JIP. I really liked the early grappling exchanges in this as they went beyond the elementary and did some pretty nifty stuff. Cool roll up off the ropes by Brunzell, a nice armbar takedown from Adonis, a cool full nelson spot from Adonis, et. Adonis stomp to the hand of Brunzell was pretty sweet and he followed that up with some pretty cool arm crank variations which Brunzell contorted well for. Brunzell attempts a deep escape of an armbar but Adonis drags him down by the hair. Brunzell comes back and ends up kicking Adonis to the floor where he hits an atomic drop and then face plants Adonis on a table. Brunzell hits a really huge forearm which results in Adonis begging off and hitting a cheapshot of his own. He follows that up with a huge uppercut which he then explains to the ref was an open palm strike. Adonis with a backslide for a nearfall but then he tosses Brunzell to the floor. Really great spot with Adonis eating a shoulder tackle and Brunzell charging at him but Adonis ducks and Brunzell flies back out to the floor. Huge Adonis suplex that bordered on a brainbuster for a good nearfall. Adonis with a huge spinning backbreaker but he misses his big splash and then gets punted into the ropes by Brunzell. Jim hits his dropkick and Adonis takes his backflip rope bump. Then he drags Adonis to the corner and wraps his legs on the posts multiple times. Spinning toehold attempt but Ventura shows up and distracts Brunzell who falls to a nasty running knee and a diving elbow. Another one that I wish we had in full but I don't think much was missing and what was shown was really great stuff from both guys.

The curse of the AWA St. Paul footage is that it's all mostly JIP. One thing you can often figure out, though, is how much exactly was missed, as often at the end of the bout you'll hear them announcing a match time while going over the result. You time out the match on the video and you get how much is actually missing that way.

 

When you get to the classic winnipeg matches "from the past", I have an actual list of how much of the match is shown in most cases I can forward along to you for reference if you like.

 

I enjoyed this bout more than the gagne-Adonis match. I would recommend you watch your AWA Adonis in small doses, though, as a lot of the big Adrian moves are in every match and for me they lose impact watching them several bouts in a row.

I'm sort of hopping all around at this point. If anything Adonis was a pleasant surprise here as I was really underwhelmed with him on the NJPW Set.

 

If you've got the match times for those Winnipeg matches it would be a huge help and I really appreciate it.

Adrian Adonis vs. "Jumpin" Jim Brunzell (7/28/81)

 

This is JIP but it doesn't look like we missed too much because Brunzell is on offense at the start not Adonis in his control section. Brunzell works over Adonis' left leg with Adonis coming back working over Jim's left arm and both men did a good job here working over the parts. Brunzell would eventually send Adonis to the floor where he would hit an atomic drop featuring Adonis taking facebumps on the ringside table. Brunzell doing the JYD crawling headbutt on Adonis through the ropes was a nice spot. Adonis comes back in the ring with Brunzell unloading on him with Adonis selling like a madman before raking Jim in the eyes. Adonis just nails Brunzell with an uppercut for a nearfall before getting another nearfall on with a backslide prompting Adonis to throw him to the floor. Adonis cuts him off a couple of times before bringing him back in the ring with a suplex with Brunzell putting his foot on the bottom rope to save himself. Adonis then did his turning backbreaker which was sweet but missed a splash leading to Brunzell making his comeback hitting an awesome dropkick which tied Adonis up in the ropes before going back to the floor where he wrapped Adonis' left leg around the post. Brunzell then went for the spinning toehold which brought Ventura up to the apron allowing Brunzell to go after him and Adonis to take advantage of that with a knee to the back and a diving elbow off the middle rope to win. This was a very good match and moves forward.