September 1980

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2/3 Falls match over about 25 minutes. Browsing through hundreds of French matches, and just out of nowhere a 22 year old Dave Finlay pops up in what is maybe his first ever televised match working like a seasoned veteran heel. Pretty cool. The saying about European tag wrestling is that they didn‘t quite know how to do it, but this match had pretty much the kind of structure you want: Fun babyface shine segment, followed by a heel beatdown before a series of cut offs before a comeback succeeds and then a finish. They fool you a bit here by doing a really long shine with the heels making several attempts at starting the beatdown and being cut off, but in the end the struc…

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1980-09-30 NJPW - Fan Appreciation Super Fight Antonio Inoki (c) vs Ken Patera NWF Heavyweight Title Match Nippon Budokan, Tokyo, Japan Card ★★★ Both gave a ton in this match. Patera, great at being the dick heel; that jock bully, also knew when it was time to turn tail and beg off. Sometimes his penchant for big bumping worked against him, as it did at points here, but in the broad strokes it got the desired effect across. Patera opened this up with three massive body slams. Usually these were reserved for humiliating jobbers, but Inoki ate the brunt of these here. Patera trash talking the whole way was gold. Eventually he followed up with a Bar Hug, a…

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This was a damn good matchup. Yokota was in tremendous shape here, especially next to skinny Mimi Hagiwara. Yokota puts in a real beating, working absolutely heelish by biting and pulling hair, but also doesn't forget to show off her holds and put Hagiwara in her place with that beautiful vertical tiger suplex. It was closer to Terry Rudge than Monster Ripper. Yokota really cranks in her holds and delivers some blowaway great legwork, while Hagiwara performed really nicely working underneath. Hagiwara's selling of the leg and graceful comeback attempts were awesome. Can't decide what I liked more, Hagiwara desperately going for a small package only for Yokota to roll thro…