The Fabulous Freebirds vs. Jumbo Tsuruta & Giant Baba (and other Dream Matches!)

Welcome back to more Dream Matches! This week, the assortment is even stranger than normal, starting off once more with the Fabulous Freebirds in All Japan, as Terry Gordy & Michael Hayes take on the Ace tag team of Giant Baba & Jumbo Tsuruta! Come see just how big a styles clash Hayes’s stuff is in a more serious, Japanese promotion! Next up, a true rarity sees Jon Moxley and the future LA Knight as WWF JOBBERS, as the hapless duo get crushed by the Big Show on Sunday Night Heat in 2006! After that, another rarity has KEIJI MUTOH vs. JIM NEIDHART, and not in WCW like I’d expect but in Germany’s CWA promotion, with “ten counts every time you fall down” rules… for sixteen minutes! God help us- a 16-minute Jim Neidhart match.

Following that, WCW jobbery glory has Kenny Kaos face Steve Armstrong on WCW Worldwide in 1998! Then I found ex-TNA wrestler Mike Santana in Create A Pro Wrestling as he faces local star VSK in front of 55 people and indeed actually looks pretty good! And then looking through the PWI 500 I found Ralph Mosca, who turns out to be a “WWF Jobber Turned Indie Ace” type of dude- first he’s squashed by Diesel in Kevin Nash’s WWF singles debut, then gets showcased in ACW against Joshua Masters! Come see how differently a guy wrestles as a jobber vs. a top act in an indie!

ALL ASIA TAG TEAM TITLES:
JUMBO TSURUTA & GIANT BABA vs. THE FABULOUS FREEBIRDS (Terry Gordy & Michael P.S. Hayes):
(All Japan, Jan. 20th 1984)
* It’s more Freebirds in Japan! With the wild combo of Gordy (can work; looks tough) and Hayes (can’t work; looks wimpy) versus the two top draws in All Japan. Hayes comes out waving a huge American flag while “Freebird” plays, then plays at seductively taking off his robe while “smouldering” at the audience. The funny thing about “Freebird” as a wrestling song is that the lyrics JUST start by the time the song stops- it’s got a long-ass intro for a theme. Hayes scares/amuses a flower girl by snatching the bouquet out of her hands and biting it, then makes weird googly-eye tongue-jutting faces at Baba. I haven’t seen enough Freebirds stuff so his “wildman” mannerisms are unexpected- I pictured him as a standard Loudmouth Heel.

Hayes quickly suckers Jumbo with a boot and immediately Gordy’s in- Jumbo comes back on him with a slam but bounces off trying shoulderblock and Gordy just makes wild toddler faces at him. Jumbo just tags out, so Baba teases a shoulderblock and just rolls away to tease him, but ends up attacked from behind by Hayes to surprisingly little heat. The crowd laughs at Hayes’s elbow to the top of the head, and he does his “stiff-body Looney Tunes bounce” off a Baba chop, but no-sells going into the turnbuckles and smashes his head into it repeatedly before headbutting Jumbo down. The crowd doesn’t really know what to make of Hayes. He slams Jumbo’s head into Gordy’s to laughter, then hits a 2nd-rope elbow and a backbreaker/kneedrop gets two. Gordy clips the ear with a lariat for two & Hayes flying axehandles Jumbo off Gordy’s fireman’s carry for two, then holds a long chinlock. Gordy gets a delayed suplex, then Hayes an abdominal stretch for a minute. Baba comes in and chops the Freebirds around but Hayes cuts him off and they tee off on him, Gordy hitting a kneedrop, but Baba fights with Hayes on the floor as some smartass fans have kept their streamers for just such an occasion and start flinging them over the wrestlers, lol. Back in, Baba throws some soft kicks and a Russian legsweep to Gordy, who goes upside-down into the corner off a Jumbo whip.

The Freebirds drop Jumbo with a double-high elbow, and after a brief comeback they dump him for a beating in the stands. Hayes uses ANOTHER RESTHOLD, then Gordy stops another comeback and gets a long sleeper into a big boot. Hayes gets a dramatic running bulldog for two, arguing with the ref, but Jumbo manages a sleeper and Baba his chops and a chest-high boot for two. Gordy boots him and comes in, doing little until Baba whispers a spot- Gordy then immediately piledrives him and Baba has to get his foot on the ropes. Baba backdrops him out of another and in comes Jumbo, who’s FIRED UP (thus cueing the fans to realize this is the end-game of the match)- he brawls with Gordy and comes off the ropes with a HUGE Jumbo Knee that has Gordy spiralling to the mat in a big sell. Hayes comes in to try and kill the momentum but Jumbo keeps ignoring his stuff until they whip him into some god-awful attempted back body drop/powerbomb thing that has Gordy almost dropping him and Hayes trying to help (why are they trying that with a guy JUMBO’s size?) so they hit a Kneeling Powerbomb (with Hayes holding the leg) and Baba immediately boots them out of the pin. Slingshot/Clothesline combo hits and Jumbo barely sells Hayes’s wimpy lariat- Baba again saves. He boots Hayes to the floor and posts him, and he’s Counted Out at (17:14) while they hit a double-boot to Gordy. A bleeding Hayes goes wild-faced on the floor and the Freebirds ATTACK, getting fought off as Jumbo/Gordy brawl on the floor and Baba just stops selling for Hayes and swallows him up to dump him before the award ceremony.

Woof- not a great match, as they were having lots of trouble geling and the match was a bit slow and disjointed as a result. As a fan on YouTube says, “Around this time, Giant Baba’s decline was clearly visible, and the master-apprentice duo was becoming disjointed.”- Baba was clearly aging here, looking like he was dug out of a mass grave and awkwardly shambling about with these guys. Hayes of course is always a weird wrestler, but comes off even worse in Japan, where his bizarre, stiff mannerisms look all kinds of wrong, as do his feather-light whiffing strikes. Plus throwing out a bunch of restholds in a tag team match. Everyone was mixing oddly and it wasn’t really over- the Freebirds felt unestablished or just “these guys suck”, and you could tell Gordy wasn’t getting pushed much yet because there was no reaction whenever he got tagged in against anyone. I’m reminded of how often 1980s “Native/Foreigner” matches in Japan had the “hit a headlock and push to the corner for a tag” stuff, and you can sorta see why when watching a match like this, where everyone just keeps cutting each other off and it comes off as awkward and disjointed because everyone suddenly stops moving and goes to a different position. The final minutes got pretty good but that’s about it.

Rating: ** (kind of a slog for most of it- too slow and disjointed save for the occasional good bit)

THE BIG SHOW vs. JON MOXLEY & DICK RICK:
(WWE Heat, May 5th 2006)
* haha okay, I was looking for whoever “Dick Rick” was on my PWI 500 list of names, and it turns out that’s current WWE star LA Knight, and the first thing I find is a handicap match with him and a long-haired, skinny Jon Moxley up against the Big Show on WWE TV in 2006. I don’t watch current WWE so this is my first look at Knight, who is pretty small and apparently my age, so he peaked REALLY late in his career. Big Show has his eye stitched up from a fight with Kane weeks before. Moxley’s in black trunks and Rick’s in yellow.

The rookies wisely try to surround Big Show, who bolts out to shove Moxley down, then skoosh Rick in the corner when he leaps onto his back. He javelins Moxley into Rick, then stacks them up for his “Shhhhhh!” chest slap, sending Mox into theatrical overselling mode (good jobbery sell!). Rick begs off, but takes one himself, then takes an ass avalanche. Both guys eat clotheslines (Moxley flopping like a fish and humping the mat), then Mox gets stood on a bunch, Rick’s press-slammed into him, then he tries to Chokeslam both dudes at once. Simultaneous eye pokes stop that, but Rick runs into a boot, Moxley takes one Chokeslam and arches his back in pain while Rick takes another and Big Show casually pins him at (2:52).

Rating: * (A fun little squash, Big Show making sport of his useless opponents. I must say, Moxley’s theatrical silly mannerisms always bother me when I see his stuff from this era, but it’s actually PERFECT for a jobber eating falls so I guess there is one context in which I like Moxley’s wrestling, lol- 4/5 on the Squash Scale)

KEIJI MUTOH vs. JIM “THE ANVIL” NEIDHART (w/ Evil McBaldguy):
(CWA, Germany, Dec. 16th 1995)
* WILD. Mutoh vs. Neidhart in GERMANY under their “count to 10 whenever you’re down” rules. Mutoh was a big deal in New Japan by this point but Neidhart was off-and-on with WWF for ages. Neidhart has some bald manager with him who gets the lion’s share of the heat.

We start with trading wristlocks, then Mutoh runs the ropes with PERFECT technique and spinkicks Neidhart down, then hits a headlock. He counters an irish whip by grabbing the GOATEE to pop the fans. This leads to a LONG headlock to kill time- Neidhart slugs away in the corner but ends up charging into the other one and is hiptossed into the Power Drive elbow, back when it looked AMAZING. Another long headlock leads to a dropkick, but Neidhart soon whips Mutoh to the floor and dumps him onto a table. Mutoh sells out there for a thousand years, getting knocked off the apron 2-3 times until FINALLY sunset flipping in for “eins” and then OH MY GOD a cobra clutch from Neidhart. I forgot that was his finisher for a bit. Though here it’s yet another long-ass resthold. Neidhart clotheslines him after 1:40 of that, hair-slams him a few times (no count cuz that’s illegal) then hits a running clothesline in the corner, but keeps taunting Mutoh on the mat, doing the “walk & stomp”- Mutoh escapes a suplex and uses punches & chops, but collapses on another clothesline sell and Neidhart eventually hits an axehandle off the second rope for another count. Neidhart slams him but misses a second axehandle and it’s a dropkick from Mutoh! Cartwheel Handspring Elbow into a bulldog! Mutoh does a sleeperhold but misses a dropkick and gets clotheslined again. Neidhart actually pulls out a Powerbomb, but pulls Mutoh up at two like a complete idiot, hits a vertical suplex, then pulls down the straps like “That’s it!” and goes for a second Powerbomb- and Muto Hurricanranas him for the pin (14:37)! Haha he paid for it!

Holy fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck this was lazy. Like, Mutoh’s stuff looks AMAZING, but each great flurry is divided apart by 2-3 minutes of just headlocks. Neidhart was of course incredibly limited by even 1995 so I’m not surprised it wasn’t great, but being THAT lazy is just horrifying. Then it’s just 13 minutes of that then putting in effort for the final minute. An American crowd would have torn them apart for this one. But if you like headlocks, time-killing selling and Neidhart spamming clotheslines because you could build his entire moveset in Fire Pro and have 20 empty spots, have I got the match for you.

Rating: * (Mutoh’s stuff looked incredible… and it’s all separated by 1-2 minutes of headlocks, selling on the floor, and other ways to extend Jim Neidhart’s offense to 15 minutes)

KENNY KAOS vs. STEVE ARMSTRONG:
(WCW Worldwide, May 29th 1998)
* FUCK YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS DREAM MATCH HEADLINERRRRRRRRRRRRRR!! God bless Worldwide for throwing out the most jobbery matches imaginable weekly. I can’t usually remember which Blond Armstrong is which, but thankfully Steve STILL has the motherfucking Young Pistols logo on his ass after all this time, so he’s that one. He plays up being a heel down the aisle, pointing at fans like “get a load of this guy” and faking out slapping a kid’s hand. Kaos fist-bumps a bunch of people, wearing his usual black singlet around this time.

Zbyszko on commentary openly mocks the Armstrong win/loss record calling out “The Armstrong Curse” directly as it pertains to that, while saying he likes Kaos (“he’s in good shape, and he’s HUNGRY- I like to watch the HUNGRY guys!”)- well I live and breathe, LARRY ZBYSZKO complimenting a young wrestler! Kaos dominates to start, hitting a drop-toehold then hugging the ankle (seriously- there’s no “twist” at all, haha), then shoulderblocking him down and hitting a back elbow & over-the-shoulder powerslam. Steve hits the apron but was suckering him- he garrotes Kenny on the top rope and drags him to the floor for a beating, but gets whipped into the railing in some good bumping and selling. He elbows Kaos rolling back in the ring and hits a big flying splash that like… I really thought Kenny was gonna counter that for some reason. Steve puts his head down early and gets clotheslined, then atomic dropped & backdropped, then Kenny finishes with a weird gutwrench slam at (2:49). Looked like a miscue because Steve just kinda went upside-down and Kaos whipped him onto his hip instead of a powerbomb or back throw or whatever.

Actually a hell of a showcase from Steve here, who appears to be in prime “Don’t fire me, boss! Look how good I can make these Power Plant twerps look!”. He was hauling ass in bumps, carrying the match, calling spots, writhing in pain off bumps like Kaos was whupping his ass, etc. Kaos was an athletic but highly limited worker but here looked like he had a ton of moves in his toolkit and was killing Steve.

Rating: *3/4 (elite mini-match, honestly)

THIS WEEK’S PWI 500 GUY: VSK (Vinny Scalice, Vinny Gruner, Jeeves Kay):
Appearances: #249 in 2013, #262 in 2014, #453 in 2022, #476 in 2023

-One of those “long career; never made it” indie guys, Vinny Scalice/VSK debuted in 2007 but never got higher than “AEW Jobber”. He mostly sticks to Northeast promotions, having started in Victory Pro Wrestling for years, then Create A Pro Wrestling and Beyond Wrestling after that, where he remains. He’s got the typical “15 promotions per year” Cagematch profile and has worked with all kinds of dudes, which probably gave him the connections to do a ton of work in AEW (he was in Ari Daivaris’s Trustbusters jobber stable for a bit), but pretty much only does jobs in the bigger companies. From what I can see, he’s definitely well-trained and does good character bits, and unlike a lot of dudes who struggle to make it, has a good physique and overall look (albeit he’s small- billed at 5’9″ but absolutely dwarfed by Mike Santana, who is NOT that big).

MIKE SANTANA vs. VSK:
(Create A Pro Wrestling, Sept. 7th 2025)
* This has breakout AEW/TNA star Mike Santana in it, after he quit AEW (where a long break due to injury led him to apparently get off the bottle and live up to his potential). He’s apparently JUST about to leave TNA and maybe get a WWE job- we’ll see. Santana’s in his dark denim while VSK’s in white & black tights, and a bit smaller. They’re fighting in a puuuuuuuuuuuuuuuny little church hall in front of about 55 people.

Santana breaks a rear waistlock and splats VSK, taunting him- VSK whines a bit and can’t take him down with a shoulderblock, being called a bitch for it (and his ponytail)- “You’re supposed to be a man!”. He tries to blow him off with “Your little braid makes you–” and gets slapped silly, stumbling around on his knees. It’s clear from just the Irish whips and stuff that both guys can work (I mean I know Santana is good from AEW but this is my intro to VSK)- VSK wins an International with a rana but dodges a senton, missing as plash in our “pause for applause” spot. Santana slowly chops him around the hall as they go for a walk & stall, then allows small children to chop him, then a slam & senton in-ring gets two. He works the titties with more chops, then does Eddie Guerrero’s “Three Amigos” spot, but VSK pulls the ref in the way and uses it to hit a dive, then DENIES fans the opportunity to chop Santana, then throws in Eddie’s senton spot and slowly works Santana over. Lotsa slap-punch stuff but he’s doing them quick enough it doesn’t look too “indie”, as he’s clapping himself on the shoulder on each shot.

Santana ducks an enzuigiri but takes a crossbody, but VSK recovers and does one of those “come in from the apron with a leap” moves (a Codebreaker) for two. A chinlock sets up the fight-up spot, and Santana fires off some good clotheslines, gets that enzuigiri, then counters an O’Connor roll with a snap death valley driver for two. “What? I worked hard on that!” he bitches to the ref. They do nearly the same set-up, this time in a Diamond Cutter for two. Some nice, complex spots here. The set-up for the next move has Eric James (partner of VSK) grab Santana’s leg, and he takes a thigh-slap superkick (THERE’s the indie in this match!) and a brainbuster gets two. A double-down leads to wrestling’s fakest move, the Standing Spanish Fly, into a Frog Splash from VSK for two. VSK taunts Santana until he wakes up from selling and they do some thigh-slap offense until Santana boots down James and that almost gets him pinned via schoolboy. VSK aims for the superkick, but Santana misses, hits a spinning sit-out fireman’s toss and finishes with a Discus Clothesline at (15:38).

A very okay, hard-fought indie match- despite the tiny crowd and setting you had some good stuff, like those “charge in, go-behind, push off the ropes to counter an O’Connor Roll, then fling back for a big move” spots which most of the indie piffle I watch could never copy without looking stupidly slow and “stop & start”. It even avoids a lot of indie pratfalls until they start doing open thigh-slaps in superkicks or THAT DAMN STANDING SPANISH FLY, which is the most fake thing in all of wrestling (WHY DOES THE RUNNING GUY FLIP FORWARDS FOR NO REASON?), plus a bunch of spots to save VSK’s cardio (he was looking okay but was blown up enough he often had to stop mid shit-talking, which you don’t see very often). So this 16-minute match was probably like 1/3 stalling for time, but they at least did good stalling (taunting, getting fans into it, bitching at one another or the ref). But Santana looked good- you could see right away why he was a big deal in a televised company, as he can easily head to an indie and do a long match making a local guy look good before pulling out a win.

Rating: **1/4 (good indie stuff with a few of the pratfalls)

THIS WEEK’S PWI 500 GUY: RALPH MOSCA:
Appearances: #499 in 1998, #353 in 2000, #424 in 2001

-Ralph Mosca turns out to be a former WWF jobber who popped up in various indies around Connecticut off and on until showing up in Florida in a variety of ECW wannabes- I see Full Impact Pro matches involving thumbtacks & light tubes vs. New Jack, Justin Credible matches, and more, then he turns up in American Combat Wrestling in the mid-2000s, usually as the Champion or close to it. That’s 2005-2010 or so, and then he’s in Florida Underground Wrestling doing the same stuff. He mostly stopped regularly appearing by the mid-2010s and retired in 2023, dying 2 years later at the age of 55. Cagematch lists “cardiac arrest” as the reason. Looks like he was mostly a longtime indie fixture in Florida.

DIESEL vs. RALPH MOSCA:
(WWF Superstars, Sept. 28th 1993)
* So looking up Mosca, I discover he’s actually the first jobber faced by Diesel in his WWF run! Before this he was just Shawn Michaels’ bodyguard. Haha, check out the stripey gear on Nash at this point. Just a singlet top to his leather pants with tassels. Thankfully they course-corrected that to striking silver or leather afterwards. Mosca’s a big, burly jobber with blond hair and a singlet.

Diesel immediately muscles Mosca into the corner and beats him up, hitting a gutwrench suplex. Diesel hits a side slam as Monsoon openly wonders about his right hand matching up against Ludvig Borga’s. Diesel does a good job of looking like an asshole, swipe-kicking Mosca’s head and slapping him around, toying with him with this nasty bully look on his face. Short-arm clothesline leads to a sidebreaker, Diesel transitioning it into bending Mosca backwards over his knees. Monsoon gets hilariously side-tracked by the ref peering at the camera (“WHATTAYA DOIN’ LOOKING AT US FOR, DANNY DAVIS?!”) and Diesel releases to hit the Big Boot. He slaps a dazed Mosca around and finishes with a Straight Right Hand at (2:41). Decent squash, but amusingly they put in canned heat for the whole thing, the “fans” doing this loud outrageous “BOOOOOOOOOOOO” for 3 solid minutes.

Rating: 1/2* (perfect good dominating squash, Diesel looking like an asshole bully in his first match- 3/5 on the Squash Scale)

ACW HEAVYWEIGHT TITLE:
“ROUGHHOUSE” RALPH MOSCA vs. JOSHUA MASTERS (w/ Fetish):
(American Combat Wrestling, Feb. 28th 2006)
* We’re here in American Combat Wrestling with Mosca as the top babyface, doing a bald, goateed “roughhouse” gimmick. He’s waving an American flag around to oppose the famous evils of Canada, represented by Joshua Masters. Both men are wearing the ECW T-Shirts of Shame, both sleeveless, Mosca being burly and bald, and Masters having long hair and a red shirt.

Mosca easily outfights Masters to start, the guy waving his legs around helplessly as they build the shit out of an atomic drop, but Fetish grabs at Mosca’s leg to distract him and he gets caught with a knee. Masters hits a back elbow & suplex, at least looking trained, and knows how to look like an asshole while doing it. An axehandle off the second rope gets two, but he overdoes it by trying again and flips over selling a gut-punch. Mosca beats him up for a bit, but Joshua clumsily hits a sleeperhold- Mosca repeatedly fights out but runs into a knee, then a clothesline, Masters refusing a pin to hit a flying elbow for two- not much height on it but okay. Double-clothesline puts them both down, and Mosca goes WWF-style with a gut-kick into a DDT, then goes 1985 with a flying cross-body for two. This wipes him out a bit, and they chat a sec before Masters absolutely bowls him over with a clothesline. But then a guy in another red shirt comes out and trips him, and the distraction leads to Mosca sneaking up from behind and hitting a One-Armed Powerbomb with a deep stack pin at (8:59). Wait why is the babyface using the distraction finish, lol? T-shirt guy brawls with Masters on the floor so Mosca can assault Fetish and attempts to piledrive her before Masters chairs him in the back.

A match impressive in its cromulence, it felt like two jobber-level guys who are nonetheless fully-trained and can sell going out there and doing a Just The Basics match and doing okay with it- lots of slap-hand punches, clotheslines, regular 1985 offense, etc., which is kinda funny given this promotion looks to have an ECW vibe with all the jean shorts and the dark setting with a girl named “Fetish” as a manager. And I wrote that before catching the ending where Mosca attempts violent assault on a woman, haha. Yeah, so it’s ECW.

Rating: *3/4 (basically a nearly-acceptable, if painfully basic, match, and an acceptable “Indie Show Main Event”)