is the rematch. Choshu dominated this match but did not target the leg at all. Really nice Fujinami armdrag/Choshu headscissors sequence. I always like how New Japan incorporates the headscissors into the match, there is something more manly about their execution. Fujinami escapes and establishes control with a Cravat but is met with two stiff kneeli…

WWF World Heavyweight Champion Randy Savage vs Ted DiBiase - WWF MSG 6/25/88 Steel Cage Couldn't find the May match so skip to the cage blowoff. I have seen this before as it is the Randy Savage Comp that WWE put out. This was way better than I remembered. Loved the urgency from both men and just how nip and tuck this was. DiBiase was fired up and just blasting Savage straight away. I liked stuff like Savage avoiding one fist drop, but then not the next one. It was just really good energy and competitive. I liked DiBiase using the cage to set up hope spots, but then immediately cutting Savage off. Then Savage gets more and more of an advantage especially creating his …

Vader makes his entrance with the badass elephant helmet that spits smoke. Then Vader proceeds to just kill Fujinami, throwing him around and demolishing him with his patented shots. Pretty good way to introduce how destructive Vader can be. He was just crushing Fujinami at points, including hitting a lariat with his tree trunk sized arm that sent his opponent into spasms. Fujinami gets some of his technical wrestler comebacks - kicking at the leg, body shots, surprise backslide and submission hold etc. - I think Fujinami got a few comebacks too many and it kind of took Vader's badass destroyer vibe away. I also disliked that Fujinami couldn't get proper height for his en…

AWA World Heavyweight Champion Jerry Lawler vs WCWA World Heavyweight Champion Kerry Von Erich- Memphis 6/28/88 Im very interested in how Kerry is played here. He is the ultimate superhero babyface but this Memphis, Tennessee and you're in Lawler country brutha. I would say we are clipped 8 minutes in. Tempers are flaring and Kerry is throwing sweat at Lawler. Kerry grabs a sleeper twice before Lawler runs his head in the buckles. It is usually Kerry doing that to Flair. Lawler gets his own sleeper and then front chancery. Kerry suplexes but Lawler hangs on. They both are down from a double cross body block. The Fuller Famiky and a masked man attack both …

This is from June. Furnas is a football legend in the area. The criss cross spot and cross body was insane. This isn't even remotely worked Southern Style. Furnas is selling his leg. Gordy delivers a brain buster on the floor. 2 3/4* Post match we get some Ron Wright cutting a killer promo.