December 1976

You know how we [rightly] talk about Andre's mobility and actual wrestling skills in the little-seen 70's footage? Yeah, that's not true for Abby in this match. There ain't no rasslin here, except a couple of dropkicks and shoulder blocks from Robinson. It's just a brawl, 90% of it out of the ring. Abby dominates at the start, spend almost half the match-time keeping Robinson from even getting into the ring. They spend a minute or so in the right, where Billy gets to perform the afore-mentioned rassling moves. Then back out, with chair shots and overflowing into the crowd. After a few minutes, Abdullah decides he's done and leaves. I am guessing they both go…

If you are looking for big bumps, high spots, fancy matwork and thigh slap happy strikes to the air, then look elsewhere. This is just to chubby, mean dudes punching each other in the mouth, elbowing each others foreheads and caving each other's heads in with nasty knee drops and stomps. Great wild bloody brawl.

Ruska has been wrestling since their first match and he's so much better now. This is one of Inoki's best matches as far as matwork goes, which means a lot I think. On the other hand, it's not very competitive and Inoki for the most part just beats Ruska down. Every hold is dramatic and Ruska has to go for a bunch of rope breaks, but you never get the sense that Inoki is in trouble. This is a huge improvement over the first match because Ruska can now do a couple different things, beyond just working in side control. He goes for an armbar! He gets in a boxing stance and throws some shit out there! Inoki gets low and throws a couple kicks, which makes sense after the Ali m…

You can take all the workrate wrestling of the world, I'd much rather observe Inoki working a worked shoot in Pakistan. It's no wonder he conned people into thinking some of his fights were real. This match had a lot of "lock ups", but they were more reminiscent of judo lock-ups than pro wrestling lock ups. Basically instead of just conventionally locking up and pushing at each other they were grabbing each other's arm and neck and trying to find an opening and use it to execute a slam or a takedown, so when something actually happened (whether it one wrestler taking another's back or securing a dominant position) it came off as a big deal. The Armbar spot in the first on…

From the Mid-South Coliseum.

Rocky Johnson defends the Southern Title in the Mid-South Coliseum.