June 1980

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1980-06-05 NJPW Tatsumi Fujinami vs. Bob Backlund Kuramae Kokugikan, Tokyo, Japan Card ★★★ This is the best I’ve seen Backlund work an opening mat exchange. He and Fujinami were struggling to gain advantages in holds and he was able to do away with the usual faux-amateur stuff that I don’t think he’s very good at. There was a nice sequence where he had one of Fujinami’s legs and was trying to get the other to take him down and Fujinami did a great job of maintaining his balance on the one leg and brushing Backlund’s advances away at the same time. Eventually Bob had had enough and just wrenched Fujinami to the mat using his free arm. This was set up to be…

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Ughhh...this match is NOT complete.... Filmed exclusively for Japanese TV. Giant Baba is on commentary. One Fall match. We are deep in the heart of the AWA, Minneapolis Minnesota. Nick Bockwinkel is accompanied by Bobby the Brain Heenan. Verne Gagne steps into the ring and says he wants to challenge the winner of this match, in the very near future. (He will get it July 18th in Chicago) Heenan gets in Verne's face, and gets slapped and hurled out of the ring. Mean Gene announces Jumbo as being "from the Orient"....ugh. Heenan is carried out. They aggressively lock up three times. Jumbo gets Bockwinkel down with a headscissors...and we are CL…

1980-06-25 Joint Promotions Marc Rocco vs Mal Sanders Combat Challenge Shield Semi Final Match Southport, Merseyside, United Kingdom ★★★★ This is the other heat of the aforementioned Combat Challenge Shield tournament. Rocco, being the GB Heavy-Middleweight Champion, outweighed Sanders, the European Middleweight Champion, by 1 ¾ stones and was the favourite going in. The first round was a showcase for Sanders, allowing him to work some escapes off of Rocco’s holds. Rocco was reasonably well behaved early on but it only took him until midway through the second round before he began his antics. Rocco really had an ability to rile up a crowd. This was the sa…

1980-06-25 Joint Promotions Marty Jones vs Young David Combat Challenge Shield Semi Final Match Southport, Merseyside, United Kingdom ★★★ Semi-final match for a tournament called the “Combat Challenge Shield”. Not sure the importance of it but the winner of this round would face Marc Rocco in the final. The footage joined at the beginning of the second round. David has improved leaps and bounds over the last few months. The second round here had him working on top and it certainly didn’t feel like the veteran was leading him in any way. David had the wristlock applied and they spent the entire fall working around Jones trying to escape in various ways wit…

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